DENSO and Drishti Bring Innovation to the Production Floor with AI-Based Action Recognition Technology

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Feb 12, 2020, 07:00 ET

Drishti's solution accelerates DENSO's digital transformation, optimizes manufacturing processes, reduces waste and supports production employees

SOUTHFIELD, Mich., Feb. 12, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- DENSO, the world's second largest mobility supplier, is working with Drishti Technologies, Inc., (Drishti) to help optimize manufacturing production at multiple of its North American facilities. Drishti's action recognition technology, which is enabled by artificial intelligence (AI) and computer vision, allows DENSO to generate real-time, continuous analytics on manual tasks performed by its production employees. This dataset grants production management the ability to quickly identify and eliminate bottlenecks, improve processes, boost efficiency and prioritize tasks.

These capabilities increase production outputs, improve product quality and consistency, and assist production employees in their day-to-day assignments, helping them identify how they and their teams can better streamline processes. The move is part of DENSO's Long-Term Policy 2030 to create and inspire new value for advanced mobility using disruptive technology. It also marks one of the first times DENSO has integrated AI into its production processes.

"As DENSO continues to transform into a true digital operation, having data on manual tasks fills a major gap in our analytics," said Dave Grimmer, a senior vice president at DENSO and head of its North American Production Innovation Center. "Drishti's continuous data creation offers productivity insights and quality metrics that help us make better decisions, faster."

Drishti's technology can produce datasets that are several orders of magnitude larger than those produced by traditional time and motion studies. Drishti-produced datasets are also more diverse and enriched by video. The benefits of these massive datasets extend beyond the production floor to DENSO's leadership and engineers, who, like production teams, use Drishti's technology to gather production feedback and make data-driven decisions on design and organizational management.

"I'm pleased to see the impact Drishti has had on our people and processes," said Raja Shembekar, vice president of DENSO North American Production Innovation Center. "The potential we now see to achieve significant process gains while simultaneously helping our workforce add greater value is precisely why DENSO is so committed to exploring and implementing innovation with leading-edge startups like Drishti."

"Digitizing highly variable human motion continuously and in real time provides analytics insight that can significantly improve productivity, efficiency, and quality, as well as how we approach employee training," said Jon Ruge, a director of DENSO Industrial Engineering.

As Drishti discovered in joint research with A.T. Kearney, human line employees perform 72% of factory tasks. This data, from a survey of more than 100 manufacturing leaders, suggests that even as the industry increasingly focuses on robotics and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), people and their ingenuity remain central to manufacturing.

"True digital transformation efforts have to extend to the human operator, because the bulk of manufacturing tasks are still done manually," said Prasad Akella, founder and chief executive officer of Drishti. "DENSO recognized that fact well ahead of the rest of the market, and our technology is helping the company secure its position as an innovation leader in the advanced automotive manufacturing industry."

For more information on how DENSO is reimagining transportation and manufacturing, visit https://www.denso.com/us-ca/en/. To see how you can fit in this journey, whether it be through production or engineering, sales or HR, click densocareers.com.

For more on Drishti and its advanced action recognition technology, go to Drishti.com.

About DENSO
DENSO is a $48.3 billion global mobility supplier that develops advanced technology and components for nearly every vehicle make and model on the road today. With manufacturing at its core, DENSO invests in its 221 facilities in 35 countries to produce thermal, powertrain, mobility, electrification, & electronic systems, to create jobs that directly change how the world moves. The company's 170,000+ employees are paving the way to a mobility future that improves lives, eliminates traffic accidents, and preserves the environment. Globally headquartered in Kariya, Japan, DENSO spent 9.3 percent of its global consolidated sales on research and development in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2019. For more information about global DENSO, visit https://www.denso.com/global.

In North America, DENSO is headquartered in Southfield, Michigan, and employs 27,000+ engineers, researchers and skilled workers across 51 sites in the U.S, Canada and Mexico. In the United States alone, DENSO employs 17,700+ employees across 14 states (and the District of Columbia) and 41 sites. In fiscal year ending March 31, 2019, DENSO in North America generated $10.9 billion in consolidated sales. DENSO is committed to advancing diversity and inclusion inside the company and beyond – a principle that brings unique perspectives together, bolsters innovation and pushes DENSO forward. Join us, and craft not only how the world moves, but also your career: www.densocareers.com. For more information, go to https://www.denso.com/us-ca/en/.

About Drishti
Drishti's mission is to extend human capabilities in an increasingly automated world. Its action recognition and AI innovations automatically digitize tasks performed by humans inside the factory to create a massive new dataset. Manufacturers use Drishti to anchor true digital transformation, driving sweeping improvements in productivity, quality and traceability. And line associates rely on Drishti to be more consistent and efficient, becoming even more valuable on the factory floor. For more information, visit Drishti.com

SOURCE DENSO