Hitachi develops video AI to automate work procedure documentation

Hitachi, Ltd. has developed a new video AI technology designed to assist in the creation and updating of work procedure manuals. The technology is aimed at manufacturing, maintenance, and inspection sites where complex processes make skill succession and quality maintenance challenging.

The AI can automatically extract work procedure segments and content from videos. It utilizes temporal change analysis to distinguish between highly similar processes by analyzing the movement of hands, tools, and objects across multiple frames. This addresses the technical difficulty of differentiating tasks that look nearly identical in video footage.

By reducing the need for manual time-labeling, the technology streamlines the documentation process. Hitachi reported that in tests using a specialized dataset for complex assembly, the accuracy of identifying similar procedures improved by approximately 73% compared to conventional methods. The company aims to expand this technology to support skill transfer and training through its Lumada 3.0 initiative.