Organizations are increasingly utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) to support their decision-making. It’s enabled them to be more proactive rather than reactive, predicting and eliminating areas of potential risks rather than taking action once defects and failures have happened. It’s been used for automated root-cause analysis, advancing analytics to support decision-making, implementing more real-time dashboards and improving quality and continual improvement through predictive risk management.
“One manufacturer that was manually inspecting thousands of parts automated the process using AI and digital cameras to identify defects and failures well before the parts were staged for packaging,” says Samantha Kaplan, director of Quality and Continuous Improvement, Client Solutions and Program Management at Corporate College, a division of Cuyahoga Community College. “And more than just manufacturers are benefiting from the technology. A call center implemented AI as part of its decision-making, analyzing calls to improve customer satisfaction by revising their scripts and updating training procedures.”
Because of the significant benefits this technology can offer, she says AI and machine-learning skills are becoming highly coveted, not just as a way to implement and effectively use the technology but also to help reduce employee resistance to the changes AI brings.
Smart Business spoke with Kaplan about how AI is being utilized in quality and process improvement decision-making.
How is AI being rolled out within organizations?
Thoughtful implementation of AI in decision-making builds organizational excellence, improves risk awareness and enhances quality control. It helps businesses see and understand risks early on, ensures continual improvement through the optimization of processes, and also increases the speed of decision-making. Successful organizations are empowering teams to work with AI and not against it by starting small, earning their trust and then scaling.
However, without careful rollout, organizations struggle to realize the benefits of AI. Among the more common obstacles are bad data quality inputs and not having a road map for implementation and utilization. Organizations should have a sound structure and policies in place before utilizing these tools to mitigate risk and exposure.
Why is the human factor key to AI’s effectiveness?
Fundamentally, the human factor is a critical element to the successful implementation of AI for its use in quality and process improvement decision-making. It’s much like the scientific method: what AI initially generates is going to be a hypothesis, and humans need to test that hypothesis before anything is implemented on a broad scale.
AI becomes another voice — the same as any employee. If an employee gave their input, that idea would be considered and then tested before it was implemented. Even though AI can provide information quickly, it’s important to take the time to assess it. Really, AI just augments the human factor — it’s ultimately a collaboration. That’s why resistance to change has become such an issue. There are some amazing things that AI can do, but unlocking that requires knowledge and training. Without the needed digital literacy and employee competence in-house, AI implementation is unlikely to succeed. That’s why organizations are increasingly concerned with training to get their workforce to better understand and utilize AI.
How can organizations realize success?
Organizations should embrace this cutting-edge technology and work to understand what it can do for them. As more and more companies and individuals implement AI, they’re accumulating the knowledge of how to work with it and, through it, make significant organizational improvements.
There are institutions offering courses on how to get up to speed with the current state-of-the-art AI technology. That’s something that both individuals and organizations can look into to help their teams not only familiarize themselves with the technology but also break the ice so that they’re not so resistant to change when this technology is rolled out. That’s increasingly important as those early adopters are going to be leading innovation and have a foundation of trust on which to scale. ●
INSIGHTS Education is brought to you by Corporate College, a division of Cuyahoga Community College.
