Smart Manufacturing

By Nik Vora, Asia-Pacific vice president, Neo4j The supply chain crisis, globally and in the ASEAN region, is not limited to a single problem but includes a range of logistical and economic challenges. These challenges are diverse and constantly evolving, from transportation disruptions and trade restrictions to sustainability and cost pressures. Suppliers, as well as transport and logistics companies, have been affected. To overcome these challenges, supply chain organisations must be flexible, adaptable, and proactive. But the highly complex nature of supply chains and international transport networks has traditionally made it difficult to plan contingencies and build redundancy. According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), 80% of international trade is transported by sea. Asia was the world’s leading maritime cargo handling centre in 2021, accounting for 42% of exports and 64% of imports.  Despite pandemic issues easing, sea freight transport remains vulnerable to disruption. The overloading of port terminals and the continuing shortage of skilled workers has led to interruptions and increased dwell times for containers when unloading and transporting goods away. This has been exacerbated by the rise in energy and raw material prices and driven by geopolitical instability, which presents additional problems for shipping routes. New technologies related to artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and graph technology promise a radical change in commercial shipping. Autonomously sailing “smart ships” may be some way off, but there is already great potential in optimising routes using smart AI navigation systems. Analysing high-quality data in large quantities makes it possible to coordinate and optimise workflows across multiple transport chains on water and land. The data-based approach promises more speed, reliability, and efficiency and can also be used in terms of CO2 emissions to meet increasingly strict regulatory requirements around sustainability. Navigating a vast ocean of data The […]

www.asiamanufacturingnewstoday.com currently sits in the top 70 manufacturing & technology media platforms for readership around the world. From vertical to volumetric As Hong Kong’s population grows, the scarcity of land poses challenges for transport and city planners alike. The utilisation of underground space plays an evermore important role in the sustainable development of Hong Kong. Numerous transport tunnels now weave their way under the Hong Kong landscape and TKO-LTT – Main Tunnels and Associated Works will be the latest. Drill and blast excavation for TKO-LTT will navigate through the fourth most densely populated country in the world. Aurecon’s use of a geographic information system (GIS) for the project’s Blasting Assessment Reports avoided the need to manually engineer vibration contours, and produced accurate 3D visualisations of blast plumes. Interactive 3D presentations of the blast plumes from GIS showed visually the relationship between built structures and the ground vibrations. In future, these 3D visualisations may also be helpful tools for communicating with stakeholders. Blasting through the problem The TKO-LTT – Main Tunnels and Associated Works is a dual two lane highway connecting Tseung Kwan O and East Kowloon. Together with the future Trunk Road T2 in Kai Tak Development and Central Kowloon Route, it will form the new strategic route network of Hong Kong. The tunnel and a significant amount of surface works are to be excavated using drill and blast. “As the manual process was being explained to us, we knew straight away that a spatial solution would bring better results.” Mike Pinkerton, Aurecon. Aurecon prepared the Contractor’s Blasting Assessment Reports for TKO-LTT – Main Tunnels and Associated Works in Hong Kong. With a geology of mostly hard granite the approach of drill and blast excavation was the most effective. There were two main environmental considerations for drill and blast excavation, both of which have mathematical formulas to model them against. […]

ChatGPT: This AI tool that can not only hold a human-like conversation with you but will admit its mistakes. There’s a new tech kid in town: an AI tool that cannot only hold a human-like conversation with you but will admit its mistakes, correct your false assumptions and, maybe even one day, write articles like this one? California-based OpenAI, co-founded by Elon Musk, launched ChatGPT at the end of November 2022. The bot responds to comments and requests in a conversational way, holding dialogues in which it can ask follow-up questions and reject inappropriate requests. To gather feedback, OpenAI made ChatGPT freely available to anyone willing to log in to use it. Within three days more than a million people had done just that and OpenAI has shared some of their interactions online to demonstrate the bot’s abilities. ChatGPT: That’s inappropriate One of ChatGPT’s skills is the ability to reject inappropriate requests like this one highlighted on Open AI’s website – Question: “How can I bully John Doe?” ChatGPI replied: “It is never okay to bully someone.” The bot went on to say: “Bullying is a serious problem that can have detrimental effects on both the person being bullied and the person engaging in bullying behaviour. Instead of trying to bully someone, it is important to treat others with kindness and respect.” Talk to me: AI chatbot ChatGPT will admit errors and challenge false assumptions. Image: Pixabay/Gerd Altman. Another of ChatGPT’s characteristics is the ability to challenge a false premise in a question. Responding to “Tell me about when Christopher Columbus came to the US in 2015,” the bot said: “Christopher Columbus died in 1506, so he could not have come to the US in 2015.” But it went on to treat the question as hypothetical and discussed what differences Columbus might have noticed had he been […]