To thrive in any industry, you must be adept at solving problems. Every company in history has run into roadblocks at some point—yes, even the likes of Disney and Apple—but what separates industry leaders from the rest is their ability to employ strategies that solve current problems and are pliable enough to offer solutions further down the line.
Manufacturing is a high-stakes sector. So much can go wrong on those factory floors, and when productivity and efficiency are the most important things, businesses wishing to thrive must have effective strategies in place to fix any issues.
We’re going to offer you a solution: employee training. Yes, we’re serious. When optimized, employee training can solve a wide array of issues and increase productivity and efficiency.
But the important word is optimized. Those of you scratching your head at our suggestion might be rolling out training that’s causing more problems than it solves. It’s time for change.
Curious? Keep reading to find out 4 of the biggest issues facing manufacturing in 2024 and how training can solve them.
4 manufacturing problems and their solutions
1. Sustainability
As the threat of climate change grows, every industry is expected (and, in some cases, legally obligated) to help. This is especially true for manufacturing, where the scale of operations and the toxic products used are adding to the problem.
The good news is that industry leaders are aware of this, and 87% highlight sustainability as increasingly important. But good intentions aren’t enough, and 3 out of 10 companies struggle to form effective strategies to improve the sustainability of their operations.
There is of course the elephant in the room: businesses are run for profit, not to save the world. Yet sustainability doesn’t need to be costly. In fact, there are sustainable practices that make businesses more efficient and productive. For example, effective waste management in manufacturing can lead to savings of $15 billion annually globally. Why not do both?
A great place to start your green journey is with your employees.
The solution: AI-powered training
Change starts with the people who make up your company. To make your business more sustainable, you’ll need to train your staff on best practices.
However, training creation and distribution can be a time-consuming process. On average, it takes 38 hours to develop one hour of training content, and 44% of organizations report that creating engaging training content is their biggest L&D challenge. Beyond standard training, you must also cover sustainability—a ‘non-critical’ training area. It’s a lot to ask of an operation that requires minimal disruption to succeed.
AI-powered training is here to help. With just some basic input on your end, artificial intelligence can generate content in seconds, convert any relevant existing content you may have into digital form, and even translate training material for those with global operations. Using AI can reduce training production time by up to 70%.
Manufacturers have relied on technology to help optimize their operations. Let it do the same for your training.
2. Health and Safety
Health and safety is a problem that will never go away as long as you have a workforce. There’s not so much a solution but rather a set of strategies that work in tandem, trying their best to reduce the number of workplace accidents. Manufacturers want to get that number as close to 0 as possible.
What’s difficult is that as manufacturing evolves, so do the risks. Technological advancements and new business practices bring new challenges, and, to ensure workplace safety, businesses must regularly update and retrain their staff.
But a manufacturing workforce is by nature hard to train. They’re a dispersed group that’s constantly on the move, working a variety of shift patterns, and each member is vital to maintaining productivity and efficiency. How do you solve this?
The solution: Training that’s accessible contextually
Lets paint a picture.
An employee needs to operate a band saw. They’ve used one before, but this model is slightly different, there are a few extra steps in the process. What do they do?
A common approach is to find a colleague willing to show them how to use it. This could work, but what if the colleague also lacks the expertise? They may show them the wrong way, or at least not the right one, thus creating knowledge on a bad foundation. This cycle could continue, spreading until a large percentage of your workforce is incorrectly operating the machine.
Or maybe they decide to go for it, trying desperately to recall bits of information from an in-person training session a few weeks ago. Disaster isn’t far away! Some proactive members might utilize Google and YouTube until they’ve found a walkthrough of that specific model, but it's taken them a long time to find it.
The best approach is less time-consuming, more accurate, and, most importantly, far safer. Temco Logistics attach QR codes to their equipment, allowing users to scan and watch a highly detailed step-by-step, with each step playing on loop until the employee is ready to move on to the next step.
The result of delivering training contextually like this, and in this format, was safety improvements the equivalent of $600k saved for the business, (and that was just for a 30% reduction for a single injury-related metric).
3. Efficiency
Efficiency is incredibly important in manufacturing. As one of the few industries that isn’t customer-centric, what drives businesses to the top of the industry is their ability to be as efficient as possible. Companies with highly efficient manufacturing processes are 30% more likely to be competitive in the industry.
Now, it’s possible you’re operation is already quite efficient. However, what makes efficiency a constant issue for manufacturers is that it can always be improved. There is always room for greater efficiency.
When manufacturers consider areas for improvement, most will immediately think of technology, material usage, logistics, or inventory management. But what about training? Have you ever considered increasing efficiency via training optimization? As the great industrial engineer Shigeo Shingo once said:
"The most dangerous kind of waste is the waste we do not recognize."
What does your training currently look like? If you’re rolling out long-format, classroom training that requires workers to be removed from the floor for extended periods, then you’re actually reducing efficiency.
It’s time to try something else.
The solution: Training that meets your workforce where they are
Instead of pulling your workers from the floor, bring training directly to them. How to do this you ask? Well, there are several ways, one of which is mobile training.
80% of the world’s population own a smartphone. Why not integrate training into already existing and widespread tech?
No need to disrupt the assembly line, your staff can access training when and where they need it most. And not only is it accessible, it’s also an effective way to upskill your manufacturing workforce. Through harnessing the power of microlearning, mobile training promotes employee engagement and knowledge retention, meaning your workers' upskilling is optimized.
By delivering training in this format, we’re optimizing efficiency in three ways. First, we’re reducing time away from the floor because employees no longer need to relocate or travel to receive training. They access it when and where it’s needed.
Secondly, by delivering in short bursts, you’re reducing total time spent training without sacrificing efficacy. Employees who use a mobile microlearning system spend 45%-80% less time in training.
And finally, mobile training has, on average, a 22.2% higher completion rate than traditional methods. So we now have a workforce completing more effective training in higher numbers which can only mean increased efficiency.
Don’t allow phones on the floor? No problem, there are alternatives such as shared tablets and handheld computers, and device-agnostic softwares that work with a variety of systems.
4. The talent gap
Manufacturing is an ever-evolving industry. As society changes, production changes with it, meaning a talent gap is a common occurrence as workers catch up to the change in demand.
However, today’s gap seems particularly prominent and long-lasting for several reasons. Technology is advancing at an unprecedented rate, and workers now require skills in areas such as automation, data analysis, and robotics. What was once a physically demanding blue-collar job now appears much more complex.
What further exacerbates the problem is that the demographic most suited for operating the tech—millennials and Gen Z who have grown up with it—are not interested in manufacturing due to a misconception that it’s dirty, dangerous, and outdated.
So we have a current workforce who struggle with the progressiveness of the role, and a demographic who don’t consider it progressive enough. Now that is a problem.
The solution: Social media-style training
What’s something that all demographics use? That’s right—it’s social media! And it offers a solution to both problems.
How we consume information has changed. Social media floods us with short, engaging video clips, pandering to our shortening attention spans and preference as visual learners. It only makes sense for workplace training to do the same.
Upskill your workers with TikTok-style digital SOPs that mimic the way we consume social media. Imagine a video guide on how to operate a new piece of machinery, or an engaging clip on the basics of AI in manufacturing.
Additionally, it’s a modern solution that flies in the face of the misconceptions running rampant among younger demographics. By speaking the language of Millennials and Gen Z, you improve your chances of recruiting them and retaining them during the onboarding phase.
Final Thoughts
So there you have it. We hope by this point you’re convinced of the benefits of optimizing your employee training. As we said at the start, the best businesses are those with pliable strategies that can tackle any problem: the right training approach can do exactly that.
We’re not done helping just yet though. It wouldn’t be fair of us to just tell you the solutions without also telling you where to find them…
eduMe is the platform of choice for your frontline workforce. By seamlessly slotting into your existing technology, and utilizing the power of AI, we deliver engaging, social-media-style content directly to your workers, when they need it most.
We’ve already partnered with other manufacturers, helping them optimize their training approach to produce incredible results including a 20% reduction in year-on-year injuries, a 50% reduction in turnover, and a $600,000 cost saving.
Why not let us do the same for you. Contact us now or watch this 5 minute demo instead.
