Why Skilled Workers Will Always Be Essential in Manufacturing, Even with AI

Impressive Talent

Every week I meet people who have been at a company for 26 years, and held 80% of the job titles. You might think of them as a jack of all trades, but I see them as savvy business people focused on adding value for their customers, coworkers, and company. Loyal people who have dedicated their best years, even their lives to making their workplace a better place, and the product or service the best in the industry.

Manufacturers set up plants in corners of the earth that are less traveled, to be close to mines/forests or close to markets; these places are in areas where there are less workplace alternatives, but does that make their employees less amazing? Are you really thinking that someone from Iowa, Wisconsin, or Indiana is not as good as someone from a larger hip metro area?

Absolutely not, these employees pride themselves on being experts in their industry and department, looking to improve and provide better quality products and better services. I have been impressed, over and over, by these dedicated employees.

AI will Never Replace the Experience and Dedication of Employees

Sometimes new technology is viewed as a way to remove headcount. This is simply not how many manufacturers and distributors approach new technology. Certainly they are focused on continuous improvement, increased throughput, increased quality, and margin protection. However, that is balanced by the need for human resources. So much of the job is (1) hard to learn, (2) hard to perfect, and (3) hard to hire. Why fire someone and spend $30k finding and training someone? Manufacturers are already running on a very lean staff and their employees serve in a way that reflects their values, that that reflects well on their employers.

This encourages companies to keep their talent, even when that means repurposing them in a different department. The knowledge they bring about the business in other areas enhances their effectiveness in the new position. This demonstration of mutual investment, both by employer and employee creates an unmatched and unique (in today’s expectation) culture and workplace.

Employees Are More Valuable Than AI

The incredible news about AI has been overshadowing celebrations of amazing employees but the smart managers know that frequently employees are more valuable than the AI-powered automations that receive the hype. Yes, it is true that AI can predict values and make decisions faster than an employee, and that’s where we should focus it- in areas that are repetitive, require opening multiple pieces of software, or considered more administrative. This frees up employees to focus on areas where we want to focus: qualifying new suppliers, tracking down quality issues, continuous improvement initiatives, and other key aspects of the business.

A colleague of mine mentioned this interesting article from Forbes, How AI Is Solving America’s $1 Trillion Manufacturing Labor Crisis. The main point is that there is a major labor shortage in manufacturing and AI is providing ways to automate beyond what was possible in the past. This is consistent with my experience working to digitally transform manufacturers.

Two client visits in different industries come to mind: the first manufacturer struggled to keep up with quality issues, sometimes taking a full year to root cause and correct a quality issue. The second manufacturer understood they have challenges around rework and processing times, but did not have the man power to properly analyze it; hence, their production costs are wildly fluctuating and hard to anticipate or control. In both cases, humans were able to address only a very small percentage of the defects. Any automation and prioritization that AI can do enhances the business outcomes in those areas, it does not remove the need for a human.

Software such as Dynamics 365 has some very compelling AI agents that truly improve the speed and efficiency of employees. That is how I see it, speed and efficiency. I expect over the next several years we will hear more about digital workers and how certain jobs will be replaced by a digital worker agent. This can be true in some very targeted areas, i.e. travel agents, however the 90% of employees will use agents as personal assistants.

An example is the Sales Order Processing Agent that the Microsoft FastTrack team has released. It automates the intake of Customer POs received as email attachments and enters them as sales orders into Microsoft Dynamics 365. You can provide natural language rules to validate PDF data and expand on the logic and automation using Power Automate. This automation allows customer service representatives to focus on providing hands-on personalized service when it matters, and not spend time keying in orders.

Dynamics-365-FastTrack-Implementation-Assets/AI ERP Agents/Sales Order Agent at master · microsoft/Dynamics-365-FastTrack-Implementation-Assets · GitHub

Conclusion

Are you in manufacturing? How do you view AI? Consider looking at it as a tool, such as a calculator or laptop, that can further enhance the talent that you have already. Take a hard look at how you define the jobs in your department and consider how those jobs will be different. Will there be time saved, and how does that let you focus the team on value added work?

Side Quest: As a leader, should you be more focused on celebrating the contributions of employees?

Original Post https://calafell.me/ai-vs-experience-the-unmatched-value-of-human-dedication-in-manufacturing/