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Top 10 GenAI-Powered Industrial Copilot Vendors To Watch In 2025

Augmentir was recently recognized by Verdantix as one of the top 10 best AI-powered industrial copilot vendors offering comprehensive solutions for workforce management and productivity efficiency.

Last Updated: July 14, 2025

Generative AI Industrial Copilots—AI assistants powered by large language models (LLMs) and tailored for manufacturing environments—are rapidly becoming essential tools for modern manufacturers. These copilots provide frontline workers and engineers with real-time, context-aware guidance, troubleshooting support, and automated documentation, all through natural language interactions.

Their rise is driven by critical industry challenges: a widening skills gap as experienced workers retire, ongoing workforce shortages, and the urgent need to boost productivity and operational efficiency. By capturing institutional knowledge and delivering it instantly to less-experienced workers, industrial copilots help manufacturers maintain performance, reduce downtime, improve safety, and accelerate digital transformation efforts.

Verdantix, an independent research and advisory firm that provides data-driven insights and strategic guidance on digital strategies for industrial organizations, recently covered the topic of generative AI industrial copilots in a market insights report. Verdantix’s market insight report highlights 10 innovative industrial copilot vendors delivering robust solutions for workforce management and productivity optimization. Industrial leaders can leverage this report to deepen their understanding of AI-driven technologies and explore how these solutions can support their own industrial transformation efforts.

Augmentir was recognized by Verdantix as one of the Top 10 Gen-AI-powered Industrial Copilot Vendors to Watch for 2025.

Top 10 Industrial Copilot Vendors

Here are the top 10 GenAI-Powered Industrial Copilot Vendors To Watch In 2025 as reported by Verdantix:

Augmentir – Augmentir’s generative AI assistant, Augie™, is a transformative tool designed to enhance industrial operations by providing real-time, context-aware support to frontline workers. Augie integrates data from various sources—including operational systems, training modules, and workforce management platforms—to deliver personalized guidance, streamline workflows, and facilitate rapid content creation.
ABB – ABB’s Genix Copilot, developed in collaboration with Microsoft, integrates large language models like GPT-4 to enhance industrial operations. It provides real-time, contextual insights to improve efficiency, productivity, and sustainability across sectors such as energy and utilities.
AVEVA – AVEVA, now part of Schneider Electric, has developed an Industrial AI Assistant, built on Microsoft Azure, that offers a conversational interface for users to access and summarize operational data. This assistant aims to improve decision-making and efficiency in industrial processes.
C3 AI – C3 AI‘s Generative AI Suite provides domain-specific solutions to assist technicians with equipment troubleshooting and reduce training time. The suite enables enterprise users to rapidly access and act on data through intuitive search and chat interfaces.
Cognite – Cognite‘s Generative AI Copilot, integrated within its Data Fusion platform, delivers real-time, contextualized insights for industrial operations. It enhances decision-making by providing a centralized view of industrial data, aiding in safety, reliability, and quality management.
IBM– IBM’s Copilot Runway assists enterprises in creating, customizing, and managing AI copilots, including integration with Microsoft 365. This offering aims to enhance productivity and drive business transformation through seamless AI adoption.
Nanoprecise – Nanoprecise’s ReKurv.ai is a generative AI solution designed for maintenance professionals in industrial environments. It offers real-time, contextual answers based on equipment behavior and operational data to enhance decision-making on factory floors.
Palantir – Palantir’s Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP) connects AI with data and operations to drive automation across processes. It provides tools for building AI-driven functions and managing agents, facilitating real-time decision-making in critical contexts.
Siemens – Siemens’ Industrial Copilot, developed with Microsoft, is a generative AI assistant designed to enhance human-machine collaboration. It assists staff in designing products and organizing production and maintenance processes, aiming to improve productivity across industries.
SymphonyAI – SymphonyAI offers AI-driven solutions tailored for various industries, focusing on enhancing operational efficiency and decision-making. Their platforms integrate generative AI to provide actionable insights and improve business outcomes.

These companies, along with Augmentir, represent a transformative shift in how industrial leaders are deploying GenAI—not just to automate tasks, but to empower frontline workforces and drive measurable operational gains.

Key Benefits of Industrial Copilots

Industrial copilots offer a range of transformative benefits across operations, maintenance, training, and safety. Here are some of the key benefits:

Operational Efficiency & Productivity

Task Automation: Copilots can automate repetitive administrative tasks such as work order generation, data entry, and scheduling, freeing up time for skilled workers.
Real-Time Assistance: Provide workers with instant access to SOPs, manuals, and troubleshooting guides, improving first-time fix rates and reducing downtime.
Intelligent Recommendations: Suggest optimal next steps, tools, or parts based on contextual data, enhancing decision-making on the shop floor.

Data-Driven Insights

Contextualized Information: Copilots integrate data from multiple sources (ERP, CMMS, sensors, IoT) and present it in a unified, actionable format.
Anomaly Detection: Use AI to detect trends or anomalies in equipment performance or worker activity that could indicate operational risks or inefficiencies.

Knowledge Retention & Training

Just-in-Time Learning: Provide on-demand guidance and microlearning in the flow of work, tailored to workers’ roles and skill levels.
Knowledge Capture: Automatically document expert procedures and best practices to ensure tribal knowledge is retained and reused.

Safety & Compliance

Proactive Hazard Alerts: Warn workers of unsafe conditions based on environmental data, worker behavior, or equipment status.
Audit Support: Maintain up-to-date logs and documentation for compliance with industry regulations and standards.

Scalability & Workforce Empowerment

Support for Multi-Lingual & Diverse Teams: Enable consistent communication and guidance across geographically dispersed and multilingual teams.
Worker Empowerment: Give frontline workers more autonomy through AI guidance, increasing engagement and reducing reliance on supervisory intervention.

Augie™: An Industrial Copilot to Empower the Frontline Workforce

Introduced in early 2023, Augie™ is an industrial copilot designed specifically for the industrial frontline. Unlike traditional tools that rely heavily on equipment data alone, Augie™ integrates insights from frontline operations, training, engineering, and workforce data to deliver real-time, contextual support to frontline workers and supervisors.

Key Features Behind Verdantix Recognition

Verdantix highlighted Augmentir due to several standout capabilities within the Augie™ industrial copilot:

Industrial Work Assistant

Provide real-time support and guidance to workers on the floor or in the field. Augie helps workers with standard work, troubleshooting, and information access.

Content Assistant

Automatically converts standard files (Word, Excel, PDFs) into smart digital workflows such as SOPs and checklists. Augie can take your existing content and generate digital, smart forms, checklists, and interactive work procedures. Augie accelerates your transition to a paperless operation, and provides a robust tool for capturing tribal knowledge and converting it into digital corporate assets.

Operations Data Assistant

Interpret operational data through natural language queries, eliminating the need for complex reports or dashboards. The Augie industrial copilot helps operations leaders gain insights into your frontline operations by understanding and summarizing your operational data, generating reports, and providing insights into continuous improvement opportunities.

Extensibility Assistant

Offers developers tools to build custom GenAI experiences through user-defined functions and APIs. The Augie Extensibility Assistant from Augmentir empowers industrial companies to go beyond basic generative AI by enabling more intelligent and autonomous support for frontline operations. Through its seamless integration with Augmentir’s AI Agent Builder, Augie allows users to create and deploy AI agents that can interact with and analyze operational data, trigger automated workflows, and respond contextually to frontline needs. This extensibility framework lets manufacturers tailor AI assistance to their unique environments—connecting to third-party systems, retrieving and acting on data, and continuously learning from worker behavior and outcomes. The result is a scalable, adaptive solution that extends GenAI from simple question-answering to proactive, intelligent task support across the digital thread.

Solving Real Industrial Challenges

The industrial sector faces a range of challenges: growing skills gaps, legacy processes, inconsistent quality, and labor shortages. Augie™ directly addresses these by:

Boosting workforce performance with personalized, AI-driven task support.
Improving decision-making via fast access to operational and procedural knowledge.
Accelerating continuous improvement by uncovering inefficiencies through embedded data analytics.

The Future of Frontline Work, Powered by the Augie Industrial Copilot

Augmentir’s inclusion in Verdantix’s Top 10 GenAI Industrial Copilot Vendors watch list underscores its leadership in shaping the next generation of intelligent, AI-powered industrial tools. As frontline work evolves, platforms like Augie will be instrumental in bridging workforce gaps, maximizing productivity, and enabling safer, smarter operations.

Request a demo and see how Augie is redefining frontline performance.

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Breaking Down the Barriers to Frontline Workforce Performance

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Unlock frontline workforce performance and improve safety and quality by removing 7 key barriers with Augmentir’s AI-powered Connected Worker Platform.

Last Updated: July 8, 2025

In a recent conversation with a manufacturing operations leader now focused on training, a familiar challenge emerged: pinpointing the true culprits behind frontline performance issues. Is it the process? The training? Or something deeper?

Rather than spinning in circles, we reframed the conversation with one simple, powerful question:

“What barriers exist that prevent good performance?”

This shift in perspective uncovered a set of common – and deeply entrenched – challenges. But more importantly, it revealed how the right digital tools, like Augmentir’s Connected Worker Platform, can systematically remove these barriers to unlock new levels of efficiency, quality, and engagement.

1. Inconsistent or Outdated Work Instructions

“Operators don’t always have clear, current procedures. We rely on tribal knowledge too much.”

When frontline workers rely on word-of-mouth or outdated paper instructions, variability and errors become inevitable. Small deviations in procedure can accumulate into major quality issues or production inefficiencies.

The results? Incorrect assemblies, wasted materials, process delays, or even safety incidents. Over time, these inconsistencies create a culture of uncertainty, where each shift or team may interpret the “right way” differently — hurting overall operational performance.

How Augmentir Helps:

Smart Digital Workflows: Augmentir digitizes and standardizes work instructions, ensuring that every operator, on every shift, follows the most up-to-date procedures. Augmentir’s no-code authoring environment allows you to create, update, and deliver work instructions to users through any mobile device or wearable technology appropriate for the job.
Augie™ Generative AI Content Assistant: Quickly generate standard work procedures from Excel, Word, PDFs, images, or videos. Augie takes your existing content and generates digital smart forms, checklists, and digital work instructions.
AI-driven content recommendations: The platform continuously learns from real-time execution data, surfacing opportunities to update or improve workflows based on actual performance and feedback.

2. Lack of Visibility into Workforce Capability

“We don’t always know who’s trained or qualified to do what. That slows us down or leads to errors.”

Without a clear view of skills and qualifications, managers are left guessing. As a result, unqualified workers may be assigned to critical tasks, increasing the risk of quality defects or compliance violations. Teams lose time shuffling responsibilities, and supervisors become hesitant to delegate.

This visibility gap also creates missed opportunities for upskilling and slows down workforce agility — a major issue in today’s high-turnover environments.

How Augmentir Helps:

Skills & Certification Tracking: Augmentir’s digital skills matrix and skills management capabilities give supervisors real-time visibility into who is qualified for each task.
Personalized Work Instructions: Smart work instructions deliver guidance and support matched to the needs of each worker, so that everyone can work at their personal best.
AI-Based Workforce Profiling: The system learns from task execution data to automatically update worker profiles, enabling smarter workforce planning and targeted upskilling.

3. Reactive Problem Solving

“We often operate in firefighting mode. By the time we detect a problem, it’s already costly.”

Manufacturing teams often find themselves reacting to quality issues, inefficiencies, or breakdowns after the damage is done. This “firefighting mode” leaves little time for structured problem solving and often results in compounding consequences — missed production targets, increased scrap or rework, unexpected downtime, or worse.

When frontline teams are stuck in reactive cycles, quality issues go undetected, potentially leading to customer complaints, warranty claims, or even costly product recalls. In high-risk environments, delayed detection can also result in safety incidents, regulatory violations, or compliance lapses. In short, reaction-mode doesn’t just waste time — it puts revenue, reputation, and workers at risk.

How Augmentir Helps:

Real-Time Operational Insights: Augmentir captures granular execution data across tasks, revealing trends and anomalies before they escalate.
AI-Powered Root Cause Analysis: The platform correlates performance data with variables like shift, equipment, and training gaps to surface underlying causes — proactively.
Industrial Collaboration Tools: Effectively collaborate and share information across your frontline teams. Augmentir provides manufacturing collaboration software to support context-based collaboration, connecting team members across shifts, plants, and languages.
Automated Alerts and Dashboards: Teams can receive real-time notifications and visualizations that help prioritize issues before they disrupt operations.

4. Disconnected Systems and Information Silos

“Information lives in too many places — paper, spreadsheets, different apps — so we don’t see the full picture.”

When critical information is fragmented across departments and systems, decision-making becomes slow, misinformed, or reactive. Frontline teams waste time hunting down documents, while managers struggle to identify trends or take corrective action across shifts and sites.

This fragmentation contributes to process delays, miscommunication, redundant training efforts, and reduced responsiveness — all of which erode efficiency and customer satisfaction.

How Augmentir Helps:

Integrated, Single Pane of Glass Platform: Augmentir centralizes work instructions, training records, skills data, and performance analytics into a single platform.
Built-in Integrations: Seamless connections with MES, ERP, QMS, and LMS systems ensure that frontline and back-office teams stay aligned.

5. Low Engagement or Lack of Ownership

“Operators don’t always feel connected to the bigger picture. That impacts quality and efficiency.”

When workers feel like cogs in a machine — disconnected from purpose, feedback, or opportunities for growth — their performance suffers. Disengagement leads to lower productivity, reduced quality focus, and higher turnover, all of which directly impact the bottom line.

Without ownership and recognition, frontline teams are less likely to take initiative, escalate issues, or contribute ideas for improvement.

How Augmentir Helps:

Personalized Work Experiences: Augmentir tailors tasks and support to each worker’s skill level and role, helping them succeed and grow.
Feedback Loops and Microlearning: The platform makes it easy for workers to give feedback and receive targeted coaching, reinforcing a culture of continuous improvement.
Digital Recognition & Performance Insights: Operators can see their impact and progression over time, boosting engagement and accountability. This improves workforce performance throughout the employee lifecycle.

6. High Turnover and Training Burden

“We’re constantly onboarding and retraining. It’s hard to get people up to speed quickly.”

Frequent turnover and lengthy training cycles make it difficult to maintain consistent performance. Traditional training approaches often require pulling experienced workers off the floor, leading to productivity dips and training bottlenecks.

The consequences include long ramp-up times, repetitive errors from new hires, and overburdened veteran employees. Worse, training documentation often goes stale quickly, failing to reflect process changes or lessons learned.

How Augmentir Helps:

Accelerated Onboarding: Step-by-step guided workflows with embedded videos and support reduce time-to-competency.
On-the-Job Learning: Contextual guidance within tasks enables learning in the flow of work, minimizing downtime and increasing retention.
Training Content Versioning: Built-in tools ensure training materials evolve alongside your operations.

7. Inconsistent Execution Across People, Shifts or Lines

“We see variability across lines or shifts — even when the process is the same.”

Even when processes are well-documented, execution can vary wildly depending on who is performing the task, when, or where. These inconsistencies lead to uneven quality, production delays, and missed KPIs, especially when variability isn’t visible or well understood.

Without a way to measure and compare performance at the individual or team level, continuous improvement efforts fall flat.

How Augmentir Helps:

Execution Intelligence: Augmentir analyzes execution patterns across shifts, lines, and facilities to uncover where and why variability exists.
Standardization Through AI: The platform uses AI insights to recommend adjustments to work instructions and training, helping bring every worker up to best-in-class performance.
Targeted Coaching: Managers can identify who needs support and deliver it efficiently, closing gaps faster.

The Bottom Line: A Smarter Path to High-Performance Frontlines

Rather than blaming either training or operations, the right question is: “What’s getting in the way of great performance?”

Augmentir’s AI-driven Connected Worker Platform helps manufacturers answer that question — and act on it — with precision and speed. By eliminating the barriers outlined above, companies can build a high-performance frontline workforce that is skilled, engaged, and aligned with business goals.

Ready to break down your barriers to performance?

Let’s talk about how Augmentir can help.

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The Great Resignation in Manufacturing

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Recently, Augmentir completed a rigorous qualification audit as part of a Tier 1 Pharmaceutical Manufacturing company’s Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP), and we are pleased to announce that our product successfully passed the audit.

Last Updated: July 4, 2025

A recent article published by The Washington Post shows some shocking numbers on the amount of Americans leaving their jobs over the past year. It’s no surprise that hotel and restaurant workers are resigning in high numbers due to the pandemic, but what is surprising is the fact that the manufacturing industry has been hit the hardest with “a nearly 60 percent jump” compared to pre-pandemic numbers. This “Great Resignation in Manufacturing” is the most of any industry, including hospitality, retail, and restaurants, which have seen about a 30% jump in resignations.

However, if you dig deeper, this trend isn’t new. This recent increase in job quitting in manufacturing has simply magnified a problem that had already been brewing for years, even prior to the start of the pandemic. In fact, in the four years prior to the pandemic (2015-2019), the average tenure rate in manufacture had decreased by 20% (US Bureau of Labor Statistics).

This accelerating workforce crisis is placing increased pressure on manufacturers and creating significant operational problems. The sector that was already stressed with a tight labor market, rapidly retiring baby-boomer generation, and the growing skills gap is now facing an increasingly unpredictable and diverse workforce. The variability in the workforce is making it difficult, if not impossible to meet safety and quality standards, or productivity goals.

Manufacturing leaders’ new normal consists of shorter tenures, an unpredictable workforce, and the struggle to fill an unprecedented number of jobs. These leaders in the manufacturing sector are facing this reality and looking for ways to adjust to their new normal of building a flexible, safe and appealing workforce. As a result, managers are being forced to rethink traditional onboarding and training processes. In fact, the entire “Hire to Retire” process needs to be re-imagined. It’s not the same workforce that our grandfather’s experienced, and it’s time for a change.

The Augmented, Flexible Workforce of the Future

The reality is that this problem is not going away. The Great Resignation in manufacturing has created a permanent shift, and manufacturers must begin to think about adapting their hiring, onboarding, and training processes to support the future workforce in manufacturing – an Augmented, Flexible Workforce.

What does this mean?

It means adopting new software tools to support a more efficient “hire to retire” process to enable companies to operate in a more flexible and resilient manner.
It means starting to understand your workforce at an individual level and using data to intelligently closes skills gaps at the moment of need and enables autonomous work.
And it means taking advantage of data. More specifically, real-time workforce intelligence that can provide insights into training, guidance, and support needs.

Investing in AI-powered connected worker technology is one way to boost this operational resiliency. Many manufacturing companies are using digital Connected Worker technology and AI to transform how they hire, onboard, train, and deliver on-the-job guidance and support. AI-based connected worker software provides a data-driven approach that helps train, guide, and support today’s dynamic workforces by combining digital work instructions, remote collaboration, and advanced on-the-job training capabilities.

As workers become more connected, manufacturers have access to a new rich source of activity, execution, and tribal data, and with proper AI tools can gain insights into areas where the largest improvement opportunities exist. Artificial Intelligence lays a data-driven foundation for continuous improvement in the areas of performance support, training, and workforce development, setting the stage to address the needs of today’s constantly changing workforce. Today’s workers embrace change and expect technology, support and modern tools to help them do their jobs.

To learn more about how AI is being used to digitize and modernize manufacturing operations, contact us for a personalized demo.

AI Manufacturing 2021 – Event Recap

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After more than a year of virtual conferences, we were finally able to participate in person at the AI Manufacturing conference in Dallas early this November and discuss how AI is shaping the future of the manufacturing workforce.

Last Updated: July 4, 2025

After more than a year of virtual conferences, we were finally able to participate in person at the AI Manufacturing conference in Dallas early this November. This year’s event was hybrid, face-to-face on November 3 and 4th, and virtually on November 5th. While it was refreshing to be able to network face to face with leaders in the Manufacturing industry, it was great to have the opportunity to also network virtually on November 5th. If you aren’t familiar with the AI Manufacturing conference, this conference is the leading Artificial Intelligence event for Manufacturing Industries. This year’s event focused on:

The use of AI to Improve Quality, Reduce Defects, and Increase Profits
Developing a Digital Twin to Optimize Plant Operations
Using Building Blocks to Modernize Manufacturing Activities and Facilitate Growth
Designing Products Enabled by Additive and Hybrid Manufacturing Techniques
Exploring the Use of AI in Industrial Attacks and Defense

Using AI to Unlock the True Potential of Today’s Modern, Connected Workforce

Dave Landreth, Augmentir’s Head of Customer Strategy had the opportunity to present on “Using AI to Unlock to the True Potential of Today’s Connected Workforce”. In this session, he discussed the variability of the workforce with generations, how they need to be trained differently, and how AI can assist in worker proficiency. Dave also discussed Bob Mosher’s 5 moments of need and how AI can be applied at the time of learning.

The Misunderstood Fear of AI

Our founders saw that the humanistic approach was missing with traditional connected worker platforms and realized that AI was the key to saving the manufacturing world and unlocking worker potential. However, companies are reluctant to adopt AI in fear that automation will take over and eventually replace human workers in manufacturing. Others fear that AI would be used negatively to track workers, in a “big brother” type of way.

As we’ve seen with our customers, this couldn’t be farther from the truth. When AI is leveraged ethically with the workforce in mind, it can be used to help improve and ultimately grow the talent of your workers. Assessing workers on their performance has been done for years through subjective performance reviews. Using AI allows the assessments to be based on data and can provide a path forward for worker improvement and continued growth.

Understanding Today’s Struggles Within Manufacturing

The struggles that manufacturers face today aren’t the same struggles that were present 40 years ago. One of the number one issues in manufacturing is hiring. Today, most manufacturers believe that hiring is a risk, with a limited pool of candidates. They are struggling with employees who don’t have the needed skill set and are questioning how they can train them and evaluate their performance.

Manufacturing companies also struggle with retaining employees. We are all aware of the workforce retention issues right now. Employees are feeling like they aren’t heard and that they can’t contribute to the company, which causes them to look for a new career. There is also the struggle of thoughtful upskilling, meaning that formal training programs only recognize one type of worker. The average manufacturing plant sees 4 generations of workers, ranging from those fresh out of high school to the ones that have worked on a plant floor for 40+ years. Different generations learn differently and require different levels of support. There isn’t a one size fits all approach for teaching different generations.

Another challenge with the workforce that isn’t as obvious, is with mergers and acquisitions. An acquisition means that companies now consist of two workforces doing things differently and needing to understand what part of procedures from the newly acquired company is worth incorporating into the existing procedures.

Leveraging AI to Help Build and Grow a Top Performing Workforce

AI is uniquely suited to solve these challenges, and we recognized that early on at Augmentir. We started looking at how AI could help build and grow a top performing workforce. One way AI can help is the ability to hire for potential by increasing the hiring of candidates to those not as skilled. AI allows companies to understand a worker’s skillset and provides the ability for personalized workflows to guide them in the context of work while they are doing their job, whether it’s a new worker or one with dozens of years of experience. AI can also help with the “Right person – Right Job – Right Time” approach – always ensuring that the correct person is performing the task at the most efficient time.

The use of AI allows all workers to contribute by allowing inline feedback to optimize work procedures. In addition, AI can be used to ensure personalized career job competency allows workers to be hired even if they do not have the optimal set of skills and experience. Measuring a worker’s proficiency when they are completing the work allows the worker to focus on each specific step and guides them at the time of need, instead of during classroom training. AI provides workers with predictive and stable data to help them grow in their roles. Having a data-driven way to measure success and provide advancement opportunities helps establish career paths as well as opportunities to grow.

With an AI-based onboarding approach, organizations are able to hire a wider range of individuals with varying skill sets. If we can teach someone in the context of doing their work, onboarding time is reduced due to being able to train them in the field. We also see an increase in productivity and are constantly evolving their learnings. When workers feel included and confident about their careers, they are also more likely to want to stay and grow with the company. The ability to train workers in the field while doing their jobs with AI personalization allows you to clearly and quickly assess how a worker is doing, where you focus the help to them, and driving those 1:1 work procedures is a game-changer.

AI in Manufacturing will solve many of the challenges that we are seeing.

Learning & Development and the 5 Moments of Need

The Five Moments of Need methodology was created by Bob Mosher, a thought leader in learning and development with over 30 years of experience. He realized that after 20 years, classroom teaching was the wrong approach since it rarely teaches you things that you do in your job on the shop floor. Classroom learning allows an individual to gain a certain level of confidence, but quickly falls off when it’s time to apply it within context to a given workflow.

According to Bob’s methodology, the 5 moments when our workforce needs knowledge and information consists of:

When people are learning how to do something for the first time (New).
When people are expanding the breadth and depth of what they have learned (More).
When they need to act upon what they have learned, which includes planning what they will do, remembering what they may have forgotten, or adapting their performance to a unique situation (Apply).
When problems arise, or things break or don’t work the way they were intended (Solve).
When people need to learn a new way of doing something, which requires them to change skills that are deeply ingrained in their performance practices (Change).

The approach that Bob and his team adopted in the last 10 years is to think more about performance support. The variability of the workforce, both skilled and young, proves that there’s not a one size fits all approach. This is where AI comes in: being able to deliver personalized work procedures for every worker, allowing for continuous learning and growth. Based on proficiency, there may be a more guided set of work instructions, a session with a remote expert, or a supervisor sign-off required in order to complete the job on quality and on schedule. AI can also be used to continuously measure and assess how the workers are doing. This is where organizations can start seeing growth within their workforce.

Looking Ahead

We had a blast at this year’s AI Manufacturing conference and are already looking forward to another successful event next year! If you’re interested in learning more about why AI is an essential tool in digital transformation, from reducing costs and downtime to improving over quality and productivity, we’d highly suggest considering attending next year. In the meantime, if you’re looking for information surrounding AI, digital transformation, and building a connected workforce, check out our eBook: “Building a Modern, Connected Workforce with AI”.

How to Reduce Changeover Time in Manufacturing

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Learn how to reduce changeover time in manufacturing and the benefits of doing so to maximize production processes.

Last Updated: June 19, 2025

Providing quality products consistently and on time is at the forefront of customer satisfaction. In today’s competitive market, manufacturers must execute production runs quickly and efficiently to meet customer demand. But equipment and workers can’t operate 24/7. Machines must be properly maintained, workstations require cleaning and employees need rest. This is where optimizing changeover time comes in.

Changeover time is the period that it takes for workers to adjust machines or for assembly lines to start the next product run. A changeover usually includes swapping parts, sanitizing equipment, and preparing it for the next cycle. A good rule of thumb is to keep the changeover period down to less than 10 minutes. You can keep track of your organization’s changeover time by capturing how long it takes to produce each product.

Keeping an eye on your changeover time can help you maximize production and improve processes. Learn more about how you can reduce changeover time in manufacturing by exploring the following topics:

Three steps for reducing changeover time
- Step 1: Assess your present changeover method.
- Step 2: Implement Single-Minute Exchange of Dies (SMED)
- Step 3: Create standard changeover procedures
Benefits of reducing changeover time
How digitization can help reduce changeover time

Three steps for reducing changeover time

Minimizing changeover time is a key component of lean manufacturing, a production method aimed at minimizing waste while increasing worker productivity. Implementation of this process of quick changeover can help manufacturers maximize uptime and cut down on waste caused by downtime.

Although there are various steps you can take to reduce it, here are some essential steps to help you get started:

Step 1: Assess your present changeover method.

It’s crucial to look at your existing changeover protocol before taking action to modify it. Try to identify which processes need optimization in order to cut down on the time between inventory runs.

Step 2: Implement single-minute exchange of dies (SMED).

Single-minute exchange of dies is a tool used in lean manufacturing to reduce changeover time to single digits. This means that a successful assembly run should be less than 10 minutes.

It’s helpful if workers have some idea of how long each task (such as switching parts, cleaning, etc.) takes during the production process. This awareness can be cultivated the more they familiarize themselves with procedures and day-to-day routines.

Step 3: Create standard changeover procedures.

Creating standard operating procedures (SOPs) and standardizing work can help with the changeover process. If there aren’t centralized procedures, changeover times will vary based on the employee, how long it takes them to clean up, set up and begin a new production run.

It’s important for procedures to contain explicit directions on how to perform successful changeovers. This can include highlighting which equipment needs to be calibrated and other machinery-related tasks.

Pro Tip

Digitizing changeover procedures can offer several benefits that enhance the overall efficiency, safety, and effectiveness of the changeover process. Digital procedures can be accessed by frontline workers through a mobile device or wearable technology, and help improve accessibility, accountability, standardization, as well as provide visual aids to less-experienced workers performing the task.

In a nutshell, having clear instructions makes it easier for workers to know what to expect when it’s time for a changeover.

Benefits of reducing changeover time

Reducing changeover time can yield a number of benefits, especially for companies producing a large number of products on a day-to-day basis.

Some of the advantages include:

Makes it easier to transition between production processes
Creates a more productive work environment
Helps to reduce equipment downtime
Gets products to customers faster

How digitization can help

Implementing connected worker solutions that digitize and optimize changeover processes can help reduce the time each changeover takes by providing explicit digital instructions customized to any given task, machine, or worker.

Digital work instructions are electronic versions of work instructions, quality manuals, or SOPs that provide necessary visual aids and real-time contextual information to help guide workers through complex tasks. These digital work instructions intelligently deliver guidance and streamline changeover processes with images, videos, augmented reality experiences, and live support from colleagues or subject matter experts.

Augmentir is the world’s first AI-powered connected worker platform that helps industrial frontline workers reduce changeover time in manufacturing using smart technology. Learn how world class manufacturers are using Augmentir to drive improvements across their industrial operations – contact us for a demo today!

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Factory Agents: The Next Evolution in Manufacturing, Powered by Augmentir

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Discover how AI Factory Agents from Augmentir are transforming manufacturing with real-time insights, automation, and workforce augmentation.

Last Updated: June 10, 2025

In the evolving landscape of Industry 4.0, popularized by Klaus Schwab, and now Industry 5.0, manufacturers are under increasing pressure to become more agile, resilient, and efficient. Amid labor shortages, shifting customer expectations, and digital disruption, one of the most transformative tools emerging is Factory Agents: smart, context-aware AI agents capable of autonomously performing tasks, surfacing insights, and augmenting human decision-making.

What are Factory Agents?

Factory agents are not physical robots, nor are they just software scripts. They’re intelligent, digital entities — powered by AI — that act on behalf of manufacturing teams to interpret data, automate actions, and optimize workflows. They serve as proactive copilots on the shop floor, embedded into the frontline work environment, continuously learning from human activity and contextual factory data to provide real-time support and operational insights.

These agents can assist with:

Recommending optimized workflows
Identifying skill gaps or training needs for frontline workers
Monitoring process performance and flagging anomalies
Automatically capturing tribal knowledge
Personalizing work instructions based on the worker’s experience and certification level

In short, factory agents bridge the gap between human intelligence and machine efficiency on the shop floor — and Augmentir is leading the charge.

Augmentir’s AI Agent Studio: Manufacturing Intelligence Made Easy

While agentic AI the concept of AI agents has existed in other sectors, Augmentir is the first to bring a no-code Industrial AI Agent Studio purpose-built for manufacturing. This unique platform allows operations leaders, supervisors, and even non-technical users to create and deploy custom AI agents tailored to specific needs across:

Workforce onboarding and training
Maintenance and repair operations (MRO)
Quality assurance
Safety procedures
Performance monitoring

These agents are powered by proprietary algorithms and generative AI that continuously learn from your workforce and operations data. That means over time, the agents get smarter — making increasingly precise recommendations, automating more tasks, and reducing variability across the shop floor.

The result? An adaptive, intelligent frontline that can respond dynamically to production demands, labor variability, and skill shortages.

Meet Augie: The Face of Next-Gen Industrial AI

At the core of Augmentir’s AI capabilities is Augie — an Industrial Generative AI assistant built specifically for frontline manufacturing environments. Augie acts like a real-time guide and operational partner for shop floor workers, supervisors, and even plant managers.

Here’s what makes Augie different:

Context-aware assistance: Augie understands the unique context of your operation — such as a specific piece of equipment, a shift schedule, or a worker’s skill level — to tailor guidance appropriately.
Conversational interface: Workers can interact with Augie naturally through chat, enabling real-time Q&A, issue resolution, or step-by-step guidance.
Continuous learning: As workers interact with Augie, it learns and improves, capturing undocumented knowledge and institutionalizing best practices across the organization.

Rather than replacing workers, Augie amplifies their capabilities, making everyone on the shop floor more confident, capable, and productive.

Real-World Impact: Augmentir in Action

Companies using Augmentir have reported measurable improvements across multiple KPIs:

20–40% reduction in training time by personalizing learning to individual skill levels
30% improvement in first-time quality through smarter digital work instructions
25% gain in workforce productivity due to real-time guidance and fewer delays
Stronger worker retention through empowered learning and growth pathways

In a time when manufacturers are grappling with a skills gap, labor shortages, and increased demand for agility, these outcomes are game-changers.

Why Factory Agents Are Defining the Future of Industrial Work

The traditional shop floor has been defined by rigid systems and static processes. But today’s manufacturers need more flexibility — they need systems that adapt to shifting demand, dynamic labor pools, and constant process change.

AI factory agents offer this adaptability and with Augmentir’s Industrial AI platform, manufacturers can unlock this potential without a massive overhaul or technical burden.

Factory agents represent a new class of industrial tools — intelligent, autonomous, and human-centric. As the first platform to bring this vision to life, Augmentir is not just building tools, but reshaping how manufacturing work gets done.

With Augie and the AI Agent Studio, Augmentir is helping manufacturers step into a new era of operational excellence — where the frontline is not just automated, but truly augmented.

Learn more about how Augmentir’s AI shop floor agents can modernize your operations – contact us today for a live demo.

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Thinking Beyond Daily Management: Why You Need an Integrated Work System for Your Factory

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Daily Management helps track today — but it’s not enough. Discover why top manufacturers are turning to Integrated Work Systems to drive continuous improvement.

Last Updated: June 10, 2025

Walk into any modern manufacturing facility and you’ll likely see some form of Daily Management in action — shift handovers taking place, whiteboards filled with KPIs, supervisors tracking downtime or productivity issues. For many factories, this is the heartbeat of frontline operations. And rightly so — Daily Management plays a critical role in keeping teams aligned and performance on track.

But here’s the thing: Daily Management is not enough.

More and more manufacturers are realizing that simply tracking what happened today — and reacting to it — doesn’t drive long-term improvement. It doesn’t prevent breakdowns. It doesn’t fix the root cause of recurring quality issues. And it certainly doesn’t help build a digitally enabled, agile, and resilient operation.

If you’re searching for a Daily Management System or software tool to better manage frontline tasks, that’s a great first step. But don’t stop there. Because the real value lies in thinking bigger — in building an Integrated Work System (IWS) that brings all the moving parts of your frontline operations together.

Let’s unpack why.

The Daily Management Trap

At its core, Daily Management helps answer the question: “How are we doing today?”

It gives your team structure — a cadence of check-ins, dashboards, and updates. But the more you rely on it as your primary tool, the more you risk getting stuck in a reactive loop:

Downtime occurred? Log it and move on.
A defect showed up again? Note it and check the box.
A shift fell short of the target? Talk about it and try again tomorrow.

The result? Problems keep resurfacing. Equipment ages faster than it should. Tribal knowledge stays in workers’ heads. And improvement efforts feel like a game of whack-a-mole.

Daily Management shines a light on the symptoms — but an Integrated Work System tackles the root causes.

The Bigger Picture: What’s Missing?

What separates top-performing factories from the rest isn’t just how well they manage today — it’s how they build systems to improve tomorrow.

As highlighted by Ernst & Young, in collaboration with Procter & Gamble, leading manufacturers are moving beyond reactive daily routines and embracing integrated digital systems that connect operations, empower frontline teams, and enable continuous improvement across all use cases that are critical to frontline operations.

Here are just a few critical areas that often extend beyond traditional daily management:

Issue Management: Logging problems is easy. Solving them — through root cause analysis, countermeasures, and tracking — requires structure.
Autonomous Maintenance: Operators should be empowered to care for their equipment, not just report when it fails.
CILs (Cleaning, Inspection, Lubrication): These are the fundamentals of machine reliability — yet many teams lack standard routines.
Changeovers: Transitioning between products or shifts introduces variability. Standardizing this is key to minimizing downtime.
Centerline Management: Decrease product and procedure inconsistencies by optimizing machine effectiveness.
Breakdown Elimination: Recurring failures don’t go away by chance. They go away when someone owns them — and has the tools to eliminate them.
Manufacturing Collaboration: Improvements aren’t made in isolation. Visibility, communication, and shared accountability are critical.
5S Audits and Layered Process Audits: Safety and quality audits should be woven into the flow of work — not tacked on as separate compliance exercises.

Individually, these areas may seem like “extra” layers. But together, they form the foundation of an Integrated Work System.

From Managing the Day to Managing the Work

An Integrated Work System doesn’t just organize tasks — it connects the work, the people, and the insights needed to operate at a higher level.

Instead of fragmented tools and outdated spreadsheets, IWS brings everything into one unified approach — so your team can:

Identify issues in real-time
Standardize best practices
Eliminate variability and waste
Collaborate across shifts and functions
Improve continuously — not just reactively

It’s a shift from firefighting to problem-solving. From knowing what happened to knowing why it happened — and preventing it from happening again.

Technology That Supports the Shift

Of course, none of this is possible with whiteboards and paper checklists. Manufacturers need modern tools that support the reality of the factory floor — and help bring Integrated Work Systems to life.

That’s where connected worker technology comes in.

Platforms like Augmentir give manufacturers the digital foundation they need to:

Turn SOPs, audits, and maintenance routines into smart digital workflows
Capture real-time data from the frontline without adding admin overhead
Personalize guidance and support for each worker based on skill level and performance
Analyze trends and surface insights using AI — so you can focus improvement where it matters most

Augmentir helps you go beyond daily visibility. It helps you build a connected, data-driven, and continuously improving frontline operation.

Think Bigger Than Daily

Yes, you need a system to manage the day — but you also need a system to manage improvement.

A Daily Management System may be the entry point, but don’t let it be the end goal. Start thinking holistically about your operations. Ask the hard questions. Look at the gaps between your teams. Audit the processes that break down too often. And most importantly, give your workers the tools they need to contribute — not just comply.

The future of manufacturing isn’t just about managing tasks. It’s about connecting work, people, and performance.

That’s the promise of an Integrated Work System.

That’s where real transformation begins.

And with solutions like Augmentir, it’s never been more achievable.

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Support Your IWS Strategy with Augmentir: The Smartest Path to Operational Excellence

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Supercharge your IWS strategy with Augmentir’s AI-powered platform. Digitize work, upskill workers, and drive continuous improvement in manufacturing.

Last Updated: June 10, 2025

An Integrated Work System (IWS) strategy is essential for driving continuous improvement and achieving world-class manufacturing performance. Originally developed by Procter & Gamble (P&G), IWS is a comprehensive approach to optimizing operations by aligning people, processes, technology, and culture. It focuses on improving manufacturing reliability, reducing costs, and increasing productivity through standardization, capability building, and a relentless focus on continuous improvement.

But even the best-designed IWS strategies can fall short without the right tools to support execution and sustain momentum. That’s where Augmentir comes in.

Augmentir is an AI-powered connected worker platform that supercharges your IWS strategy by digitizing, guiding, and optimizing frontline operations. From standard work execution and skills development to real-time performance insights, Augmentir enhances every IWS pillar — making your system smarter, more agile, and more effective.

Digitize and Standardize Work Processes

At the heart of IWS is a commitment to standardized work — clearly defined, repeatable processes that reduce variation and waste. Augmentir makes it easy to digitize and deploy standardized work instructions across your organization. With intuitive, no-code tools, you can rapidly create digital workflows that are accessible on any device, ensuring consistency and adherence to best practices.

Digitize Total Productive Maintenance and Asset Management with Augmentir

But Augmentir goes a step further. It doesn’t just digitize your SOPs — it continuously improves them. Through built-in AI, Augmentir identifies where processes break down, which steps cause the most errors, and how top performers complete tasks more efficiently. This gives you a data-driven foundation for refining your standards and driving continuous improvement.

Empower and Upskill Frontline Workers

A successful IWS strategy empowers every employee to contribute to performance gains. Augmentir’s connected worker platform personalizes the work experience for each operator. Whether it’s delivering real-time guidance based on current skill level or surfacing just-in-time training content, Augmentir helps close skill gaps and build workforce capability on the job.

With Augmentir’s integrated skills management system, you get a live view of workforce readiness across your lines, shifts, and sites. You can align training investments with actual performance needs, monitor certification status, and track progress against capability-building goals — all within the same platform.

Enhance Autonomous Maintenance and Problem Solving

Autonomous maintenance is a key component of IWS, empowering operators to identify and resolve issues at the source. Augmentir supports these initiatives by guiding workers through inspection, lubrication, and minor maintenance tasks with step-by-step digital instructions. Workers can capture and report issues on the spot, while supervisors gain visibility into completion rates and problem trends.

What’s more, Augmentir facilitates structured problem solving by giving teams the tools to document root causes, track countermeasures, and share lessons learned — all within the context of day-to-day operations.

Streamlined Daily Management and Shift Handovers

Augmentir supports a company’s Integrated Work System (IWS) strategy by enhancing key elements of frontline operations such as daily management, direction setting, and shift handovers. By digitizing and standardizing these workflows, Augmentir ensures that critical information is captured, shared, and acted upon consistently across teams and shifts. This not only drives operational discipline but also aligns frontline activity with strategic objectives.

Daily direction setting becomes significantly more effective with Augmentir’s digital tools. Supervisors can rapidly communicate goals, identify production variances, and prioritize actions using real-time data from the shop floor. Augmentir’s connected worker platform ensures that frontline teams are equipped with clear, up-to-date instructions that reflect current conditions, reducing downtime and enabling more agile responses to issues.

Additionally, Augmentir streamlines shift handovers by providing a structured, digital record of shift activities, issues, and resolutions. This eliminates the information gaps and miscommunications that often occur during manual handovers, ensuring continuity and faster problem resolution.

By integrating seamlessly into IWS frameworks, Augmentir empowers companies to build a more proactive, data-driven, and aligned frontline workforce.

Unlock Continuous Improvement with Data and AI

IWS relies on data to drive informed decision-making and continuous improvement. Augmentir captures rich, real-time data from every task completed by your frontline teams. Its AI engine then analyzes this data to uncover hidden inefficiencies, suggest targeted improvements, and recommend actions that directly impact OEE and operational KPIs.

Instead of relying on assumptions or static audits, Augmentir enables a dynamic, data-driven improvement loop — where insights are generated in real time, and decisions are based on actual shop floor behavior.

A Foundation for Sustainable Operational Excellence

An IWS strategy is not a one-time project — it’s a long-term commitment to operational excellence. Augmentir helps sustain that journey by aligning your people, processes, and technology through a single, AI-driven platform. By providing data visibility, enabling a culture of ownership, and continuously optimizing workflows, Augmentir ensures that your IWS system doesn’t just run — it evolves.

Start Building a Smarter IWS with Augmentir

Whether you’re just beginning your IWS journey or looking to accelerate existing initiatives, Augmentir gives you the digital backbone you need. From standard work and skills development to continuous improvement and performance tracking, Augmentir is purpose-built to support and scale IWS strategies in modern manufacturing environments.

Augmentir supports your IWS strategy by acting as a single pane of glass for your frontline operations. With Augmentir, you can digitize, manage, and optimize all aspects of your frontline operation:

Daily Direction Setting (DDS)
Daily Management System (DMS)
Centerline Management
Clean, Inspect, Lubricate processes
Defect Management
Breakdown Elimination
Changeover Management
Shift Handover
5S and Layered Process Audits
Quality Management on the Shop Floor
Safety
Maintenance

Let Augmentir be your partner in transforming how work gets done — and in unlocking the full potential of your IWS strategy.

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