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We have been through a lot in recent years, such as COVID, inflation, natural disasters, war and more. All have had an impact on the global economy.

Combine that with the surge in consumer demand, labor shortages and supply chain issues. And it’s easy to understand that manufacturing companies continue to see the challenges even today, in 2023, Shilpa Prasad, director of new ventures at LG, said during a session at the Transform 2023 event this week.

In a fireside conversation with Sokwoo Rhee, corporate senior vice president of innovation at LG Electronics and head of the LG NOVA incubator, Prasad addressed the challenge of taking new technologies and turning them into opportunities to change the way we work to change in our daily lives.

LG NOVA is a North American innovation arm for LG Electronics, which sells 20 million devices annually. And overall, LG is a $70 billion manufacturer, one of the largest in the world, with 128 factories and 85,000 people working there. Those factories already have robotics and automation, and the company is evaluating how artificial intelligence can take this further.

While the company needs to look at the products and processes in these plants, it also needs to put a focus on the people in its workforce and those it hires, Prasad said.

“We are constantly looking at how technology can play an important role in addressing this and especially how we can apply generative AI,” she said.

In 2017, LG Electronics introduced the Q platform, which uses computer vision and AI to detect defects in products. It helps the company meet key manufacturing performance indicators, including at a plant in Clarksville, Tennessee. Robots can efficiently perform many automated tasks on an assembly line. And LG continues to use AI to make operations more efficient and test decisions every step of the way, Rhee said.

“That in itself is tremendous value for a company like ours,” he said.

Whether in LG NOVA’s factories or incubator, the company must work with all stakeholders, including startups, investors and major corporate partners. The goal is not to lock up the expertise available through AI on a server somewhere. It is to make use of it where it is needed.

“Day in and day out, we are looking for new technologies and trying to explore this area, not only the production but also the factory floor,” said Prasad. “Whether it’s sustainability, whether it’s employee assistance, or product design, or just processing factory analytics, there’s so much that generative AI can be applied and it’s all ahead.”

She added: “We are all seeing this wave of technology and the application of the technology. I wish I had some ways I could show the public success today. I think we are a little early for that, from a trending perspective.”

When it comes to the workforce, it’s hard to be able to do more. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that 10,000 people reach the age of 65 each day. The baby boomers are approaching retirement and by 2030 all baby boomers will have reached 65. That will create a gap in the workforce, especially on the factory floor, as people with skills retire. How do the new employees learn how to perform the tasks?

“The workplace itself is a new generation,” Prasad said. “They’re GenZers. They expect new technology to actually help close this gap, rather than doing things with the old ones that stood side by side and learning this new skill.”

You should use exponential technologies such as generative AI and combine them with augmented reality, virtual reality and mixed reality technologies to make training more intuitive. Prasad asked Rhee how to meet this challenge.

“This is actually a great question. So besides everything we just mentioned, the world is changing faster than ever before. So it’s almost like the pace of change in industry and technology is accelerating exponentially every year,” Rhee said. “So what that means, from a workforce perspective, is that sometimes they have to adapt faster or even switch skills much faster than before.”

It is clear that the production of 50 years ago where people took one set of skills and used it until retirement is unlikely to happen again. Businesses need to consider the role of technology, AI and workforce retraining. Governments need to get involved, just like large and small companies.

There will be problems around that. There will be huge markets and it will affect the quality of life of many people. Those are things to consider, Rhee said.

Prasad said conversations with factory workers show that people want to spend more time with family and do the things they really enjoy. They want to be involved in ventures as they figure out the future of manufacturing. It will be a lengthy process.

In the near term, Prasad believes generative AI will likely be useful in data transfer in machine-human interaction, as well as in providing cybersecurity for factories.

“There’s a trade-off between the more open data, more access to data, versus cybersecurity and privacy issues,” she said. “This is going to be an ongoing problem and will become more and more important. And I can’t emphasize that enough.”