Digital technology helped create the skills gap. Here’s how it can help close it

Manufacturing is an industry of skills. Every factory runs on the back of hundreds of specialized skill sets, any one of which may take years to master.

So, it should be no surprise, then, that manufacturing’s enduring labor crisis is the result of a skills gap – a growing lack of alignment between the skills in the workforce and the demands of modern manufacturing.

The skills gap is a product of many converging forces, but the industry’s increasing reliance on digital technologies is perhaps the main culprit. Yet for all the talk about how digital technologies have exacerbated the skills gap, relatively little has been said about the solutions they offer.

If digital technologies helped create the skills gap, they also hold the key to closing it.

Here are four ways digital technologies can help manufacturers empower their greatest asset: the workforce.

Automation has taken over most simple, repetitive tasks in manufacturing. As a result, humans are left to perform the most complicated operations. Tools on the shop floor, however, haven’t kept up.

This means humans are performing complex tasks without the benefit of technology or a tech stack – a unique state of affairs in a world of technology-driven workplaces.

New digital technologies promise precisely this kind of augmentative support. For example:

And these are just a few of the ways digital technologies are already augmenting workers.

The nature of work is changing, but human nature isn’t. Augmentative digital technologies bridge the gap.

Successful education isn’t as simple as giving someone the manual and a desired outcome. There are multiple factors that unite successful training programs, from clear educational priorities to sound curriculum design.

Digital technologies can enhance training on multiple fronts.

First, the data collected from connected processes can refine training programs. Manufacturers running digital processes automatically collect data at the step, cycle and process level for every operator and part. This data is critical for designing effective training programs.

Further, experienced workers may have discovered a best practice that allows them to work faster than their peers. Data can highlight these situations and enable engineers to document and share valuable tacit knowledge.

Second, digital training tools improve training speed and retention. They can be designed to target the most difficult parts of tasks, and optimized for learners who need visual and experiential support. In my experience, manufacturers using digital training tools can reduce training time by as much as 75%.

The result is faster onboarding for new employees, and expedited reskilling as production focuses change.

In order for knowledge to be useful at an industry level, there needs to be a mechanism for sharing it. The skills gap is intensifying in part because manufacturers are forced to reinvent the wheel when it comes to training and reskilling.

The solution is digital knowledge share, or an infrastructure for sharing training modules, courses, applications and other information between manufacturers to guarantee everyone who wants to learn has the resources to do so.

This is a project that’s will require collaboration between government, industry and educational institutions. I’m excited to be working with the World Economic Forum on several initiatives to make this a reality, from a taskforce on the future of work in advanced manufacturing, which is creating learning journeys for manufacturers, to the New England Advanced Manufacturing Hub to facilitate needed broad-based sharing.

The reality of manufacturing work is that there’s no one-size-fits-all training to teach the skills necessary for a rapidly changing workplace. Nor are there ways to predict with certainty which skills will be most important in the coming years. Openly available, digitally distributed forums, marketplaces and curricula are ways for manufacturers to keep themselves sharp on an ongoing basis.

With the half-life of skills estimated at five years, lifelong learning is now required of all workers.

Digital knowledge share is a way to make lifelong learning more effective.

Digital technologies can help close the skills gap, but the fact is, technologies never solve problems in a vacuum. Technologies are always implemented within a shop-floor culture, and this is especially true when the “problem” is human skills.

The history of technology is littered with examples of workers sabotaging projects because they felt threatened by them. Fortunately, this outcome is avoidable. Manufacturers can ensure the success of their digital projects by adopting a human-first digital culture.

A human-first digital culture looks at workers as an asset, not as a problem. Creating this culture requires involving workers in discussions of technology, early and often. It necessitates accounting for how technologies will be used, who will use them and how it will affect their day-to-day.

The evidence suggests digital innovation projects involving workers are more likely to succeed in the long term.

If manufacturing is going to remain competitive, we must take every advantage of digital technologies. And we need to apply these technologies in innovative ways to support workers as they perform increasingly complex work.

So, let me close by asking a question. If someone told the sales department at your company to do their work without a CRM, what would you say? What about the equivalent tech stacks for HR, marketing, finance, business intelligence? You’d probably call them insane.

Why accept this state of affairs on the shop floor?

Now, with so many opportunities to assist and augment workers with digital technology, we don’t have to.