AI in manufacturing in Canada has a long history in vision inspection and process control, and most plants already collect more sensor data than anyone reviews. What is new is that language models can read the other half of the plant: work orders, inspection reports, supplier certificates, nonconformance reports and the manuals nobody has time to search.
Most mid-size manufacturers are not short of ideas. They are short of people who can connect the ERP, the MES, the historian and the maintenance system, and of time to clean the data. The projects that succeed start with one line or one problem, use the data already captured, and put the answer in front of the supervisor who can act on it.