ManufacturingAI and what's coming in 2025.
The convergence of computer vision, genAI, and 3D printing technologies are leading to a new language for manufacturing that will define this century.
ManufacturingAI
ManufacturingAI is a profound change to both how we design and how we manufacture, allowing for designers to translate their design intent directly into manufacturable 3D while integrating real-time intelligence into the design process.
ManufacturingAI treats CAD as code, allowing for the same rapid improvements we are used to seeing in software to reach the factory floor. 3D assets can be generated, updated, and improved as quickly as code, while the translation of 3D assets into coding language leverages the rapid learning and inference capabilities of genAI. Key to this is the integration of massive amounts of data in real-time directly into the design and manufacturing chain, allowing for the same network advantages that software development enjoys, with new snippets of code, features, or functions developed across a community to quickly increase the potential of a given application.
The benefits of ManufacturingAI are a much higher diversity of specialized, rapidly improving product categories without the risk and waste of legacy development cycles. Product generations normally take 2-3 years to develop, test, commercialize, learn, and update a given product line; with ManufacturingAI these product generations are set to shrink to weeks and months instead of years while delivering new design and performance capabilities.
To my knowledge the only place on Earth where we have actually seen this in operation is in Ukraine, where drone manufacturing mirrors this horizontal, interoperable approach and where product generations are being launched every three weeks.
Similar to the shift from vertical to horizontal that Microsoft brought to computing in the 1980s, digital manufacturing is entering a Cambrian moment that will deliver an explosion of new technologies and applications revolving around operating systems that are generative, modular, and composable while being hardware and application agnostic.
The First Intelligent OS for Footwear Creation
HILOS is building the first industry-specific OS for ManufacturingAI, adopting a horizontal approach that focuses on the specific logic for translating design inputs for footwear into actually manufacturable 3D shoes that can integrate across a range of technologies. Our OS is frontend and application agnostic, allowing for a wider diversity of hardware integrations and software applications, where improvements in one layer of the stack contribute to new capabilities and applications elsewhere.
Application layer - Interplay
Standalone applications built on HILOS OS can be cloud-based or local, on-prem or off, and incorporate custom tools and third party integrations. Interplay is our own application and defined interface for those who may desire custom tools, models, and workflows but do not need a custom frontend.
Model layer
Our Model layer combines general LLMs with specific language models trained on footwear design and manufacturing data, allowing for the rapid creation of custom models based on proprietary data streams. Imagine designers building custom models around proprietary design archives or real-time testing data. Proprietary data and hyperlocal models can be kept on-prem, ensuring ownership of all core IP and resulting AI capabilities.
Developer platform
Our SDKs allow third-party developers to build custom plugins at the application layer, rapidly expanding the set of capabilities and features at the application layer. This development community can create proprietary tools only available to a specific customer or openly available tools and plug-ins that are available for free or low-cost to the entire community of users.
Operating System
MagiCAD
Our 3D engine supplies the underlying language for 3D asset creation, translating code into CAD that reflects the manufacturing logic learned by our models and the design intent of the user.1APIs
Our APIs translates 3D CAD files into discrete manufacturing technologies: an upper is 3D knitted while paneling is 3D printed on an MJF, the bottom unit extruded using FDM. That a single design generated into a cohesive set of 3D assets can be discretized into a number of different manufacturing outputs is the critical sort-and-push approach used by our 3D processor and its surrounding APIs. This translation would be prohibitive without the use of genAI agents that can take structured and unstructured data and learn from the translation process across different formats and manufacturing techniques.
Our Manufacturing AI application: Interplay
Interplay showcases our approach to generative, modular, and composable applications built for ManufacturingAI. The application is built as an infinite canvas waiting to be filled with different nodes, each one representing a different function or tool developed over HILOS OS. Designers can start with existing workflows or build their own, chaining various nodes together to deliver powerful, new product capabilities.
Nodes follow a general classification:
Inputs: These bring in outside data, either manually letting a user bring in an image or sketch, or automatically using webhooks or APIs to bring in real-time customer, testing, or cultural data. This includes custom AI models, or avatars, trained on both structured and unstructured data.
Generators: These generate assets, be they visual renders, cut views, or high-res 3D files for manufacturing.
Modifiers: These introduce specific capabilities to the user, modifying assets accordingly. Examples can be red-lining an existing render to change it, generating custom textures that load into a 3D texture pen for modifying a 3D asset, or changing lasts and morphing the assets accordingly.
With a modular approach, these nodes can be assembled into any order the user desires and are infinitely compostable. This is uniquely well-suited to both the flexibility and customization designers demand while also delivering a developer platform to easily build and launch new nodes and capabilities.
To learn what manufacturing AI means for the future of footwear, read on below:
Or if you’re an executive at a large brand exploring how you can bring this into your company, we have a few tips for you below:
How to get started if you're an executive at a big brand
If you are an executive at a large brand that sees where the puck is moving but struggles to move the company there with you, below are a few tips I’ve found helpful when HILOS is working with large and complex organizations.
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Language is an apt metaphor: our 3D engine classifies CAD assets as primitives, each made up of arguments (such as last, biteline, outsole curve) and properties, such as the color or material of that manufacturable asset. Primitives act as words that behave according to their own underlying grammar and syntax, allowing them to understand which other words they go with, how, and what that in turn creates.