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66 SMT007 MAGAZINE I FEBRUARY 2019 Frustratingly State of the Art In the warehouse, we cannot wait hours, minutes, or even seconds for any smart soft- ware to make decisions, even with the addition of tons of digital horsepower in the computer hardware to make things appear in real time. The decision-making needed with Industry 4.0 such as guiding materials to be put away in a warehouse, analyze the result of a visual in- spection, etc., requires us to take a different approach, potentially combining the discrete algorithms and those based on the trial-and-er- ror approach. We are still a few steps away from seeing the software making fast and complex intelligent decisions in automated Industry 4.0 for the whole factory. The levels of investment into doing so have to be reasonable and based on incremental added customer value. True Digital Intelligence To achieve the state where software developers can once again relax and let the truly intelligent software take over is something that perhaps can be learned from humans, specifically, very young humans. As children develop, it is through a nat - ural process of trial and error. Our five senses are there to communicate pain and pleasure. Our human algorithms prefer the latter in most cases, and we continuously learn and modify our ac - tions built on the experience gained. With software having access to more and more data, utilizing their sixth sense connec- tion of connectivity, there is the potential to start to do similar activities. Creating the will to try things in different ways, to see whether "pleasure" can be gained by doing something new, is the genesis of the true AI algorithm. AI software developers need to define what defines pain and pleasure, that is, the reward structure for any given digital solution. Facto- ry managers around the world already have a wealth of this experience, and if we are truth- ful, will have earned it based on many cases of trial and error. The cool thing about AIs in the digital age is that unlike the human man- ager, there is no need to relearn experiences as people rotate in and out of roles. Even though it may seem crazy to put the intelligence of a baby in charge of a factory at the start, it only needs to happen once. It may not even need to start off in the physical world. Conclusion Being a part of the AI evolution journey is beneficial to factory operations and interest- ing. Evolution towards cleverer software algo- rithms, and even to real AI, is already unlike that of hardware in terms of the way value is added. Investment into a progressive, digi- tal MES software package provides way more value than generic MES solutions. Being a sub- scriber to digital MES today will prove to be the most rewarding investment a factory could make as we see the dawn of intelligence ap- plied into more and more aspects of factory operational decision-making as well as opera- tor process augmentation. Solutions with such capability need to be chosen with care, looking towards those who lead the industry in terms of the vision of such technologies. With the advent of technologies such as IPC CFX, it may just seem like a smart- er and more cost-effective way to do interfac- ing to many. However, in reality, CFX opens up the potential for a far greater step forward in AI, for which some of us are prepared. This is a clear differentiator between entities that have been key contributors and leaders throughout the development of CFX and those who will simply provide a new interface for their old software. It is not hard to see which path leads to a greater reward. SMT007 Michael Ford is the senior director of emerging industry strategy for Aegis Software. To read past columns or contact Ford, click here. As children develop, it is through a natural process of trial and error.