AI would seem to be the key to unlocking the potential in the huge volumes of machine data now being gathered by OEM and tier supplier production operations. It can also be equally useful with improving manually performed assembly operations. Silicon Valley, California, based Drishti was established by Dr Prasad Akella in 2016, and the company has developed a sophisticated vision system powered by AI that can be deployed in manual assembly operations to gather and process data to support the line workers and improve the efficiency of the operations being performed. A veteran of automotive related automation, Prasad led the team at General Motors that developed the world’s first collaborative robots in the 1990s. That experience led him to focus on improving the human side of assembly operations.