"About 10 Apple employees spent some of their valuable hours over recent months on a project that might seem unusual for the tech giant: customizing an open source AI tool for ImageTek, a small manufacturer in Springfield, Vermont whose lines of business include printing millions of labels for food packaging. The Apple engineers developed a computer vision system to automatically identify color errors, and on one run it picked up bacon labels with a far-too-pinkish beige before they got shipped, according to Marji Smith, ImageTek's president."
"ImageTek isn't an Apple supplier. Instead, the engineering assistance it's receiving is a previously unreported portion of the $600 billion investment in US manufacturing through 2028 that Apple announced this year. The iPhone maker committed to opening up a server factory in Houston, which it did recently. It also pledged to increase spending with domestic suppliers and educate "the next generation of US manufacturers." For a company with 166,000 employees and $112 billion in annual profit last fiscal year, the investment in education is small."
Apple launched the Apple Manufacturing Academy to provide hands-on training and engineering support to U.S. manufacturers. Apple engineers customized an open-source AI computer-vision tool for ImageTek to automatically detect color errors on label production, catching problematic bacon labels before shipment and averting customer loss. The initiative is part of a broader $600 billion investment in U.S. manufacturing through 2028 that includes a Houston server factory and higher domestic supplier spending. Michigan State University partners on the academy and receives $2.5 million to reimburse classrooms, marketing, and instructors for the program's first year.
Read at WIRED
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