Industrial AI Agents Orchestrate Production
Shop Talk
Capturing this week's zeitgeist
Tesla halted some of its production lines due to the Microsoft-CrowdStrike outage, which “gave a seizure to the automotive supply chain” according to Musk. Crowdstrike CEO George Kurtz says 3% of systems remain offline.
Kaizen Blitz
- 🚦 Andon Status
- 🟢 Ursa Major is establishing a new research and development center in Youngstown, Ohio.
- 🟡 Apple shifting back to China with BYD and Luxshare Precision for the iPhone 16 assembly.
- 🚨 Jabil planned for Albuquerque to be a star in 3D printing. Now, the company plans to cut 130 jobs.
- 📊 Survey Says
- Honeywell’s Industrial AI Insights reports that 48% of AI leaders must constantly justify sufficient resources to implement their AI plans.
- Factories should be 1) scalable, 2) automated, 3) serviceable, 4) accessible, 5) modular/flexible, and 6) interoperable according to IoT Analytics’ Matthieu Kulezak.
- Metal 3D printer shipments remain conservative across Western forecasts, but Chinese demand remains strong, especially for Metal Powder Bed Fusion solutions.
- 🏭💰 Production Planning
- SK Hynix to invest about 9.4 trillion won ($6.8 billion) in its first chip plant in the South Korean city of Yongin.
- Foxconn to invest $138 million for new business headquarters in China.
- 🏢💸 Corporate Development
- Leading Japanese corporations are planning to increase capital investment by 15.6% in fiscal 2024
- After reaching an unprecedented $25.6 billion in 2021, venture funding for logistics start-ups fell to just $2.9 billion in 2023—a two-year plunge of nearly 90%, and the lowest level of funding since 2015.
- 🏆 Golden Part
- The automation rate at the CATL Guizhou Factory has reached 95%. From material input to finished product output, the factory can produce one battery cell per second and one battery pack every 2.5 minutes.
- 🏛️📜 Industrial Policy
- Proposed CHIPS funding would support Amkor’s investment of approximately $2 billion and 2,000 jobs in a greenfield project in Peoria, Arizona.
- EIF invests €350 million in Spain-based Kembara, a Deep Tech and climate growth fund under the European Tech Champions Initiative
Assembly Line
This week's most influential Industry 4.0 media.
Smart Glasses Aid Inspection of Automotive Wire Harnesses
Wearable image acquisition devices are a better option, due to their better flexibility and adaptability. To that end, we have developed smart glasses that use machine vision, artificial intelligence and augmented reality to help assemblers inspect wire harnesses. Our system is specifically designed to help assemblers check various parts of a harness, including the serial number, relay box labeling, relay types, the number of relays, and the size and color of the relays, focusing on aspects such as alphanumeric characters, colors and shapes.
For our system, we chose YOLOv5s AI-based vision software from Ultralytics Inc. YOLOv5 is in the You Only Look Once (YOLO) family of computer vision models. It is commonly used for detecting objects. YOLOv5 comes in four main versions: small (s), medium (m), large (l), and extra large (x), each offering progressively higher accuracy rates. Each variant also takes a different amount of time to train.
Modine Builds Supply Chain Resiliency Through Technology
Modine specifically identified the ability to optimize materials and manage its supply chain with predictive analytics and prescriptive execution recommendations as vital to digitally transforming its supply chain. To meet these goals, the company implemented LeanDNA, an intelligent supply chain execution platform.
The partnership between Modine and LeanDNA successfully addressed chronic part shortages and inconsistent deliveries. It introduced a supplier fulfillment control tower, establishing a structured framework and processes and enhanced communication. This project resulted in tangible and significant improvements, setting up the team to continuously improve and optimize their supply chain.
Modine’s fast-track implementation of LeanDNA was completed within a record time of under two months. Modine’s eagerness to digitize the supply chain execution process has positioned them for strong results that can be built on as the team continuously optimizes with LeanDNA.
Inside the Astranis Satellite Factory — How to Connect Millions
From Aging to Agent-ing with Cognite’s Atlas AI
Cognite’s Atlas AI provides a low-code industrial agent builder that enables organizations to use generative AI to address domain-specific challenges with a deep understanding of industry context, terminology, and workflows. These agents leverage advanced technologies to provide expert guidance, and offer highly relevant insights in support of specific tasks.
Context Augmented Generation, CAG, is the evolution of Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG). RAG retrieves information from external databases to enhance generative models. CAG does this while integrating content and data from multiple sources, such as real-time data, sensor inputs, user interactions, and historical data. CAG allows AI systems to give and create more complex and content-aware responses.
Leveraging AI and ML in Industry w/ Jordan Reynolds, VP of AI at Rockwell Automation
New Product Introduction
Highlighting new and innovative facilities, processes, products, and services
Chemical recycling of mixed textile waste
Globally, less than 0.5% of postconsumer textile waste is recycled, with the majority incinerated or ending up in landfills. Most postconsumer textiles are mixed fibers, complicating mechanical recycling due to material blends and contaminants. Here, we demonstrate the chemical conversion of postconsumer mixed textile waste using microwave-assisted glycolysis over a ZnO catalyst followed by solvent dissolution. This approach electrifies the process heat while allowing rapid depolymerization of polyester and spandex to their monomers in 15 minutes. A simple solvent dissolution enables the separation of cotton and nylon. We assess the quality of all components through extensive material characterization, discuss their potential for sustainable recycling, and provide a techno-economic analysis of the economic feasibility of the process.
Suzano Starts Operation of the World’s Largest Pulp Production Line
Suzano, the world’s largest market pulp producer, announces the successful operational startup of its new mill, the largest single pulp production line in the world, in Ribas do Rio Pardo, Mato Grosso do Sul state. This marks the completion of one of Brazil’s largest ever private investment projects.
This state-of-the-art facility will have an annual production capacity of 2.55 million tonnes of eucalyptus pulp, increasing Suzano’s production capacity by more than 20% to 13.5 million tonnes a year. The project is the result of a total investment of R$ 22.2 billion (~US$4.3 billion), of which R$ 15.9 billion (~US$3.1 billion) was allocated for the construction of the plant and R$ 6.3 billion (~US$1.2 billion) was earmarked for initiatives such as the formation of the planting base and the pulp outbound logistics. Suzano also has the capacity to produce 1.5 million tonnes of paper per year, including sanitary paper, printing and writing and packaging lines, among other products that use pulp as raw material.
Business Transactions
This week's top funding events, acquisitions, and partnerships across industrial value chains.
Monarch Tractor Announces $133M Series C Funding - Marking Largest-Ever Raise in Agricultural Robotics
Monarch Tractor, creator of the MK-V, the world’s first fully electric, driver-optional smart tractor and Wingspan Ag Intelligence (WingspanAI) farm management platform, has announced a history-making $133 million Series C, making it the largest funding raising round in agricultural robotics history. Funding was co-led by global impact investor Astanor and HH-CTBC Partnership, L.P., with additional support from prominent investors, including At One Ventures, PMV and The Welvaartsfonds.
The Series C funds will support the further development of Monarch’s cutting-edge AI product offering, expansion of their operational footprint domestically and globally, while enabling the company’s path to profitability. This funding round will support the expansion of Monarch’s digital solutions and AI applications, including the development of Autodrive, Monarch’s autonomous operations feature, for new global markets and crop sectors.
Mytra Unveils Breakthrough Robotics and AI to Transform Warehouses and Boost Economic Productivity
Mytra, the company supercharging industrial productivity with first-of-its-kind three-dimensional robotics, launched with $78 million in total financing through the Series B stage and several commercial partners, including Albertsons Companies. Founded by ex-Tesla and Rivian robotics and manufacturing leaders, the company will automate the most common industrial task: moving and storing material. Mytra is backed by several investors, including Greenoaks, who led the company’s Series B, Eclipse, who led the previous seed and Series A rounds, in addition to Co-founder and Chairman of Okta Frederic Kerrest’s 515 Ventures, and individual investors, Garry Tan, Lachy Groom, among other individual and corporate partners.
Mytra systems are infinitely customizable, shapeable, scalable, and high-density, allowing them to automate complex pallet and case handling without the complexity of forklifts, pallet jacks, conveyors, elevators, and other automation. This radical simplicity is enabled by three key breakthroughs:
- Simplified offering: Unlike other solutions that involve thousands of parts and saddle customers with technical debt, Mytra comprises only three individual components: bots, a simple and repeating matrix structure, and edge-intelligent software, which simplifies the deployment process, reduces cost, and avoids single points of failure.
- 3D movement: Mytra is the first system that allows for full 3D movement at up to 3000 pounds from any cell to any adjacent cell in any direction. This achieves the physics-limited maximum level of flexibility.
- Software: Mytra’s software platform optimizes bot routes, manages inventory, and continuously learns and improves, adjusting to changing customer needs. This approach entirely abstracts the hardware layer and makes material flow fully software-defined, allowing operators to unlock endless new applications and future-proof their operations.
Led by GM Ventures, Addionics Raises $39 Million Series B to Drive Cost-Efficient EV Battery Innovation
Addionics, a global leader in battery technology, announced its Series B funding round of $39 Million. The round was co-led by GM Ventures and Deep Insight, with participation from Scania, along with new and returning strategic investors. The funds will be used to bolster the company’s manufacturing capabilities and advance global business engagements. The investment will allow Addionics to build up teams across the globe, and expand its manufacturing and commercialization efforts, including advancing the construction of its planned US-based giga-factory for the production of Addionics 3D Current Collectors.
Sojo Industries Partners with Schreiber Foods on Mobile Manufacturing and Next Generation Track and Trace Platform
Sojo Industries, a leading mobile automation and robotics manufacturer for food and beverage assembly, announced that it has partnered with Schreiber Foods, a global food manufacturer with over $7 billion in sales across five continents. Sojo Industries also announced it has raised a Series A round of $10 million with participation from Schreiber Ventures and Tech Council Ventures, an early-stage fund that manages over $175 million.
Sojo Industries is supporting Schreiber’s continued innovation across its food and beverage operations through the use of its proprietary Sojo Flight™ solution. Sojo Flight™ provides brands with mobile manufacturing lines and multiple packaging capabilities that can be moved across the country into different food and beverage production facilities, supporting the growing innovation in the variety-pack and multi-pack categories as well as mitigating rising labor costs, labor shortages and high freight costs.
akirolabs Secures 7-digit Grant to Develop the Leading LLM for Strategic Procurement, Building on Recent $5M Seed Round
akirolabs, a Berlin-based ProcureTech startup, enabling enterprises worldwide to augment strategic procurement processes, announces an extension to its recent $5 million seed funding with an additional 7-digit ( € million) non-dilutive grant from Investitionsbank Berlin and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).
This funding will be strategically utilized to further advance the software’s AI/LLM capabilities, solidify akirolabs’ position as the AI-first ProcureTech B2B SaaS company, and accelerate product development and team expansion.
One Equity Partners Invests in Comau to Foster Greater Growth in the Italian Industrial Automation Leader
Stellantis N.V., one of the world’s largest automakers and mobility providers, and One Equity Partners (“OEP”), a middle market private equity firm, announced that OEP has signed a binding agreement to make a majority investment in Comau S.p.A., a global technology company specializing in industrial automation and advanced robotics. The spinoff of Comau is part of the strategic agreement set during the merger between former FCA and Groupe PSA in January 2021 that formed Stellantis N.V. Financial terms of the private transaction were not disclosed. One Equity Partners (OEP) will become majority shareholder of Comau; Stellantis will remain an active minority shareholder.