Because of the complexity of today’s vehicles, many design problems that occur early in the development process don’t become apparent until the latter stages. This results in many costly reworks at the end phase of automobile design. Honda R&D worked with consultants from IBM Garage to create an AI chatbot to give designers greater insight into past problems. Using IBM Watson Discovery and IBM Watson Assistant software to capture and analyze the vast amounts of text-based, unstructured design documentation, Honda R&D is harnessing the power of AI to help reduce reworks.
“The AI system will grow up like an expert engineer,” explains Yoichiro Komatsu, Assistant Chief Engineer, Honda R&D Co., Ltd.