Artificial Intelligence in Operations Management

When you're running a business, there's two ways to increase profit:

1. Sell more
2. Cut costs

Let's focus on number two. Even seemingly insignificant savings in production can add
up. Shaving just two rupees off your landed cost per unit can pack on an extra 2 crores in
profit at the end of year. This is why operations managers are so fundamental to a business’s
ability to stay profitable.

While the pace of technology innovation moves at breakneck speed, and businesses rush to
catch up to the latest trends, operations mangers play an increasingly important role in
carving out a competitive edge.

Rapidly evolving technology is transforming every field, and manufacturing is no exception.

Once a crude, blue-collard work environment with manual processes, it has today become the
centre of innovation and machine intelligence. Artificial intelligence techniques are the key to
unlock value and optimize processes in this field.

Cost pressures are rising as industries get increasingly competitive. Heavy industries like
chemical, power, and thermal, with longer gestation times and long-term ROI, are facing the
brunt, not only from within but also from the fast-moving external factors. For example,
labour which was once readily and cheaply available, is now hard to get.

 Predictive analysis of various data points to pre-empt anomalies in operations / functions

.This can go a long way in bringing to notice aberrations and thereby avert critical
catastrophes! Such AI-enabled systems must be instilled for material, machine and equipment
updates and also extend to the systems that they interactive with such as customer orders and
supply-procurement.
 Automate routine decisions, freeing up personnel bandwidth. As a result of outsourcing the
mundane to ‘smart’ machines, personnel can focus on more value-adding tasks and the unit
can function optimally with lesser personnel.
AI should touch all aspects of the production value chain, right from the shop floor to
management systems and resource deployment systems.

Enterprise cognitive computing — the use of AI to enhance business operations —

involves embedding algorithms into applications that support organizational processes. ECC
applications can automate repetitive, formulaic tasks and, in doing so, deliver orders-of-
magnitude improvements in the speed of information analysis and in the reliability and
accuracy of outputs. For example, ECC call centre applications can answer customer calls
within 5 seconds on a 24-7-365 basis, accurately address their issues on the first call 90% of
the time, and transfer complex issues to employees, with less than half of the customers
knowing that they are interacting with a machine. The power of ECC applications stems from
their ability to reduce search time and process more data to inform decisions. That’s how they
enhance productivity and free employees to perform higher-level work — specifically, work
that requires human adaptability and creativity. Ultimately, ECC applications can enhance
operational excellence, customer satisfaction, and employee experience.