Empowering the manufacturing workforce with AI

Empowering employees is the key to attracting and retaining talent. No matter their age, people want to work somewhere they can learn something interesting, have advancement opportunities and be an active part of a community. Facilitating that environment is the most critical manufacturing innovation needed for the future of the industry and its employees.

By harnessing the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI), manufacturers can eliminate repetitive tasks and inefficiencies, empowering workers to focus on higher-level work and giving them time to innovate and collaborate. The alternative is for staff to spend more time firefighting unexpected issues and performing monotonous, routine maintenance tasks.

Ultimately, it’s all about improving the job quality of workers on the factory floor. AI augmentation helps them do the job better, provides them with better tools, gives them greater authority and increases the value of their jobs.

Unlocking AI potential with skills development

There are several strategies manufacturers can pursue to promote the development of AI-skilled workers. While expertise in areas such as programming, data analytics and machine learning are obvious choices, manufacturers also need to grow their cache of critical thinkers and problem solvers.

The first step is to invest in upskilling programs to smooth the AI integration process and develop existing talent. Job descriptions should be updated to reflect the skill sets needed in the next five to seven years, and it’s a good idea to teach adaptive skills. These help people adapt quickly to changing demands and environments, which will enhance the workforce’s flexibility. Management upskilling is critical to ensuring they are empowered to recruit, develop and manage different skill sets.

Building partnerships with local schools, technical colleges and universities will help develop talent pipelines that meet the needs of a manufacturing operation geared to reap the benefits of AI. It’s worth considering developing internal training courses customised to meet specific requirements or using massively open online courses (MOOCs) and other forms of online education.

With AI technologies, data is much more accessible, speeding up learning and making it easier to widen the talent pool and develop better advancement opportunities. Even better, adopting AI will probably lead to an increase in jobs as more skilled workers will be needed to manage the new processes.

Putting AI empowerment into practice

AI produces correlated, actionable insights into machines, processes and operations, empowering manufacturing workers to excel and advance their careers. Wider insights that can be shared on a single platform increase collaboration and eliminate the need for regimented, functional groups operating in siloed spaces. Those boundaries dissolve, resulting in cross-functional teams that can share expertise and experiences.

This combined knowledge typically leads to new ways of working and enables learnings to be applied across sites. The more insights workers can gain from their operations, the more empowered they become. When employees face dynamic rather than repetitive work, innovation can start from the factory floor, opening new opportunities and driving new employment interest.

Different perspectives emerge in a cross-functional environment where everybody on the team is building something together, creating a richer source of new ideas and creativity. This evolution will occur in any facility that provides access to data, sparking new conversations and spotlighting each person’s individual expertise.

A clear view of the organisation’s position on AI, its application, and how it will be governed are key ingredients in enabling AI integration.

AI, the workforce and ERP

Just as AI technology can learn from individuals and make their smartphones easier to use, it can also help with software systems like Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). Through interaction, AI improves the user experience, which is a critical element in empowering the manufacturing workforce.

AI makes intelligent decisions based on human input, making applications faster and more responsive to the individual user. For example, when searching through a data-rich system like an ERP, AI can tailor search results based on a user’s history, bringing up more relevant information and making the system faster and simpler to use.

Through its ability to handle both structured and unstructured data, AI provides manufacturers with business analytics tools that organise and present data in a clear, user-friendly way. It can also present the data in a way that is more relevant and easier to understand, boosting workers’ ability to make better decisions.

For manufacturers, the advent of AI will reshape the source of value creation, forming new business models and delivering value-added services such as mass customisation and predictive maintenance.

As AI becomes more prevalent in various aspects of business management and operations, investing in people will become even more important. Rather than displace people, AI and automation will combine their capabilities in new ways to create new forms of value and new opportunities. Manufacturers who identify how to empower their workforces through AI applications will create the greatest value going forward.

Image credit: iStock.com/gorodenkoff