While not a magic bullet, artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the game for manufacturers faced with ongoing labor shortages, decreased productivity and quality control, and an unpredictable supply chain exacerbated by growing consumer demands. Increasingly sophisticated AI is already being used in nearly every industry--from automotive and food & beverage to metal fabrication and plastic molding--to power predictive systems, increase robot capabilities, improve the precision of machine vision and help businesses optimize their processes to improve quality and reduce waste. The future is here--and we're just getting started. As AI becomes more powerful, robots and other machines can quickly learn what they need to do to perform given tasks without expensive and difficult-to-find AI experts. When coupled with decreasing hardware costs and clearer use cases demonstrating the benefits, deploying AI is an obvious choice for small and large companies alike.

Since 1958, apetito has been supplying frozen foods and ready-to-eat meals to schools, nurseries, businesses, hospitals, and retirement homes across Europe and Canada. Production of its meal trays involves placement of different food items into trays for shipping and delivery. Complaints from customers about missing food items from trays led the company to seek an automated approach to final product inspection. In its initial attempt to correct this problem, apetito began weighing each tray as it came off the production line. However, this did not adequately address the problem because if one food item on the tray was a little heavier than usual, it could falsely account for what was missing.