Implementing AI at Bensons

Artificial Intelligence is coming, and depending on what you read and who you listen to it will either, end the world, take all our jobs, or make manufacturing more productive and efficient. 

At Bensons we prefer the third option, it aligns with our commitment to continuous improvement and being the best version of ourselves that we can be.  One of the challenges with AI is knowing where to start. We only know what we know, and there is much that we don't know or understand about the subject.

Fortunately, this is where West Yorkshire Manufacturing Services has stepped in to fill a knowledge gap in manufacturers with their excellent Applied AI for Manufacturing Diploma. This is a two day course led by prof Richard Hill of The University of Huddersfield which fills in the blanks that many of us possess

• What is AI, and what can it do right now?
• Using AI to enable strategy, and what's next
• Prompt engineering
• Governance - reducing risk without slowing down

During June, Bensons put seven people through the course, our representatives including the business owners, sales, engineering, manufacturing and members of the production team.

What did we take away from the training? A mixture of emotions and reactions at different stages, including Terror, Denial, Curiosity, Confusion and ultimately Excitement. 

Taking time out of the business for training is only useful if that hard-won knowledge is put to use. 
With our ethos of collaborating across the business to deliver improvements, our attendees are now engaged in mapping out a series of improvement activities that we can undertake to develop our implementation skills to make Bensons more efficient and productive. Following the guidance of Prof Hill, this is initially directed at the easy wins that surrounds administrative activities, then heading onto the bigger, harder and more value-adding opportunities that will unlock value for our customers and for Bensons.