Understanding Workforce Impact of Digital Transformation

Author photo: Michael Guilfoyle
ByMichael Guilfoyle
Category:
ARC Report Abstract

Executive Overview

To understand any aspect of digital transformation, it’s important to begin by considering the desired outcomes now made possible by innovation in the Internet of Things (IoT), modern software design and use, and related data across business value chains.

This quickly becomes multidimensional; with people considering change across supply chains, engineering, business systems, assets, services, and business models. This change has a natural, cascading impact.

That impact will require rethinking of the foundational pillars of how businesses operate. As the value of data rises, technology becomes an enabler of data-driven outcomes, rather than the driver of the operation.  In this model, tribal knowledge is often counter-productive to success.  People will need a much better understanding of data from outside their traditional operational silos and a blend of skills will be necessary to navigate operating environments. In addition to their established ability to minimize risk, leaders will be valued as much, if not more, for their ability to quickly galvanize the organization to meet its customers dynamically changing needs.

The changes that digital transformation will have in the workforce are likely to be far-reaching and sustained.  Not only will digital transformation change the number of people needed to do work, it will rewrite how that work gets. That’s because, unlike most people, machines don’t “push back” when it comes to change.

In fact, people are the key to successful digital transformation.  When empowered by new capabilities like advanced analytics, they can in-crease exponentially the value they provide to the organization.  As organizations assess their business needs and apply digital solutions, they will need to address in parallel the impact those solutions will have on people.  This raises several questions that must be answered relative to people, skills, roles, knowledge transfer, and leadership.

Several instances of human-centered digital transformation were dis-cussed at the 2019 ARC Industry Forum in Orlando, Florida this past February. This year’s event attracted more than 950 attendees from across industry, infrastructure, and municipalities.  It provided attendees with an exceptional view of the progress of digital initiatives, including use cases of machine learning-enabled analytics.  In a session entitled How Digital Transformation Impacts the Workforce, we saw three excellent end user presentations that provided a human-centric perspective on diverse examples of digital transformation and analytics.

Rolls-Royce Builds a Digital-first Workforce Culture

Jonathan Matthews is the Ecosystem Operational Lead for R2 Data Labs within Rolls-Royce, one of the world’s leading industrial companies.  R2 Data Labs provides analytics to Rolls-Royce’s power systems group and its various business units. Mr. Matthews discussed how his organization uses those analytics for open collaboration to capture and drive best practices across 48 global sites.

The R2 Data Labs metric goals are to improve quality, cost, performance, compliance, and delivery for the power systems group.  Mr. Matthews is responsible for delivering the operational performance of the digital ecosystem, working in collaboration with Rolls-Royce business units and its innovation hub. The R2 Data Labs team has three core objectives: identify and engage with best-in-class external partners to accelerate Rolls-Royce’s future data innovation technology capabilities; disrupt, to co-create value; and enable and rapidly execute the de-livery of the Rolls-Royce Group & R2 Data Labs strategy.

Mr. Matthews focused on the service his group provides to the company’s aerospace business, the most digitally advanced within their power system portfolio. Rolls-Royce has more than 1,300 aerospace customers of its data services, which monitor more than 13,000 engines, 6,000 to 8,000 commercial flights, and five million data parameters per day in civil aerospace.

In discussing the importance of people in digital strategies, Mr. Matthews commented that, since his competitors all have access to the same technology, what differentiates Rolls-Royce is how the people at the company embrace and create value from that technology. To lever-age this differentiation, Rolls-Royce needed to establish a “digital-first” culture where employees embrace transformational technology.

Tasked with establishing a digital-first culture, R2 Data Labs understood that employees of Rolls-Royce varied greatly when it came to how they perceived and used digital technology. That perception ranged greatly, from those that felt overwhelmed and deflated by digital technology to those that were grateful the company was embracing it.  R2 Data Labs mapped out these different views or “personas,” a term commonly associated with user adoption in marketing.

These different personas existed irrespective of an individual’s role. The R2 Data Labs team knew that digital transformation could only be successful if all employees – regardless of persona - embraced change and shifted their mindset to think digital first. To put this concept into action, R2 Data Labs created what it refers to as “The Digital Academy.”

Launched in 2017, The Digital Academy’s mission was to create a growing and interactive community ecosystem to teach digital skills and build awareness of external digital landscapes. The academy established a formal program to connect, educate, and enable Rolls-Royce employees to think in terms of digital approaches to business.

To fulfill its mission, the academy connected colleagues with similar traits to explore and embrace digital ideas. Additionally, it exposed Rolls-Royce employees to external examples of digital-first thinking from organizations ranging from Oracle to Manchester United. A net-work of internal digital ambassadors supported these initiatives.

The company then went on to map its efforts into what it called a digital elements table. The table provided a view of a digital culture and mindset, skills, and enablement. These elements were then mapped to an individual’s career framework, providing them a way to align their professional growth with increasingly digital-first thinking.

Collectively, the efforts of the academy empowered Rolls-Royce employees to better understand and embrace digital thinking. By doing so, the R2 Data Labs group provided the company with a formalized means to establish digital-first thinking across a diverse population with varying competency levels.

Dentsply Reduces Cognitive Load to Create a More Dynamic Workforce

In a second example, Dan Ron, Senior Process Engineer at Dentsply Sirona, discussed how the company enhanced its manufacturing work-force using shop-floor IIoT and tools to create digital workflows.  Dentsply Sirona is a dental products manufacturer with plants across the globe. One of the company’s core competencies is creating patient-specific products. What differentiates it from competitors, is the ability to create these products with same-day turnaround. Without digital workflows, they would not be able to deliver this specific value.

Mr. Ron made the point that Industry 4.0 isn’t just a driver to leverage technology that minimizes the human role in manufacturing. In fact, his company believes that digital technology is employed to enhance the value of workers. This value is delivered by using technology to simplify the cognitive load on operators.  Thus, humans can concentrate on the more complex tasks for which they are particularly well suited and can provide higher value to the company.

Mr. Ron provided a few examples of digital approaches in our personal lives ― music and weather information ― to demonstrate how people can be more proactive by using data. People can take as much music they want wherever they go and listen to it in any order or way they choose. The same is true for weather information, as people can now access it in real time down to a neighborhood level and then plan their days accordingly.

Workforce Impact of Digital Transformation Digital%20Workflows%20Enable%20Operators%20to%20Create%20Up%20to%201%2C000%20Patient-specific%20Products.JPGHe then showed how the same thinking is being applied within Dentsply’s manufacturing process. Using digital workflows, Dentsply has shifted its operators’ mentality from a reactive, “what do I need to do?” to the proactive, “I need to do XYZ for this order.” Since the in-formation is digital, the instruction can then also be delivered just in time, speeding the accuracy of processes while also reducing training time.

This is a critical shift in thinking at Dentsply, where an operator may be required to create 1,000 patient-specific products in a single a day. Mr. Ron showed how the digital workflow matches the operator’s fulfillment of instructions, for example, highlighting bin parts and printing labels only when needed.

While the speed and accuracy of production are critical, Mr. Ron indicated that the impact to workforce is even more beneficial ― it simply becomes more dynamic.  Because the cognitive load is reduced and simplified, individual worker and overall workforce gains can be realized via:

  • Cross-training workers for other tasks
  • Developing multi-skilled workers that are more satisfied with their careers
  • Shifting labor where and when it is needed

Dentsply also recognized that culture change is something that people naturally resist, even when numerous and personal benefits are evident. The company took that resistance into account by carrying out only small changes across a year. Dentsply standardized simple things, like desks and tool placement. A single operation was digitized at a single work station in a plant. Mechanisms were introduced for integrating employee ideas into the digital workflow process. New KPIs were created by applying analytics to the IIoT data associated with the digital process, so workers had much more specific input into what defined success. All these steps helped improve worker buy in and end results. 

Table of Contents

  • Executive Overview
  • Rolls-Royce Builds a Digital-first Workforce Culture
  • Dentsply Reduces Cognitive Load to Create a More Dynamic Workforce
  • Oxford Group Integrates People and Workflows into Digital Twins
  • Recommendations

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