Artificial Intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing industries worldwide, and its widespread implementation in manufacturing will secure a significant competitive edge for the United States. Because advanced manufacturing operations depend on experience and know-how, the potential to use AI to enhance production discovery and apply implicit knowledge is high. Dr. Bian will address the current state of advanced manufacturing and AI, identify the main obstacles to AI integration in manufacturing, and underscore the necessity of AI in manufacturing endeavors. By taking additive manufacturing as a case study, Dr. Bian will discuss the previous work on the application of AI in advanced manufacturing, such as understanding the parameter-process-structure relationship, monitoring processes in real-time, and characterizing parts. This talk will also discuss the complex questions that arise when incorporating AI into manufacturing research and education, as well as opportunities for industrial engineers.

Dr. Linkan Bian is a program director in the Advanced Manufacturing (AM) cluster of the Civil, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Innovation division of the National Science Foundation (NSF). At his home institute, Mississippi State University, Dr. Bian is the Thomas B. & Terri L. Nusz Endowed Professor in the Industrial and Systems Engineering Department. Dr. Bian received his Ph.D. in Industrial and Systems Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology and B.S. in Applied Mathematics from Beijing University. The major themes of Dr. Bian’s research focus on understanding the process-structure-property relationships of additive manufacturing, as well as the investigation of how AI/ML can transform the modeling and experimental approaches. Dr. Bian was the president of IISE Quality Control and Reliability Engineering division and is currently serving on the editorial board of multiple ASME and IISE journals.