AI for Metal Formers: Crowd Sourcing and More

1. Why should metal formers care about the artificial-intelligence (AI) boom? Is it just a fad or trend?

AI has become established in several industries, bringing long-term viability and benefits. For metal formers, this means two things: Automation of processes, using AI internally for processes such as order entry, data analysis, predictive maintenance, reporting and production optimization. And, AI provides a new set of business opportunities to provide fabricated metal products into the supporting industries. 

2. Are there established markets utilizing AI that metal formers can use as benchmarks?

AI has become very established in two key markets—automotive and aerospace. OEMs and others use AI for predictive maintenance, quality control and supply-chain optimization, realizing efficiency gains and operational-cost reductions. Benchmarking these markets illustrates how to justify the investments needed. New talent is needed—people with coding ability, for example. 

3. What indicators show that the emerging AI market is here to stay?

The rapid pace of investment into AI startups as well as several established computing companies serves as a good indicator. There’s an awful lot of money in the tech space going into companies leveraging AI. While AI may seem like buzz words, the significant amount of legislation being written to provide protections and safeguards about the use of AI indicates that the technology has become mainstream and is here to stay.

4. What applications offer opportunities for metal formers in this market? 

Before coming to Prima Power, I worked for a company manufacturing data-center racks and cabinets, and I see rapid growth in this business segment as a result of the AI movement driving the need for more computing power. We also see a boom in the sheet metal-fabricating industry in markets such as HVAC, power distribution and electrical enclosures—anything data-center infrastructure-related such as racks, cabinets and cable management. We’re seeing the integration of AI tools into these market segments at an accelerating pace.

5. How can the use of AI impact the performance of metal-fabricating equipment such as laser cutting machines and press brakes? 

The advantages of going from art to part, getting programs developed and to the machines quickly and in an automated way, has become, for Prima Power, much more efficient. We have developed an API—application programming interface—that allows our customers to write code within their own custom software that performs functions such as importing solid models, and unfolding and tooling them. As Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says, “Everyone is a coder now.” Sheet metal fabricators now have the ability to perform inhouse, leveraging what used to only be the realm of larger companies with coding capabilities inhouse.