How machine learning is improving manufacturing product quality and supply chain visibility

Bottom Line: Manufacturers' most valuable data is generated on shop floors daily, bringing with it the challenge of analysing it to find prescriptive insights fast – and an ideal problem for machine learning to solve. Manufacturing is the most data-prolific industry there is, generating on average 1.9 petabytes of data every year according to the McKinsey Global Insititute. Supply chains, sourcing, factory operations, and the phases of compliance and quality management generate the majority of data. The most valuable data of all comes from product inspections that can immediately find exceptionally strong or weak suppliers, quality management and compliance practices in a factory. Manufacturing's massive problem is in getting quality inspection results out fast enough across brands & retailers, other factories, suppliers and vendors to make a difference in future product quality.