Industry 4.0 prowess still hinges on the human touch
Executives in the manufacturing industry are keen on ramping up their industry 4.0 maturity. New research from EFESO Management Consultants and Solvace shows that the keys to doing this are not only related to which technology or machines firms invest in, though – they also include setting up a company’s people for success.
In the last decade, the term Industry 4.0 has become a somewhat amorphous term for integrating different digital technologies with pre-existing industrial processes. This has encompassed a growing list of flavour-of-the-month technologies, from blockchain to the metaverse, to big data, robotics and – most recently – artificial intelligence.
But however exciting the supposed potential of each of those digital phenomena is, businesses must be careful not to lose sight of what is most important in their operations. However powerful technology becomes, it will require people to operate it in some capacity – and to make it profitable as a mode of capitalistic production.
Backing this up further, researchers from EFESO and Solvace spoke to a range of leading executives across the industrial sector – to discuss how companies are transforming their operations with the power of Industry 4.0. But once firms had aligned their factories and data, time and again, the conversation came back to one question: “What about your people?”
Drawing on the responses of the surveyed industry leaders, EFESO and Solvace determined that getting the most out of Industry 4.0 ultimately hinged upon a collaborative approach – both in terms of bosses working with their staff to implement change, but also in terms of finding ways for machines to complement rather than ‘replace’ humans.
Win hearts and minds
Most companies surveyed ranked their digital transformation as being at the halfway point – the technology has been implemented and they are now ready to not only scale up, but accelerate. With companies clearly valuing the possible efficiency savings this could yield, which almost every company said scaling would not be easy, the majority were pushing ahead regardless.
However, the half-way point in their transformation is especially vulnerable. An 81% portion of industrial firms which told the researchers they had struggled with this transformation, while nearly a fifth had ultimately failed to hit their original goals. Of those failures, 67% said the crux of the matter lay in change management – and their ability to shift an entrenched mindset, to persuade seasoned employees to welcome new technology.
“This is a Herculean task— but not insurmountable,” explain the researchers. “The shop floor, the backbone of industry, is ripe for digitisation. But this requires a culture that champions innovation and forgives the stumbles that come before the stride. Remember, the digital shift is a human endeavour as much as a technical one. It's about guiding your teams through the transformation with a well calibrated pace and a clear vision. The intensity and scope of change are yours to command.”
Horizontal change
First and foremost, leaders need to be clear with what they hope to improve by implementing Industry 4.0 technologies. They are not doing it for the sake of buzzwords, or to simply undercut workers by replacing them with robots. The plan is to improve the productivity of human labour by enhancing the daily fabric of their activities with digital capabilities. But this cannot only be a top-down process either – for workers to buy into these changes, and help them succeed, they must be engaged in the transformation for themselves, and help to shape it.
“This collaboration should be less top down and instead aim to facilitate collaboration between the shop floor and the top floor,” the report notes. “This means shifting the focus from trying to control processes and instead towards looking at ways to further empower the connected worker.”
Education
On top of this, a consistent message the researchers heard across all their conversations was that digital transformation cannot happen without re-skilling of a company’s people. In particular, Saint-Gobain, which designs, manufactures and distributes materials and services for the construction and industrial markets, confirmed regardless of how digital a company becomes, it cannot take away the human factor.
Kyle Tansill who, as an automation engineer, was on the frontlines of Saint-Gobain’s Industry 4.0 revolution, explained that facing a low level of standardisation for its machinery, the firm turned its focus to automation and connectivity – but even after “we brought in all these sexy tools… we realised that while everyone knew we should be doing something with them, nobody actually knew what that something was”.
To bridge this gap, the firm had to go back and focus on its workforce skills skills, ensuring that its people had basic automation skills. They also upgraded invested in automation infrastructure. This resulted in Saint-Gobain taking a position where most of its strategic machinery features updated modes of working, and some form of connectivity, but most importantly, its sites are staffed with people who understand automation.
Partners
When hierarchical business has been the norm at a firm for generations, however, this can be easier said than done. Sometimes, the key to getting human partnerships to work is to bring in an outside perspective. This was the experience of Sandvik, a Swedish multinational engineering company specializing in products and services for mining, rock excavation, rock drilling, rock processing, metal cutting and machining, recently underwent a comprehensive rebranding. At the heart of that rebranding was digitalisation.
Speaking to the researchers, Adriano Leone Osti, programme lead for manufacturing excellence and Industry 4.0 at Sandvik, said the firm knew it wanted to digitise “in order to reduce costs and increase efficiency”. But most importantly, “what we didn’t know was where to begin.”
For Sandvik, digitalization was something that the company knew it needed, but the ‘how’ and the ‘what’ were unclear. For those getting started on their own digitalisation journeys, Osti offered two pieces of advice from his experiences. Transformations can be improved when firms invest in partners, and in a change management system.
Speaking on the former, Otsi explained that the right consulting partner can help build “a smooth digital transformation”. Indeed, the projects that succeed “tend to be the ones who are able to select the right partners, and who get those partners to work together”. At the same time, they can help identify and use the right performance management system – allowing companies to monitor all the relevant data and weed out everything that doesn’t matter, leaving them with “a clear picture of what you want – and often need – to do.”
