Q: What is your organization’s role in XMANAI?

A:  The role of Unimetrik in the XMANAI project is to provide an industrial use case in the field of Dimensional Measurements and Quality Assurance for the technological demonstration of the explainable AI solutions developed in the project. Unimetrik will lead T6.7, in which the Process Optimization and Semiautonomous Planning App will be developed, installed, and executed in the XMANAI platform. Unimetrik contribution is also related to the exploitation strategy and business model design for the implementation of explainable artificial Intelligence in the manufacturing sector. Moreover, and related to the WP8 “Disseminations and Communication Activities” Unimetrik will take part in the stakeholders’ engagement through the design of a Plan of activities targeting the industry sector.

Q: How does XMANAI relate to your or your team’s background and interests?

A: Unimetrik is a Metrological Service company, oriented to offering solutions for the industry related to Calibration, Measurement, and Metrological engineering. The company is accredited by ENAC and acknowledged by the principal aeronautic groups in Spain. It also offers solutions aimed to improve the verification and control systems of manufacturing companies according to the highest Quality Standards. Unimetrik is currently exporting its technology to countries such as the USA, Germany, Brazil, and the Czech Republic. Manufacturers are increasingly looking for ways to optimize their production processes in order to reduce their operating and investment costs. In most cases, if we are talking about quality control of parts produced, additional investment is required to acquire machines or external metrological measurement tools, so being able to offer intelligent systems that optimize the time and results of measurements and increase accuracy is a priority for Unimetrik. Moreover, Artificial intelligence is the future of metrology but it must be accompanied by an understandable and explainable process for junior metrology technicians. When all the knowledge and experience is already in hands of senior expert metrologist, it makes it difficult to incorporate new technicians without losing efficiency in measurements. Unimetrik truly believes that thanks to XMANAI, the metrology sector will have a better understanding of the key factors that lead to a good quality management in manufacturing.

Q: What is the novelty of XMANAI and the main benefits envisaged for your organization?

A: For manufacturing and industrial sectors, quality data is key to the product development process and so, digitalization and smart use of artificial intelligence combined with algorithms that allow the process to be adjusted ensuring consistency, efficiency, and replicability, is imperative. Data is becoming essential in these sectors for the implementation of increasingly autonomous quality control processes that are also enabling the move towards factory 4.0, thereby improving the ability to easily and efficiently react to volume fluctuations while increasing sustainability by reducing waste materials due to manufacturing errors. It is a fact that Artificial Intelligence has come to revolutionize the metrology sector, and UNIMETRIK will benefit from the innovative approach of XMANAI in several ways. By using the explainable AI of the XMANAI platform, Unimetrik will get agile results by reducing the time taken to design the measurement plans. It will be easier for both senior and junior metrologists to identify the correct parameters to proceed with the measurement process successfully avoiding errors. This is something that will not only improve the results of the Unimetrik work but also the internal processes of the manufacturing sector that will be able to rely on accurate and fast quality services.

Q: Which target groups can benefit from XMANAI?

A: Unimetrik brings into the project a use case focused on a more efficient and faster process for measurement planning based on the development of a smart semi-autonomous application that will use explainable AI to recommend optimal parameters to obtain the lowest deviation and optimal point cloud for a specific measurement. Through this innovative application of explainable artificial intelligence, Unimetrik will be able to improve the measurement and quality control process in the industrial and manufacturing sectors but also to guide new metrologists that may not be so experienced to carry out precise and fast measurement plans and measurements.