Physics & Machine Health with Algorithms Lead Mica Rubinson, Ph.D

What can physics teach us about machine health in manufacturing? Joining us today to unpack this question is Mica Rubinson, a physicist with a PhD from the Weizmann Institute of Science. She currently serves as the algorithms lead for Augury, a company providing AI-driven insights into machines, processes, and operations in manufacturing. We sit down to discuss her transition from physics and neuroscience to working in AI, and how her background has informed her understanding of complex systems and improving machine health algorithms.

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Episode Notes

Mica shares the methods behind Augury’s fault testing processes, why they use the highest quality data available, how in-house experts help them filter their data reliably, and their approach to communicating with customers. Our conversation also explores the balance between edge computing and cloud computing, and why both are necessary for optimal performance and monitoring.

Key Points From This Episode:

Mica’s journey from studying physics at the Weizmann Institute to her current role at Augury.
How her background in physics and neuroscience inform her work in AI.
Why physicists are drawn to AI and data science; how scientists follow their curiosity.
Mica’s responsibilities in her role as algorithms team lead at Augury.
How they develop algorithms and test for faults; why this requires the highest quality data.
Understanding the role of their in-house expert vibration analysts.
The importance of domain expertise in labeling and annotating data.
Finding the balance between manual and automated processes in data labeling.
How to communicate with customers and present metrics that matter to them.
Augury’s use of edge and cloud computing for optimal performance and monitoring.

Quotes:

“We look for better ways to adjust our algorithms and also develop new ones for all kinds of faults that could happen in the machines catching events that are trickier to catch, and for that we need highest quality data.” — Mica Rubinson [0:08:20]

“At Aubrey, we have internal vibration analysts that are experts in their field. They go through very rigorous training process. There are international standards to how you do vibration analysis, and we have them in-house.” — Mica Rubinson [0:09:07]

“[It’s] really helpful for us to have [these] in-house experts. We have massive amounts of records – signal recordings from 10 years of machine monitoring. Thanks to these experts [in] labeling, we can filter out a lot of noisy parts of this data.” — Mica Rubinson [0:10:32]

“We quantify [our services] for the customer as their ROI [and] how much they saved by using Augury. You had this [issue, and] we avoided this downtime. [We show] how much does it translates eventually [into] money that you saved.” — Mica Rubinson [0:22:28]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Mica Rubinson on LinkedIn

Mica Rubinson on ResearchGate

Augury
Weizmann Institute of Science

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