10 Takeaways on How Artificial Intelligence (AI) Will Influence CNC Machining

At the University of North Carolina Charlotte (UNCC), I recently attended the debut of an exciting new machining-related event where machining had to be explained to some attendees. The inaugural meeting of the Consortium for Self-Aware Machining and Metrology (CSAM) brought together manufacturing experts with mathematicians who had little basic familiarity with machining operations, all with the goal of advancing the development of, in the words of meeting organizer Dr. Tony Schmitz, "production systems with the ability to know their own state and respond." In short, this was a conference entirely focused on uniting machining with artificial intelligence (AI). Of course, the manufacturing people in attendance needed basic instruction also. The hope of applying AI to manufacturing is still in its early stages, and one of the first steps is just to figure out what the one might mean for the other.