Towards next-gen smart manufacturing systems: the explainability revolution

Abstract The paper shares the author’s perspectives on the role of explainable-AI in the evolving landscape of AI-driven smart manufacturing decisions. First, critical perspectives on the reasons for the slow adoption of explainable-AI in manufacturing are shared, leading to a discussion on its role and relevance in inspiring scientific understanding and discoveries towards achieving complete autonomy. Finally, to standardize explainability quantification, a new Transparency–Cohesion–Comprehensibility (TCC) evaluation framework is proposed and demonstrated.