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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Addressing Manufacturings Six Big Losses in the COVID-19 Era

 

  • The COVID-19 disruption has permanently changed how frontline workers are supported.
  • With AI and Connected Worker technology, Augmentir helps ensure safety, quality and productivity.
  • Engaged and enabled workforces help companies solve problems, and ensure business continuity during challenging times.
  • Well-balanced, mature industrial centers of intelligence lead to increased ROIs.
Manufacturers are well-acquainted with the “Six Big Losses.”

These are the six most common causes of equipment-based productivity loss in manufacturing. But the COVID-19 pandemic is adding a new dimension to these productivity losses - the frontline workforce. Manufacturers are facing shutdowns, operational downtime, changeover increases, equipment failures, process failures, and production adjustments. In addition, manufacturers are dealing with these challenges while also implementing workforce measures like travel limitations and social distancing, which can slow production even further.

 

Augmentir’s Connected Worker Platform helps improve the safety, quality, and productivity of the frontline workforce in the COVID-19 era and beyond by offering suite of AI-powered tools designed to help industrial teams work independently, collaborate virtually, and continuously improve the efficiency of their operation.

Biographies
Russ Fadel
Co-Founder & CEO, Augmentir
John Schultz
Chief Bootlegger, Bootleg Advisors, Inc.

Context

Russ Fadel discussed the impact of COVID-19 on the manufacturing industry and how Augmentir can help meet current and future needs. John Schultz described the importance of balancing industrial centers of intelligence to increase ROI and decrease the impact of the six big loss areas.

Addressing Manufacturing's 6 Big Losses in the COVID-19 Era

Augmentir’s Connected Worker Platform helps improve the safety, quality, and productivity of the frontline workforce in the COVID-19 era and beyond by offering suite of AI-powered tools designed to help industrial teams work independently, collaborate virtually, and continuously improve the efficiency of their operation.
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Key Takeaways

The COVID-19 disruption is changing how frontline workers are supported.

Many manufacturers are not stopping operations because of the COVID-19 pandemic but are being forced to change them significantly. While temporary measures, like social distancing, will eventually be lifted when the crisis is over, some changes, like remote assistance for frontline workers, are going to stay because they improve upon operational weak spots.

 

Training and supporting workers will change as companies implement and use remote collaboration and instant-skilling tools that enable employees to perform their jobs independently, without requiring in-person assistance. This cuts down on travel and allows workers to access information they need when they need it.
“We’ll never go back to the day where we rely on face-to-face interactions to keep manufacturing operations running. We’re going to need to enable workers to perform their jobs independently.”
— Russ Fadel

Six Big Losses in the Covid-19 Era

1
Shutdowns
2
Operational Downtime
3
Changeover Increases
4
Equipment Failure
5
Process Failures
6
Production Adjustments

With AI, Augmentir Helps Close the Gap

Before the pandemic, manufacturers were already facing significant workforce challenges such as:

  • A growing skills gap
  • A loss of tribal knowledge as approximately 40% of the workforce retires in the next 5-7 years
  • The need for upskilling and continuous improvement of the frontline workforce

With artificial intelligence (AI), Augmentir helps manfacturers solve these critical workforce problems, both during the COVID-19 crisis and beyond.  

Augmentir's Vision
With AI we can provide each worker exactly what they need, when they need it, and how they need it to close skills gaps at the moment of need.
How Augmentir Uses AI to Close the Skills Gap at the Moment of Need

How Augmentir Delivers Unique Value with AI

AI-Driven Operational Insights
Remote Expert
Augmented Instructions

Augmentir's AI-based platform offers two core pieces of functionality:

  • The ability to author and execute augmented, guided procedures helps close the skills gaps within your workforce, reduce errors, and improve productivity. AI dynamically delivers instructions matched to the proficiency of each worker, optimizing outcomes.
  • Integrated remote collaboration tools help virtually connect workers to internal and external experts to quickly resolve issues. AI chatbots virtually support workers  and accumulate tribal knowledge to help close skill gaps and reduce the impact as senior workers retire.

This core functionality enables independent work; it "instantly skills" the workforce with personalized instruction; and it embeds virtual support.

 

Augmentir's AI delivers unique value by using granular data to identify the largest opportunities across the frontline workforce, delivering instructions matched to the proficiency of each worker, optimizing outcomes.

Table 1: Ways That Augmentir's AI Delivers Value
Ways Augmentir Delivers Value
Through
Enables independent work
Rich, augmented work procedures
"Instant skills" your workforce
AI-based personalized work instruction
Embeds virtual support
On-demand remote expert functionality that allows for remote assistance
Delivers hands-free operations
Augmentir on industrial smart glasses
Uncovers True Opportunity™
Using AI to separate "true" from "raw" opportunity

Engaged and Enabled Workforces Help Companies Solve Problems

When a company has an engaged, enabled workforce, it can overcome almost any problem.

 

By focusing on industrial centers of intelligence, Bootleg Advisors helps manufacturers bridge the gap between the needs of the business and the ability of the workforce to execute in a secure and resilent environment.

 

Three centers of intelligence (COI) must be in balance to achieve and sustain results: The thinking center of intelligence, the emotional center of intelligence, and the action center of intelligence. At the core of these three COIs are AI, governance, and security.

The thinking center of intelligence
is the brain. Organizations need to be able to levearage internal and external subject matter experts (SMEs) and provide the workforce with access to useful content and technology.

The emotional center of intelligence
is the heart. Employees need to be engaged, and there needs to be a strong leadership and change management process to guide the workforce.

The action center of intelligence
is the body. Training, tools, and work processes are necessary components to keep the business running smoothly.

Well-balanced, mature centers of intelligence lead to increased ROIs.

A business operating with well-balanced and mature centers of intelligence is likely to see significantly increased ROIs. One Bootleg Advisors client recouped its investment in a solution based on the Augmentir technology in just three quarters, and the five-year ROI was 6.2 to 1.

 

Focusing on centers of intelligence can help manufacturers improve both workforce effectiveness and overall equipment effectiveness (OEE). With every labor dollar saved, business can save an additional 3 to 8 OEE dollars in the big six loss areas.

 

Table 3 shows losses per area for top quartile and bottom quartile consumer packaged goods companies (CPG), and the overall gap in each area.

 

Solutions like Augmentir can help minimize these gaps, both during the COVID-19 crisis and after.

 

 

Table 2: Example of Workplace Intelligence Economics Showing ROI and EBITDA
Workforce Intelligence Economics Showing ROI and EBITDA

Number of Workers on Platform

1,100

Quarters to Break Event

3

Quarter to $1M in Net EBITDA Contribution

4

Estimated 5-Year EBITDA Net Contribution

$65.3M

Annualized EBITDA Run Rate Existing Year 5

$22.6M

5-Year Net ROI

6.2

Table 3: Impact of Big Six Loss Areas on Top and Bottom Quartile CPG Performers
 

Top Quartile

Bottom Quartile

 

Gap

Shutdown

1.38%

16.2%

14.91%

Organizational Downtime

1.17%

10.96%

9.79%

Changeover

1.21%

10.32%

9.11%

Equipment Failures

3.81%

21.21%

16.40%

Process Failures

0.32%

9.36%

9.04%

Production Adjustments

0.00%

3.90%

3.90%

Table 3

Top Quartile

Bottom Quartile

Shutdown

1.38%

16.2%

Organizational Downtime

1.17%

10.96%

Changeover

1.21%

10.32%

Equipment Failures

3.81%

21.21%

Process Failures

0.32%

9.36%

Production Adjustments

0.00%

3.90%

“Regardless of what business challenge an organization has, if they have an engaged and enabled workforce, you can throw any business challenge at them and they will solve it and they will win.”
— John Schultz

Additional Resources

Executive Summary
Improve the safety, quality, and productivity of the frontline workforce in the COVID-19 era and beyond by offering suite of AI-powered tools designed to help industrial teams.
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