The factory floor’s last manual process gets an AI upgrade

Inside an RV plant in northern Indiana, a curved fiberglass countertop that used to take an hour to hand-finish now leaves the line in six minutes. Sanding and polishing a complex surface to a uniform sheen had long resisted autonomous finishing, and for a counterintuitive reason: the variation inherent in geometry and surface condition made it the hardest job on the floor to teach a machine. By 2023, more than four million industrial robots were operating on factory floors worldwide, according to the International Federation of Robotics' World Robotics report. While CNC machining handled the cuts and robotic assembly handled the bolts, surface finishing held out longer than either of them. The post The factory floor’s last manual process gets an AI upgrade appeared first on Digital Journal.