The ever-increasing demands on the variety, quality and sustainability of products are presenting German companies' production technology with enormous challenges. Innovative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies offer great potential to meet these challenges by increasing flexibility, quality and productivity. Due to the high demands on data quantity and quality and the generally poor transferability of results, the exploitation of this potential has so far been limited to isolated solutions in large-scale production.

One approach to overcoming these obstacles is to develop transferable systems by taking a holistic view of the key factors "human", "AI" and "means of production" in human-centered AI applications. In order to improve the performance, flexibility and cost-effectiveness of complex manufacturing systems, research into this approach is the overarching goal of the joint project "GeMeKI". To this end, three use cases of the joining, cutting and forming manufacturing processes are being examined in parallel and new forms of human-AI interaction, process-oriented sensor integration and successive data refinement are being developed as the basis of a digital value chain.

The combinatorial view of the triad as a learning overall system gives rise to hybrid intelligence systems in which the complementary strengths of experts and artificial intelligence are combined. On the one hand, AI learns from humans by involving them in the training processes of the models. On the other hand, process transparency is significantly increased by processing the data in user-friendly AI assistance systems. The transfer of the experts' experience into digital services thus shifts the entry hurdle for tapping into the productivity potential of artificial intelligence towards smaller batch sizes.

The digital kick-off of the "GeMeKI" research project, led by consortium leader aiXbrain and the WZL machine tool laboratory at RWTH Aachen University, took place at the end of August, heralding the start of the three-year project. The consortium of twelve partners sees the project as a great opportunity for Germany as a manufacturing and AI location. The results of "GeMeKI" are intended to give small and medium-sized companies in particular access to AI-based manufacturing.