A five-day training course took place last week, from January 20 to 24, on the operational deployment of AI in industry. This workshop—co-organized by Arts et Métiers, ENSEIRB-Matmeca, and INRIA—was held on the campuses of ENSEIRB-Matmeca and Arts et Métiers.
A program alternating between theory and practice
Lectures in the lecture hall in the morning, combined with group case studies in the afternoon, punctuated by opportunities to talk with regional AI stakeholders, gave the 250 participants a better understanding of what AI is today.
On the Arts et Métiers side, Emmanuelle Abisset-Chavanne helped develop the curriculum and select case studies focused on the practical deployment of AI in industry. " The goal was to stay as close as possible to the issues faced by companies, rather than providing training on purely technological aspects (how algorithms work, implementation, etc.). In fact, manufacturers need to know how to integrate humans into AI challenges and how to deploy it operationally by addressing practical issues such as data management, networks, etc."
The conference program covered a wide range of topics, including digital data management, cybersecurity, storage and energy, human-machine interfaces, and more. The use cases were also varied: a die-casting foundry production line, image processing from drones, laser failure detection, predictive maintenance of armored trucks, laser failure detection, motion analysis, and more. Each issue referred to a specific technology, but the same question always came up: how can we ensure that teams implement these new solutions?
How can digital data be integrated with human expertise?
This has been the main focus of AI since its emergence more than 60 years ago, especially since the digital revolution has greatly increased computing power. AI is inherently transdisciplinary and therefore requires a wide range of skills. The groups of students and engineers formed for the workshop were diverse in terms of experience, age, and background, and therefore attempted to answer this practical question.
The use cases created transdisciplinary group dynamics, while also offering a realistic glimpse into the professional world, where we are called upon to work with people from all walks of life.
A success for students
The participating students showed great interest in this first training course dedicated to AI. They particularly liked the format of the event, which gave them the opportunity to engage in privileged exchanges with AI stakeholders and work on real technological and managerial challenges.
" I enjoyed the morning lectures, especially the one on robotics, and the case studies in the afternoon were very interesting. I was in the groupworking on predictive laser maintenance. The contact with the manufacturer went really well, and as for the group, it was really great to work with people from different backgrounds. I really enjoyed working on real data and having an impact on the professional world by proposing real avenues for development." (Maxime Phan, second-year Bachelor's student).
AI4Industry in figures
- 5 days of training
- 200 engineers trained
- 50 speakers
- 24 conferences (Algorithms, Data and Knowledge, infrastructurecomputing and communication structures, interAI-user interaction, etc.)
- 8 industrial use cases (Amplitude Laser, Catle, ESI Group, LGM, OnePoint, Proditec, Scalian, and SCAN-Datamining)
- 1 hackathon per team
- 1 corporate 'evening' trade show on Thursday, January 23
