American automaker, Ford, has rehired hundreds of experienced engineers after its artificial intelligence-powered quality control systems failed to deliver the standards expected by the company.

Ford had introduced AI into parts of its operations, including vehicle quality inspections, hoping the technology would reduce costs and improve efficiency. However, Bloomberg reported that company executives confirmed more than 300 veteran quality inspectors have been brought back in recent years to address the shortcomings of the automated systems.

“Artificial intelligence is a fantastic tool, but it’s only as good as the information you use to train it,” Charles Poon, vice president of vehicle hardware engineering, told reporters.

“Over prior years, we didn’t pay as much attention as we should have to the experience of our most knowledgeable engineers that have been with us through many product cycles,” he said.

Ford is one of several companies that have invested heavily in AI as businesses seek to improve productivity and boost profits through the technology.

“AI will leave a lot of white collar people behind,” Ford boss Jim Farley said in an interview with author Walter Isaacson last June.

During the company’s October earnings call, chief operating officer Kumar Galhotra said Ford was “deploying AI across the entire industrial system”.

The Initiative included the installation of 900 AI-powered cameras across its manufacturing plants to strengthen quality monitoring and reduce supply chain disruptions.

“to detect quality issues at the source and help us mitigate supply disruptions”, Galhotra told investors.

Despite those investments, Poon acknowledged on Wednesday that the AI-based inspection systems had not achieved the expected results.

“Mistakenly, we thought that by just introducing artificial intelligence and ingesting the design requirements that we had, that would produce a high-quality product,” he said.

According to reports, Poon said the automated systems lacked the practical knowledge and judgement of veteran engineers, many of whom had left the company before their expertise could be transferred into the AI systems.

He added that the experienced employees have now returned to help train the company’s AI tools while also mentoring younger engineers.

“We recognised that for us to enhance some of our automation and machine learning and artificial intelligence tools we needed to ensure that they were trained by the most experienced individuals,” he said, per Bloomberg.

Ford’s acknowledgement of the limitations of its AI systems came as the company celebrated a major quality achievement.

The automaker said it had reclaimed the top spot among mainstream vehicle manufacturers in the US JD Power Initial Quality Study, marking its first time leading the industry ranking since 2010.

In a statement announcing the achievement, the company said “reaching best-in-class quality required a significant talent refresh”.

Ford added that the turnaround involved changes in senior leadership across its engineering, manufacturing and supply chain divisions, alongside the return of about 300 veteran engineers “who carry the hard-earned wisdom of decades of design”.

(BBC News)

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