Human vs.

Artificial Intelligence: The Interdependence of People and Technology

in current and future Quality Management

Quality Management Certificate L09 – Technological University of Shannon (TUS)

Module Quality Management
Erica Barroso de Carvalho - K00278927
08 December 2022
Contents

1. Introduction ..........................................................................................................................................2
2. Executive Summary ...............................................................................................................................2
3. Discussion ..............................................................................................................................................2
3.1 Improving Customer Service, Quality and Safety ..............................................................................3
3.2 Process Improvement .........................................................................................................................4
3.3 Human vs AI ........................................................................................................................................5
4. Conclusion .............................................................................................................................................6
5. References ............................................................................................................................................6
6. Bibliography ..........................................................................................................................................8

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1. Introduction
More than 50 years ago, the discussion was about adoption of quality management principles and how
organizations could benefit from it. Today It is well known that organizations cannot survive without
implementation of quality management system and the discussion is around how to improve processes.
In the current scenario, dealing with a large volume of processes is part of the routine of many
companies. For this reason, combining Artificial Intelligence (AI) and quality management principles is an
excellent way to manage data with quality and efficiency.
It also makes quicker decision making since the technology applied is faster than a human. Also,
Artificial intelligence cannot judge, it only evaluates data.
This article will discuss how Artificial Intelligence applications helps quality management systems to
improve processes with some examples, what is the human role in this new scenario, what is available
today and what we can expect for the future.

2. Executive Summary
Artificial intelligence has helped organizations to perform tasks more efficiently. It can be applied in
any industry and helps organizations to perform certain activities faster than humans reducing risks of
failure.
In quality management, AI helps to perform activities with more efficiency reducing resources and
increasing excellence.
It is applied in quality management to improve customer care in complaints management, helps
organizations to learn about their consumers needs and expectations, helps to manage post marketing
surveillance or even to improve quality control in high-speed productions.
AI and machine learning have an impact in workforce, tasks can be carried out faster and using less
resources if compared human performance. Some people believe it will replace humans. Nevertheless, AI
came to add value, making processes more efficient helping quality management to be less time
consuming, operators will be focused on the critical issues and processes improvement.

3. Discussion
Artificial intelligence is around us even if we don’t notice it. In day-to-day life we deal with apps like
Faceapp or Amazon’s virtual assistant Alexa.
Sharda et al (2020) mention AI as machines imitating human intelligence to perform tasks.
Organizations are exploring AI in their processes to improve services and quality of products. How can
organizations benefit from AI? Or more precisely quality management within companies?

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 AI helps in problem solving, it can take decisions based on evidence better than humans. It helps
organizations to improve processes and have faster insights.
This technology works to perform tasks like humans, the difference is it can process a huge number of
tasks at same time, faster and more precise.
The next topic will discuss on how AI can help process in quality management system.

3.1 Improving Customer Service, Quality and Safety

Chatbot and virtual assistant are examples of AI technologies that have continuously been improved
in customer services. In the beginning it was limited to answer simple questions using key words, now
they have conversational features. According to IBM Cloud Education (2020) conversational AI is the
technology that allows chatbots or virtual assistants interact with consumers using natural language
processing, so they communicate imitating human interactions.
Consumers can easily reach the company by accessing the website or giving a phone call to
communicate their concerns to a chatbot or a virtual assistant. This AI and machine learning technology
will receive the information and give guidance according to the query or escalate the problem if needed.
AI marketing (2020) comments about how conversational AI improves customer service:
Besides providing fast, consistent responses to customer queries for visual (for augmented reality
or virtual reality environments), voice and text-based communications, customer service
conversational AI solutions keep interactions intuitive and helpful, using AI technologies and
capabilities to help customers get support and resolution quickly and effectively.

The advantage of using this technology is it allows organizations to have a smaller staff to address
consumers reports. Chatbots and virtual assistants works 24/7 and answers lots of questions
simultaneously. They also collect detailed information about consumer concerns that can give
organizations a better understanding of consumers needs and expectations to improve products and
services.
Other example that could benefit from AI and machine learning is pharmacovigilance or post marketing
surveillance. Health Products Regulatory Authority (2014) defines pharmacovigilance as the report,
monitoring and investigation of an adverse event (undesirable effect) caused by medicines. It includes
detection, assessment, understanding and prevention of adverse events and other related quality issues.
Pharmacovigilance is mandatory in pharmaceutical industry according to many regulations worldwide
and it is an important process within quality management system.
The departments involved in this operation are many. Usually customer services, quality control,
quality assurance and regulatory affairs interact over the process to collect and analyse data.
The big effort in this process is to evaluate and categorize the information received. The complaints
reported are manually reviewed and classified in different categories. It is a time-consuming process, as

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time is wasted in less critical complaints resulting in more critical reports accumulation, offering higher
risk to consumers.
Honeywell (2021) highlights that the ideal scenario to use AI and machine learning are processes like
complaints and quality events. It can not only cause a huge impact on the process but also optimize
quality, resulting in additional quality improvement of the process. It also states how intake automation
can lead to complaints prioritization and focus on the urgent issues. It gives support to human decision-
making as processing data by AI makes triage phase more efficient and effective.
Schimider et al. (2019) discuss how AI innovates Pharmacovigilance in adverse event case processing.
As case processing is time consuming, it is a major part of the budget and a large economic impact. The
study could demonstrate that AI can be applied to automate safety case processing.
Sala et al. (2020) also discuss how AI and machine learning can improve pharmacovigilance by
processing and evaluation of large amount of data.
It is interesting how the studies above only focus on AI and machine learning in data processing as this
process has an economic impact and it is highly costly. I could not find any studies about use of AI and
machine learning for pharmacovigilance consumer report or regulatory report submission.
As consumers need interactions to express their concerns and complaints, the use of AI and machine
learning in this stage can be very controversial to report an adverse event. Also, it is arising regulatory
discussions around the use of AI and machine learning software.
FDA (2021) and Regulatory Horizons Council (2022) discuss about classification of AI and machine
learning software as medical device. FDA’s action plan publication (2021) already discusses about good
machine learning practices.
Pharmaceutical companies can benefit from AI and machine learning in pharmacovigilance. But there
is a way to go to have this technology running in all stages of the processes and regulators must come to
a consensus on how to apply it.

3.2 Process Improvement

We already discussed about how AI and machine learning can improve customer services and post
marketing surveillance (pharmacovigilance) processes. But during product manufacturing, what this
technology can offer?
AI is applied in quality control of products using dimensional features and material structure by a state
of art inspection and sorting technology. This technology can process digital images taken from digital
cameras. Different defects are processed and identified by an operator that will highlight them in the
machine. The machine will learn about these defects, and it will be able to recognize similar ones, so

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defective parts will be separated over the production (improving quality control using artificial
intelligence 2022).
MCR (2022) highlights another AI technology available for quality control: artificial vision system. It
detects, projects and process images during manufacturing of the products. This AI technology uses 3D
laser scan or image analysis to identify and remove any out of specification parts.
I had the chance to work with companies that used similar technologies for quality control of the
products. The first was a medical device company in Ireland that produces a blood glucose monitoring
device and the second was a print company in Portugal that produces all kinds of printed packaging.
In both companies, they referred the technology as intelligent eye. This technology can identify defects
and remove it from the production line.
This kind of technology is very beneficial in high-speed production companies as it can offer real time
quality control by removal of defective parts without any human interactions, avoiding machine
shutdowns, allowing a smaller quality control staff and eliminating human inspection dependence.
In a six-sigma program, AI also can be applied to optimize Statistical Process Control (SPC). SPC is a
preventive tool used in quality management to monitor quality characteristics using statistical methods.
Roderick et al. (2014) highlight the benefits of adopting SPC as real time monitoring method, improving
understanding of processes/products and allowing organizations to take action when a problem arises.
Boaventura et al (2022 p.1) propose a statistical process control model combining AI to present a new
monitoring tool:
The proposed classification control chart, which we call class-chart, offers a more robust and
flexible alternative to traditional SPC tools. In addition to the ability to recognize patterns and
diagnose problems, regardless of the sample scenario, this new approach is capable of performing
its monitoring functions on a large scale, predicting market scenarios and processes on large
volumes of data.

The examples above are only few which AI can be applied in the quality management system. AI has
an extensive application in many processes in different industries bringing quality to a next level. It helps
to improve processes, helps to reach more accurate results and eliminate human errors.

3.3 Human vs AI

In this article we have discussed about some applications and benefits AI offers to organizations. What
is the role of humans and technology in this new scenario? What is next?
The image that comes to most of people’s minds are the ones from sci-fi movies where technology
takes over and enslaves mankind. So far, all the examples demonstrated how AI and machine learning
improve process, making tasks less time consuming, more efficient and giving the chance to operators to
think in more critical processes.

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 AI and machine learning can update and interact with humans, but it has limited learning skills.
Technology exists because of humans. Humans born intelligent and improve their skills and abilities over
the years, it is an infinite learning process. Technology and humans work side by side.
But it is a common sense the impact of technology in today and the future’s workforce. Technology
already replaced humans in simple processes and this scenario will grow.
The future of quality management will be to keep excellence within organizations, AI and machine
learning will help it performing tasks more efficiently allowing people to focus on critical issues and
processes improvement.

4. Conclusion
Artificial intelligence optimizes processes, execute tasks faster and more accurately. They do not
complain and work 24/7 executing many tasks simultaneously.
We see AI in chatbot or virtual assistant to help companies in their customer service to manage
complaints or product’s information. Pharmaceutical industry is using it in pharmacovigilance to help data
processing. AI and machine learning helps to manage the information received as this part of process is
time consuming and high costly. Once the information is categorized companies can more efficiently
address quality or adverse events complaints and people can think more critically on how to avoid it to
happen. Some companies also use AI in quality control, as the machines learn about the specifications
required, identify and remove any out of specification parts.
There is a study demonstrating that AI can be combined to Statistical Process Control, making this
important quality tool to monitor large scale information in a more robust and flexible way.
Some people believe technology will replace humans in the future. Definitely this technology has an
impact in today’s and future’s workforce, it already replaced people in simple tasks and it is improving
the ways processes are performed.
Technology exists because of humans and AI has limited learning skills, probably what we will watch
in the future is a long-term partnership to make processes more efficient.
Artificial intelligence is improving quality management systems, making it more efficient and less time-
consuming allowing people to think on the critical part of the production, helping to identify the problems
and how to improve the processes.
This way organizations can perform with excellence using less resources while maintaining the highest
quality standards.

2058 Words

5. References

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