A Blueprint for Retaining Frontline Manufacturing Workers

Frontline manufacturing workers are vital to the success of any production process. From operators to maintenance technicians and quality control inspectors, these individuals form the first line on the factory floor, ensuring that products are built to the highest standards of quality. However, the National Association of Manufacturers' (NAM) 2024 First Quarter Outlook Survey reveals that more than two-thirds of manufacturers are struggling to attract and retain employees. With frontline workforce attrition rates exceeding 10 percent, plant leaders are now confronted with the task of bridging the skills gap and engaging the next generation of workers as seasoned employees exit the workforce.

To address these challenges, it is crucial to focus on improving the digital employee experience for frontline workers. By enhancing communication across the factory floor, reducing repetitive and manual tasks, providing in-the-moment job training and real-time support, and empowering frontline workers to be more efficient, manufacturers have a unique opportunity to cultivate a loyal and skilled workforce that can contribute to the growth and success of their business. 

In this WWT Research Note, we recommend steps that manufacturers should follow to enhance the day-to-day experience of their frontline employees, and ultimately, deliver a better product and customer experience.  

Understand employees' workflows and challenges

Improving the digital employee experience in manufacturing is not just about implementing new technologies. It's about understanding frontline employees' needs and challenges and creating an environment where they can thrive. Manufacturers should put employees at the center of their transformation efforts.

By creating dynamic personas (groupings of employees that share common characteristics, services and requirements), leaders can step into the shoes of their frontline workers and identify digital friction in their daily work. 

For example, you might discover that factory operator managers have trouble accessing and utilizing the documentation system for equipment maintenance and troubleshooting. The current system may be outdated and difficult to navigate, making it time-consuming and frustrating to find the necessary information. This increases downtime and creates bottlenecks in the production line. 

Another example is inventory tracking. Many manufacturers are still tied to paper-based processes where employees must scan a barcode on a product and then scan a piece of paper to show they've completed their step of the process. Then they might have to log into another system to update inventory and tracking. This is a very manual process that slows production and allows for human error.

Understanding how frontline employees work, who they collaborate with, and the systems and tools they use to do their jobs is key to investing in the right technologies and process improvements that will attract and retain skilled workers.  

Break down data silos 

Many manufacturing organizations rely on various systems, such as SCADA, ERP and others, for operations. Because these systems store different types of data in different ways and communicate using different protocols, it often leads to siloed visibility across disparate platforms. 

For instance, a maintenance manager might only have a view of systems that need to be fixed, while a line operator might only see the current state of operations. This lack of shared context between different roles within the plant can lead to inefficiencies and missed opportunities for proactive problem-solving. 

We witnessed this first-hand with a large automotive company that uses quality control checkpoints to identify issues with the wiring harnesses in the dashboards of a particular automobile. However, due to physical distance and lack of efficient communication channels, this information could not be relayed back to the workers implementing the harnesses earlier in the production process. As a result, the cars failed the quality check and were placed in a lot for reworking. This led to lost revenue, significant rework and employee frustration. 

Manufacturers should work towards eliminating these data silos, enabling consistent access to data throughout the plant, and improving and automating communication with their organizations. In the case of the automotive company, doing so could save them time and money by resolving issues sooner and preventing rework. 

Identify and implement the right use cases for AI

AI's potential to revolutionize industries has captured the attention of leaders across sectors. Combined with automation, the possibilities are endless. However, according to the NAM survey, nearly half (46 percent) of manufacturing leaders are unsure of the right AI use case for their business. 

Improving the frontline workforce experience is a great place to start. AI can automate repetitive tasks, provide guidance for new workers and improve quality control. 

For example, WWT is assisting a manufacturer in leveraging computer vision to automatically detect quality control issues like sheet metal defects and wall thicknesses. These errors are not always visible to the human eye but can cause significant problems later. By reducing scrap and rework, frontline employees can focus more on producing high-quality products.

We're also utilizing digital twins to replicate factory environments.  This allows our manufacturing clients to test changes to staffing, floor layouts and procedures before implementing them physically. Leaders can iron out any issues before implementing these changes for employees, thereby saving costs and minimizing employee frustration. This is just one example. There are many ways manufacturers can leverage digital twins to predict equipment failure, enhance decision-making, design and test products, and simulate training. 

Measure progress

Enhancing the frontline workforce experience in manufacturing is crucial for attracting and retaining skilled employees and improving overall productivity. To measure progress, manufacturers should track key metrics and indicators that demonstrate the effectiveness of their efforts, such as: 

• Employee satisfaction and engagement: Regular surveys and feedback sessions can provide valuable insights into how frontline workers perceive the changes implemented to enhance their experience. Digital experience monitoring (DEM) solutions can help automate this process.
• Employee retention rates: One of the main reasons for improving the frontline workforce experience is to build a loyal workforce. Consider monitoring average employee retention rates, average length of service and new hire retention rates.
• Productivity: Reducing digital friction should help increase workers' efficiency and output. Compare production rates before and after digital employee experience improvements, analyze the time taken to complete tasks, and monitor any changes in error rates or rework.
• Downtime: Digital employee experience enhancements can minimize production downtime by proactively identifying and resolving equipment issues, improving access to information, and reducing manual tasks.
• Quality control: Monitoring the decrease in defects and rework can indicate the success of digital employee experience enhancements in ensuring product quality.

By continuously evaluating these metrics and indicators, manufacturers can ensure that their efforts to improve the digital employee experience are effective and aligned with their goals of attracting, retaining and empowering frontline workers.