AI That Shows Up on Your P & L
By Kirk Davis— Center for Advanced Manufacturing Puget Sound( CAMPS)
Kirk Davis
Executive Director, CAMPS
CENTER FOR ADVANCED MANUFACTURING PUGET SOUND
ONE LATE HIGH-VALUE JOB. ONE SCRAP EVENT ON A FLIGHT-CRITICAL OR SPACE PART. ONE SENIOR MACHINIST’ S KNOW- HOW WALKING OUT THE DOOR. ANY OF THOSE CAN ERASE MORE MARGIN THAN A YEAR OF EFFICIENCY TALK.
Primes talk about the digital thread and AI. Suppliers feel pressure to do something. Most respond by shopping for a tool, a digital twin, or a new platform. That often misses the real opportunity.
The goal is not to purchase technology that may or may not work. It is to build internal AI capability— a practical way to see the plant clearly, make better decisions, and improve results that show up on the P & L.
Start with information you already have: schedules, travelers, NCR logs, FAI packs, quote history, and estimate-versusactual. These already run the shop, even when they are partly on paper, scattered across systems, or imperfect. The opportunity is turning them into insights leadership can act on every week.
CAMPS created an AI Leadership Roadmap to help manufacturers do that. It starts with the information you already use, creates shared visibility around one money question, establishes a weekly review, and only then automates what has proven worth watching.
See the data. Test the insight. Decide with human judgment. Deploy more technology only when the evidence earns it. Sometimes the highest return comes from avoiding a premature technology purchase.
44 NORTHWEST AEROSPACE NEWS