Industrial AI

Operational excellence

Smart manufacturing

Teaching OM

Agentic LLM for supply chain coordination

Can LLM agents automate consensus-seeking in supply chains? We use AI agents in a case study of inventory management, where agents representing companies in a supply chain balance selfish goals with systemic outcomes through conversation. Our results show that introducing LLM-based consensus-seeking frameworks can reduce bullwhip effects.

AI for industrial troubleshooting

Are AI-based troubleshooting assistants useful? We developed a multilingual chatbot using an RAG framework and an LLM to provide real-time, project-specific troubleshooting support. A controlled field experiment shows that AI-assisted users significantly outperformed non-users in task performance.

Explainable AI in inspection tasks

AI provides considerable opportunities to assist human work. However, one crucial challenge in human-AI collaboration is that many AI algorithms operate in a black-box manner, with the way they make predictions remaining opaque. The results of our experiments show that task performance significantly improves when participants are supported by explainable AI with heat maps instead of black-box AI.

Distributional shifts in operational data

Manufacturers seek to optimize production schedules. AI can support this objective by predicting production throughput times based on order specifications. However, this is challenging when manufacturers produce customized products due to distributional shifts. Through empirical and mathematical validation, we show how production managers can improve their decision-making under distributional shifts.

S-curve of lean

“Lean” programs have helped many manufacturers boost productivity. However, misplaced expectations of how quickly these programs can improve performance can make their implementation more difficult. This paper introduces the S-curve theory.
*Winner of the Shingo Research Award 2020

Better product life-extending operations

How can product life-extending operations (PLEOs) be designed to increase productivity? In a multiple-case study, we collect in-depth data from nine industry-leading European companies. Our findings support practitioners in increasing the industrial adoption of PLEO and circular supply chain strategies.

Drones in operations management

This study investigates how companies like IKEA are experiencing with and implementing drones in operations. Through a five-year research project, we explore how drones transitioned from early ideas to experimental applications to full adoption in daily operations.

Smartwatches in manufacturing

We investigate the impact of performance feedback delivered to front-line workers in a global manufacturing company that uses smartwatches for real-time control on the shop floor. Our findings indicate that positively framed feedback, targeting individuals directly, enhances productivity more than other feedback combinations. 

Remote inspection with Mixed Reality

We present the first field-tested application of interactive mixed-reality live-streaming technology in a manufacturing setting. A proof-of-concept mixed reality live-streaming device that uses 360° video calls for remote presence has been developed and tested in a field trial during a tool changeover at a Stanley Black & Decker factory.

Can AI teach OM?

In the age of generative AI, can teaching videos be efficiently and effectively generated by large language models? In this study, the authors used generative AI tools to develop four short teaching videos for a management course and then compared them with human-generated videos on the same subjects in an online experiment. AI is coming to teach.

Using cards to teach AI in manufacturing

We introduce a serious-play card deck designed to teach AI use case applications in manufacturing. The deck comprises 42 cards, each presenting a real‑world problem paired with a corresponding AI use case. The paper describes the design of the cards and their implementations across four executive education classes in both classroom and metaverse settings.

LEGO Lean Game 4.0

We updated the classic lean board game. The factory is the classroom, and the trucks are built with LEGO bricks. Besides learning about fundamental principles in production management, we integrate four technologies that contribute to end-to-end digitization of a production system. Students learn how lean production and digital transformation can improve manufacturing.