As factories and manufacturing plants have become “smarter” with sensors, robotics and other connected technologies, this has created a potential treasure trove of data that can be mined for insights into bottlenecks and other areas for improvement. Or maybe even just speed up processes that would otherwise require significant manual work.
However, most of the data generated is unstructured and not straightforward to apply. While gigantic data analytics has been a staple of industries such as finance and logistics for years, it hasn’t fully made its way into the manufacturing sphere. This has created an untapped mine of knowledge and, more recently, a nascent market for technologies designed to both capture and make sense of a wide range of manufacturing data.
Last month, UK-founded, Up-to-date York-based Oden Technologies raised approx $28.5 million Series B round stimulate the development of a data analytics platform for manufacturers. Germany’s Daedalus has raised $21 million to apply artificial intelligence in precision manufacturing factories. Belgian company Robovision has raised $42 million to introduce computer intelligence into industrial machines.
Now is EthonAI railways, as a Swiss startup announced On Thursday, it announced it had raised CHF 15 million ($16.5 million) in a Series A funding round run by Index Ventureswith participation of General Catalyst, Earlybird and Founderful.
EthonAI finds product defects
Founded in Zurich in 2021 by CEO Julian Senoner and CTO Bernhard Kratzwald, EthonAI can train AI models for specific applications, such as in electronics manufacturing, where the customer provides photos of defect-free products and EthonAI Inspector the software can then identify surface defects in products during the manufacturing and assembly process. Apple recently acquired DarwinAI, which has a similar goal of automating the visual quality management process in component manufacturing.
But more broadly, EthonAI can combine data from across a company’s manufacturing setup, from sensors to the line stopsand build a picture of where things are and aren’t happening, and even compare performance across multiple facilities to see where there’s room for improvement.
Over its three-year history, EthonAI has amassed some pretty high-profile clients, including Siemens and chocolate maker Lindt.
EthonAI’s in-depth analysis of its target markets shows that semiconductor manufacturing is one particular area of focus, although the company did not disclose any specific customers in this area. However, low yield is a known problem in the chip industry where defects occur in Silicon wafers may impact the number of actually usable chips in post-production. It’s worth noting that Apple reportedly reached an agreement last year with chipmaker TSMC, which apparently did just that especially low rates of return (then just 55%) from Apple conclusion of the contract pay only for known good waffles – saving billions dollars in this process.
For its part, EthonAI says it is working with a “leading semiconductor manufacturer” that uses its platform to connect multiple data sets to perform analysis and discover previously unknown connections between processes, equipment and performance metrics.
“Manufacturing is at a critical juncture, and companies that do not adapt to artificial intelligence risk being left behind,” Senoner said in a press release. “Factories produce mountains of data, and artificial intelligence is key to gaining the insights to achieve operational excellence.”
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