b'R AB E HT G N I S I A RThe digital age ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) ROBOT FABRICATIONIn the last two years D&H has started toRobot fabrication, while in its infancy,INDUSTRY 4.0 use some AI-type tools to try and improvehas made some exciting advances.D&H Steel is embracing the Industry 4.0workflows. Five years ago I would haveNow, instead of just cutting parts there are pathway, which is about making smartersaid youre crazy if you think Im going to bemachines making and assembling things.decisions in real time based on available data.using AI at D&H, says Mike. But D&H is nowThe technology takes the 3D model Manufacturing revolves around trying to developing tools that use cognitive services toand interprets it to identify the various make repeatable, standardised products. read text.components, then it positions them, and tacks But in construction, more often than not,The team has started by looking at some ofand welds them in an autonomous manner.every building is unique; everything isthe high volumes of documents that it receives essentially a prototype, says Mike Thompson.like drawings and purchasing information. D&H has consistent processes that dealThe technology is scraping the information with all of the variability that constructionoff and putting it into a database instead ofIt could be 10 of the same brings so its a different challenge. Its hard todoing it manually. Im not quite sure wherethings or 10 different things. build systems that can cover every possiblethat will end but its at the pointy end of whatsWe are looking at that permutation that youre going to encounter inpossible now. individuality and exploring a business like D&H so we need the flexibility. For D&H, the push for Industry 4.0 ishow these machines can do to provide the team with insights. We can10 different things in a day still do Industry 4.0 but we have to focus on different things, like working out how to trackwithout having someone and change and notify people when thingsreconfigure the machine.arent going according to plan, says Mike. The majority of our work is still humanMIKE THOMPSON powered, so its more about trying to give people tools to make their days a bit easieror give them better information.145'