How Manufacturers Can Overcome the Labor Shortage With Technology
Technology & AI
By Elsa Souchet
Manufacturing continues to face a difficult workforce challenge. Companies need to increase capacity and keep operations moving, but skilled workers remain difficult to recruit and retain.
For manufacturers, the challenge goes beyond hiring. Teams are being asked to manage increasingly complex operations, adopt new technologies, respond to supply chain disruptions, and maintain productivity without continuously adding headcount.
Technology can help manufacturers increase the capacity of the teams they already have by reducing repetitive work, improving access to knowledge, and helping employees focus on higher-value activities.
In this article, we explore the manufacturing labor shortage from three perspectives and look at the technologies manufacturers can use to adapt.
Why Is There a Labor Shortage in Manufacturing?
The manufacturing labor shortage is driven by several overlapping challenges.
Manufacturers are competing for a limited pool of skilled workers while experienced employees are retiring. At the same time, younger workers have more career options and often expect greater flexibility, better working conditions, and access to modern technology.
The result is a growing mismatch between the skills manufacturers need and the workers available to fill those positions.
This affects nearly every part of manufacturing operations, from production and maintenance to supply chain and procurement.
To understand the challenge more closely, we asked three manufacturing technology leaders for their perspectives.
Perspective 1: The Manufacturing Industry Needs to Build Skills Faster
Christopher Dip, Co-Founder of InPilot
Christopher Dip is the co-founder of InPilot, a digital solution that transforms complex work instructions and processes into easy-to-use applications for frontline workers.
Christopher sees the shortage primarily as a shortage of skilled workers.
Manufacturers have several ways to respond. They can increase wages, automate production, recruit internationally, outsource work, or expand the pool of people capable of performing skilled manufacturing jobs.
For Christopher, training and upskilling are particularly important.
Manufacturers can use technology to:
Capture existing shop-floor and tribal knowledge
Give employees faster access to that knowledge through digital work instructions, mobile applications, forms, and augmented reality
Reduce administrative tasks
Help employees spend more time on higher-value work
Accelerate the training of new employees
Technology can make knowledge easier to transfer instead of leaving critical expertise concentrated among a small number of experienced employees.
Key takeaway: Manufacturers should make it easier for employees to learn, access institutional knowledge, and become productive faster.
References: Understanding Labor Shortage in America, Labour shortage trends in Canada, and Why is there a global labor shortage?.
Perspective 2: Labor Shortages Are Also a Productivity Challenge
Louis-Antoine Genin-Brien, Head of Sales at DeepSight
Louis-Antoine Genin-Brien brings another perspective: the labor shortage exposes an underlying productivity problem.
When manufacturers cannot hire enough workers, increasing
