The Dawn of Intelligent Manufacturing
Manufacturing has entered a new era. No longer is it characterized by outdated methods and procedures; instead, it’s a sector defined by innovation, particularly, in workforce training and development.
Automation, digitalization, and Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) have raised operational standards significantly. This evolution means that manufacturers must rethink how they train and reskill frontline workers, who often have varying levels of experience, competence, and language proficiency. The industry must also maintain worker health and safety.
Streamlining Knowledge Transfer with AI
Imparting knowledge and experience to workers is critical, and GenAI is poised to become a key tool in this endeavor. Connected-worker platforms enable efficient content creation and delivery. GenAI and these platforms have become central in creating checklists, honing skills, improving procedures, and facilitating knowledge transfer, as content creation is an ongoing effort. But creating content alone has its challenges.
Since inflation is on the rise, taking workers away from their duties on the shop floor for content creation poses a significant problem for management. Facilitating efficient content retrieval on the shop floor presents an even greater challenge.
Bringing connected worker platforms and GenAI to the shop floor makes the workplace more engaging. Manufacturers seeking to recruit Gen Z workers will have to ensure that all instructions are available on digital platforms, as younger workers are accustomed to digitally searching for answers, making digital content availability necessary for training and retaining them. These workers also expect to have the means to take ownership of their roles.
AI-Enhanced Content for Frontline Workers
Frontline workers require content that is easily understood and quickly assimilated. It must be accessible in multiple formats, such as text-based instructions. However, creating this content consumes considerable time and capital.
This concern goes beyond even new content. Plants and workshops will have thousands of existing content files, such as standard operating procedures and work instructions. But converting each one into an easily accessible reference is also costly and time-intensive. The full value of connected worker solutions may take time to be realized, due to the time and effort required to import and build the required digital work instructions into the platform. AI can streamline the creation or conversion of each type of content with AI-powered content transformation to significantly reduce the time needed to establish digital or written instructions in one secure location.
The ability to convert documents in minutes, such as from lengthy, written standard operating procedures into easy-to-comprehend Digital Work Instructions, will reduce deployment times and accelerate the time to value.
AI-Powered Search and Text Optimization
Concise communication and comprehensive understanding is critical to improving worker and team productivity. Errors are inevitable in the fast-paced and often loud manufacturing environment. What if workers had a tool that intelligently interprets a user’s input and automatically optimizes it with improved grammar, vocabulary, and punctuation to ensure clarity and comprehension?
AI can empower workers to work smarter, not harder by providing them with intelligent search capabilities that not only grasp their inquiry’s intent but also adapt to human nuances like typos or vague terms. For example, workers can quickly troubleshoot a broken mixing machine with a jammed mechanism by using AI, which adapts and presents relevant and appropriate information. AI empowers workers to find the right information at the right time.
Video Content and Gen Z Preferences
Video content is becoming widely sought and consumed, especially by Gen Z. In fact, 57% of Gen Z members prefer to learn about new products by watching short videos versus other formats. When creating digital work instructions, manufacturing businesses should consider the effectiveness of videos for improved user engagement. Creating video-based instructions for shop-floor workers is challenging, however, particularly for operations that lack the financial and human resources to do so correctly.
AI-driven video instructions will change that. GenAI can gather relevant information, sequence it correctly, and write it into a structure that workers can follow. Images can provide helpful visual context at each step, allowing workers to access a step-by-side visual guide to accomplishing their assignments.
This new content format improves workplace troubleshooting as operators gain access to a broader content library. And younger workers can benefit from the knowledge of senior operators in ways that engage them and align with their expectations of the new workplace.
Breaking Down Language Barriers
In the U.S., immigrant workers account for 2.92 million manufacturing positions. And most of these workers do not speak English as their first language. Global manufacturers often struggle to ensure that critical operational content is available in all languages spoken by their workforces. AI-powered transcription can break down global language barriers and encourage worker inclusion by translating all types of content into the required language.
This intelligent capability automatically translates the audio from videos into relevant subtitles in the preferred language of the user. Not only will this reduce the effort needed to create and maintain content, but it will improve the comprehension and retention of information, leading to greater safety, quality, and productivity on the shop floor.
The manufacturing industry is heading toward an AI-powered future, with workforce training and development at the forefront, adding to its effectiveness in data collection, analysis, and reporting.
