As workers become more digitally connected, companies have access to a new rich source of activity and job execution data, and with proper Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools can gain insights into areas where the largest improvement opportunities exist.
Capturing this fine-grained human activity data is beneficial, but it only solves part of the challenge of helping to improve the productivity and efficiency of the frontline worker and driving continuous improvement.
This is where Artificial Intelligence comes in.
The reason artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) is a necessary requirement is due to the nature of human activity data. When humans do things, they generate a relatively noisy set of data, and that is exactly what AI and Machine Learning is well-suited to handle.
AI lays a data-driven foundation for continuous improvement in the areas of productivity, quality, and workforce development, setting the stage to address the needs of a constantly changing workforce.
Connected worker solutions that are built on an AI foundation are also being used to support continuous improvement and lean initiatives in the workplace. AI is uniquely suited to identifying capturable opportunities from the massive, noisy data set generated by frontline workers, and therefore to serve as the foundation of an organization’s continuous improvement initiatives, including:
- Productivity
- Workforce development
- Training
- Content
- Quality
With the foundational elements of augmented, guided work instructions and remote expert guidance in place, manufacturing companies can not only help guide their frontline workers with contextual information, aiding them in performing their jobs at peak efficiency and solving problems faster, but this also allows organizations to capture valuable data not just on the work that is performed, but also on how those workers are performing their jobs along with what activities or interactions are contributing to the success or performance of certain jobs.
