Over the past decade, digital transformation has led to significant improvements in manufacturing. Businesses have had their pick of digital technologies designed to streamline manufacturing processes and improve overall operations.

On the other hand, there’s a risk in having lots of digital tools that don’t easily share information. They create information silos that result in more work.

Here’s what typically happens. When digital transformation became non-negotiable for manufacturers, it ushered in a slew of new apps and tools. At the same time, we saw the rise of low- and no-code platforms that make it easy for anybody, especially employees without any coding background, to quickly build apps that address specific business needs. Soon, various teams had their favorite “shortcuts” for getting work done. Yet when it came time to roll up numbers, pull weekly or quarterly reports, or simply get a big picture view of what was happening across the business, those shortcuts and internal workarounds meant lots of hours spent rekeying information and cobbling it together from all those various tools.

The wasted time and resources are known as gray work, and it can seriously impact productivity, profit, and employee morale.

A recent Quickbase survey of 1,000 decision-makers found 67% of respondents spending 15-20 hours a week just trying to get the information they needed to do their jobs. While digital tools are a game changer in manufacturing, their proliferation without the ability to “speak” easily to one another can impact business negatively. Recognizing that the productivity losses exist is critical to solving them. Even better is avoiding gray work altogether.

Gray work is a growing issue in manufacturing that’s often overlooked, largely because businesses don’t realize it’s happening until it already has a strong grip on the company. For example, employees may know they’re working harder, but don’t know why their task list continues to grow.

Gray work is avoidable. One materials manufacturer was able to get ahead of the issue while embracing digital transformation. In materials handling — largely a process of moving physical assets using digital tools — customers seek to move products safely, faster and more affordably. This includes protecting, storing and controlling materials as they move from manufacturing to distribution, as well as preventive and reactive maintenance to job sites. Meanwhile, the manufacturer still needs to execute regular updates to software, manage staffing and schedule changes, and coordinate logistics around planned shutdowns. When these changes occur, they must be communicated effectively to employees, partners and other key stakeholders in the supply chain so they can properly prepare.

Behind the scenes, this requires a lot of coordination using various tech tools and apps. Ideally, it’s automated, and all information from the various tools and apps is coordinated. If not, and the right teams aren’t informed in time, it can result in production delays, customer complaints, unplanned downtime and other issues due to information gaps.  

While change is constant, when introduced into a production system it can be daunting for customers. Any misstep in communicating changes can be both seen and felt. It comes down to having the right information available at the right time for the right people, and effectively communicating upcoming changes. This sounds simple until you realize all the systems, processes, apps, and tools spread across the company that need to be updated. A quick change isn’t quick if notification comes to one or only a handful of stakeholders. The change will either be delayed as someone manually updates internal systems and informs stakeholders of the change, or the delay will come as a disruptive and unwelcome surprise.

To avoid this, some manufacturers use a dynamic work management platform to automate the process of communicating change. If there’s a mechanical, electrical or software-related change on the horizon, it’s easier to automatically inform the people it’s most likely to impact with specific instructions that are easily understood, while ensuring the customer has ample time to prepare. If it doesn’t impact a team, they’re not notified and unnecessarily burdened.  

By bringing tools, apps, and information sources together, manufacturers are able to keep customers calm while strengthening their trust. It also avoids the gray work issue without forcing employees to give up their favorite tool or home-grown app. In addition, it provides insight on who’s using what technology, to better manage security risks, shadow IT, and software-as-a-service subscriptions.

What you want to avoid is a situation where tools and apps are piled on without a strategy. One way to think about it is the 75-15-10 technology rule. In this scenario, 75% of the infrastructure is structured technology that runs the manufacturing business. The remaining 25% is allocated to flexibility, but it breaks down to 15% supporting low- or no-code tools and apps built on the fly, and 10% for office productivity and collaboration tools used daily for creating documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Striking this balance allows a manufacturer to easily handle changes as they occur without disrupting its own business or that of customers.

Much as enterprise resource planning and cloud-based platforms changed how manufacturers ran their businesses decades ago, today’s infrastructures require flexibility without compromising existing intellectual knowledge and investments in technology. Having the right foundation to support the business needs of today while planning for the future is critical to anticipating and responding to change.

Jamie Townsend is director of automation execution with Daifuku Intralogistics America Corporation. Anthony Offredi is director with Quickbase.