Toyota Implements AI in North American Manufacturing Operations

Invisible AI and Toyota allied to integrate computer vision in its Nort American manufacturing operations. Through the alliance, Toyota aims to improve its operations’ safety, quality and efficiency as Invisible AI’s technology predicts and prevents simple defects and high stress injuries using body motion data.

“We are thrilled to expand our work with Toyota Motor North America, a global leader in manufacturing and innovation. We are building computer vision systems that learn continuously, unsupervised and generate real business value for customers on day one,” said Eric Danziger, CEO, Invisible AI.

After two years of collaboration, Toyota is implementing 500 AI devices throughout 2022, becoming the first manufacturing site to implement this technology. The devices do not use the cloud nor any bandwidth; they are built in the NVIDIA Jeatson module, offer 1TB of storage and a high-resolution 3D camera to track floor activity.  The device is trained to track 17 major joints on the human body in real time without using sensors. Invisible AI aims to boost the fourth industrial revolution by empowering manufacturing industries.

“We observe our employees assembling vehicles to identify inefficiencies and bottlenecks in their standardized work. Invisible AI systems will help us increase the frequency and accuracy of process reviews as well as reduce the time needed to find inefficiencies across processes, giving us more time to focus on improvement,” said Stephen Brennan, Vice President, Toyota, to Forbes.

The companies that have put AI at the core of their business have become market disruptors through the discovery of all-new business processes and commercial propositions that are often overlooked by the human eye. Tesla, for example, implemented AI-powered systems to continuously improve its manufacturing process and develop products at a groundbreaking speed. The combined capabilities of industrial internet of things (IIoT), cloud computing, robotic process automation and AI, among other tools, have greatly improved manufacturing over the last few years, according to Deloitte.

AI in the automotive sector is being implemented to offer more efficient vehicles through user experience. Daimler’s subsidiary Freightliner, for example, presented DriverCOACH, a driving assistant that fosters best practices behind the wheel. The new tool will become available in the Mexican market in 2023 models, which will start production in 2H22.

In Mexico, 54 percent of automotive companies have active or in-development AI projects and one in every three companies uses IIoT to be more efficient and improve its capabilities, according to PwC. Meanwhile, 66 percent of the Mexican companies have big data analytics projects.