Smart Workforce

Digitalization has brought high velocity business environment where in changes are happening all around – from data capture, analytics, processes and even business models.  High performance organizations need smart workforce that are agile, flexible and efficient to deliver more, mitigate the risks and seize the new potential opportunities.

Industry 4.0 is transforming shop floors with digitalization, interconnected systems, actionable analytics to enable an intelligence enterprise.  Industry 4.0 is not just about automation; it’s also about enabling people to work smarter with technology.  Smart Workforce will be a perfect complement to the digital enterprise and can harvest advantages of digitalization.

Industry 4.0 has enabled the workforce to be smarter and more efficient, improving their access to information and expertise, ability to process enormous data, apply knowledge and analytics, streamline processes, automate routine activities and predict equipment reliability.   Connected systems have bridged the gap between Operational Technologies and Enterprise Technologies to give a unified view of the equipment.

Newer technologies today can enable the workforce to be highly efficient.  A Shop Floor engineer inspecting an equipment today, can not only see the equipment, but can check the performance of critical parameters, refer to the breakdown history and recurrent failures, assess preventive maintenance carried out and their effectiveness, refer to the manufacturer’s technical specifications, evaluate spares replacement history and residual life and can make informed decisions on the equipment.  All of these can be achieved using his mobile and accessing the CMMS.

Emerging technologies can also provide a more immersive experience with Augmented Reality / Virtual Reality.  Augmented Reality (AR) enabled by Smartglass can present more information about the assets based on the condition and context to help address the current and potential equipment issues. Virtual Reality can provide a complete immersion experience and can be of immense use in training and skill building.

Industrial robots are already used to do repetitive and routine tasks and activities in hazardous environments etc., often in isolation from humans.  Collaborative robots or cobots work in close proximity with humans and often in conjunction with them to fulfil certain tasks.  Factories of future may have more integrated environment where humans will be working alongside cobots and robots, seamlessly sharing the information, knowledge and tasks.  

Next generation of workforce has to be more flexible, intelligent and adaptable.  The new reality is coming sooner and organizations need to prepare their workforce to be smarter.  Imperatives for manufacturing industry are

Manufacturing industry has been slow in embracing digitalization and needs to accelerate adoption

Technology  is no longer restricted to desktops in cubicles and but more liberated and accessible via mobile at point of work

Younger workforce are technology savvy and are digital natives.  Expect the technology foundation to be present for them to contribute on top of it effectively

Workforce belonging to older generation are not fully upto speed in keeping pace with technology and a visible digital gap is emerging

Training programs to bridge the gap and ensure adoption by all

Changing workplace dynamics and the invasion of always available technology on personal lives and effective ways to balance them

Innovations and their adoption should happen in a way that employees feel involved, engaged and genuinely empowered.  Smartening of the workforce should weigh in the human and cultural aspects of the organization and suitable adopt a blended approach to  realize the full potential of industry 4.0. Future shape of organizations are fast evolving as a convergence of robust technology foundation and agile workforce. Organizations need to accelerate their  industry 4.0 adoption and engagement.

MaintWiz provides a robust Industry 4.0 solution with a focus on user engagement.  MaintWiz simplifies technology and reduces the learning curve and removes the barriers.  It helps the users to quickly come up to speed with technology usage and the harvest the power for improving their productivity and efficiency.

Specifically MaintWiz helps the users in

  • Better access to information on demand and available 24 hours. Information is no longer restricted and is accessible from point of work or remotely by experts. 
  • Work order entry and other transactional data can be entered at the point of work by technicians, preventing information leakage.
  • Data from Sensors, Control Systems, Internet of Things and other automated sources can be connected and presented via mobile at point of work
  • Systems processing the enormous amount of data according to business rules set, thereby freeing the precious human time from data processing and feeding them vital information on exceptions for intervention. Systems can generate requisite alerts and notifications on first symptoms thereby facilitating planned intervention to minimize downtime
  • Consolidated knowledge
  • Automation
  • Present with rich analytics and visualizations to easily interpret the data and help in tracking key performance indicators and service level management to enable goal based maintenance
  • Apply intelligence – both human and artificial