How Plant Management Will Change With ChatGPT
Large language models like ChatGPT can effortlessly explore operations management options and analyze processes without adding time or cost.
This is the final post in our series on using ChatGPT to build out an automotive manufacturing operation. We will summarize the capabilities and deficiencies of ChatGPT.
Harnessing ChatGPT to Explore Alternative Options
As I was playing Production Line alongside ChatGPT a recent article on the evolution of the design engineer remained top of mind. For design engineers, simulation-led design has empowered them “to explore many more design options without adding time or cost.” For a plant manager, ChatGPT can enable a similar ability to effortlessly explore many courses of action quickly for a nominal fee.
In my discussion with ChatGPT, it centered around inquisitive questioning or ‘prompt engineering.’ Throughout my professional life, I have participated in variations of those type of questions (Five whys anyone?) both as a manager and as a consultant. And although I was only playing a game, I avoided any hypothetical disruptions to my analysts to ask them questions nor did I need to create a new set of work for them to build out another iteration of a model. Instead, I could rapidly iterate through a chat interface that would retain enough context of my questioning to generate increasingly viable ideas. Quite simply, ChatGPT helped my scale my curiosity albeit in a limited manner.
Was This A Realistic Plant Management Scenario?
To determine if the scenario I presented was plausible, I pulled down a recent job posting for a Plant Manager at Huntsman Corporation. I’ve bolded elements of the job description where ChatGPT helped assist in my duties during the simulation.
Job Description
Huntsman is seeking a Plant Manager supporting the Advanced Materials Division located in East Lansing, MI. This position will report to the Americas Regional Manufacturing Director. The Plant Manager is responsible and accountable for the safe day-to-day operations of the East Lansing facility. This includes overseeing all production, quality, maintenance, and site environmental and safety performance. The Site Manager is also responsible for the administration of all production and technical staff and sets annual individual objectives and drives performance improvement. The ideal candidate will be a transformational leader with strong business acumen, and a strategic thinker with a vision of significantly improving plant safety, compliance, asset utilization, and P&L.
As The Plant Manager You Will
Ensure that all site safety & environmental, as well as emergency response procedures are in place; maintained and meet or exceed Huntsman standards and all local and federal government laws and regulations; and are understood and followed by the site employees.
Serve as the site’s ethics and compliance officer. All operations and actions must comply with the Huntsman Business Conduct Guidelines.
Ensure that all security issues relating to the protection of site property are in-place and maintained. Ensure that all contractors employed in implementing and maintaining site security meet company standards and perform as expected.
Manage the annual site fixed cost budget to target levels.
Oversee all contractors who work on-site (mechanical, electrical, etc.). Ensure that they follow all site safety and environmental procedures and meet our expectations on quality of work. Review contractor performance on an annual basis, and if needed, replace contractors.
Manage all capital projects (example, installing new equipment, storage tanks, etc.). All capital projects must be completed on schedule and within budget. Proper planning of capital expenses must follow the corporate timelines and submission processes.
Where appropriate, meet with commercial and technical associates to ensure that production and quality expectations of the business are being met. If the site is falling short on our objectives to the business, the Site Manager will have responsibility to put in place the needed corrective actions.
Establish key objectives for the site personnel to align with corporate, division, and functional goals and objectives. This should be done annually at a minimum. Performance against key objectives should be measured and monitored continuously with individual feedback given on a regular basis. Any performance deficiencies should be addressed through strong performance management and corrective actions if necessary.
During the simulation, ChatGPT was able to recall and explain numerous approaches to address these real world responsibilities. Revisit the posts to see for yourself! In “Would Chat GPT Get a Wharton MBA? A Prediction Based on Its Performance in the Operations Management Course,” Christian Terwiesch writes an excellent summary that aligns with our experience of ChatGPT’s capabilities and deficiencies:
First, it does an amazing job at basic operations management and process analysis questions including those that are based on case studies. Not only are the answers correct, but the explanations are excellent. Second, Chat GPT at times makes surprising mistakes in relatively simple calculations at the level of 6th grade Math. These mistakes can be massive in magnitude. Third, the present version of Chat GPT is not capable of handling more advanced process analysis questions, even when they are based on fairly standard templates. This includes process flows with multiple products and problems with stochastic effects such as demand variability. Finally, ChatGPT3 is remarkably good at modifying its answers in response to human hints.
Further Exploration
As evident in the job description, there are numerous responsibilities related to following established procedures and complying to guidelines and laws. Large language models like ChatGPT could identify options to address those responsibilities too. As EY’s global chief technology officer, Nicola Morini Bianzin puts it, “ChatGPT’s killer enterprise use case will be managing knowledge.” For many manufacturers, they have decades of documented processes, procedures, and corrective actions that could be incorporated into the AI to scale best practices and compliance.
Lastly, the folks over at MakingChips take ChatGPT for an entertaining test drive around the machine shop. It’s also worth a listen: