Now, manufacturers around the globe are straddling a bridge between yesterday, when most employees were physically present at work, and tomorrow, when hybrid work and the possibility of a safe return to the traditional factory floor will enable a path back to normalcy.

As Hannover Messe 2021 Digital Edition kicks off, it’s clear the manufacturing industry is accelerating its digital transformation—and the workforce and the workplace have changed forever.

Hybrid work is the new norm

To some extent, we can bank, shop, and even meet our doctors online, but a manufacturing frontline worker must continue to make what we need at the factory, and hence can’t stay at home. Manufacturers are increasingly talking about the ‘new normal’ of hybrid work and adapting new practices for ensuring safe and secure work in their factories.

When the pandemic hit, we saw customers accelerate their plans drastically, with two years of digital transformation occurring in just two months, and throughout the year we saw daily usage of Microsoft Teams double multiple times. Specifically, in the manufacturing industry, the daily active usage of Teams increased over 230 percent year-over-year. The need to digitally communicate and collaborate across an organization, while always important, is now essential.

Frontline workers have emerged as the heroes of the past year and business leaders are increasingly realizing the need to deploy tools that connect their entire organization, from corporate to the factory floor. Microsoft Teams is enabling new ways of working—from connecting the manufacturing workforce with Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing and digitizing business processes, to streamlining onboarding and skilling the workforce.

The need for all workers to be connected to mission-critical information remains real. In many manufacturing scenarios, the expectation is that everyone should be able to call for remote support.

Teams is also empowering the frontline workforce with purpose-built solutions to enable them to succeed and be safe. Microsoft’s partnership with RealWear is key in making that happen by allowing heads-up and hands-free collaboration.

Typically, factories and frontline workers haven’t always been the first to see digital transformation investments, partially because both software and hardware need to come together to provide optimal experiences. Customers like Honeywell are conducting virtual inspections and factory acceptance tests using Microsoft Teams and RealWear with hands-free video calling. Remote experts can provide real-time guidance to the factory floor, leading to decreased machine downtime and cost savings plus ensuring worker safety in rugged environments.

Mars Petcare, for example, has been redefining how it’s upskilling its associates on the frontline to handle day-to-day preventative maintenance on their pet food manufacturing machinery and equipment. They’re using the RealWear hands-free wearable to connect to remote experts working from home today. Mars expects a hybrid model in the future with 80 percent of work travel being eliminated.

Coming soon, Microsoft Teams and RealWear will have voice commands to use the device flashlight and adjust zoom level for your outgoing video, making it easier for those on the plant floor to show what they see hands-free.

Extend and digitize manufacturing workflows

Microsoft Teams is unique in that once you connect your information and frontline workers on the same communications platform, you can digitize your workflows—bringing the tools and processes you already use right into the flow of work. Customers are using Teams and Power Platform to perform factory quality assurance, and Toyota has digitized their continuous improvement (Kaizen) process, accelerating it from months to days.

Approvals are a critical component of how manufacturing frontline workers get their job done. To streamline workflows, new templates in Teams provide a repeatable structure for common approvals, like requesting overtime. And integrations with key partners, like Adobe Sign and DocuSign, allow for an electronic signature approval natively within the Approvals app for contracts and permits on the factory floor that require formal attestation.

Just like how coffee to some is fundamental to starting the day, clocking-in to one’s shift is fundamental for factory workers. Now, with new Time Clock APIs, organizations can create rules such as how late someone can clock-in without requiring manager approval or requiring a health screening survey before clocking-in for the day.

Foster culture and learning in your team

Reskilling and upskilling the workforce through ongoing learning and development has become a top priority for manufacturers. Connect your corporate office to the factory floor, share important information with the right audience so that everyone is on the same page. New essential announcements in Yammer allows publishers to guarantee every frontline employee will see important community announcements, even if it’s outside of their preferred notification settings. Corporate teams can now also monitor, manage, and improve content they share with their frontline workforce, like new training or safety policies, with Yammer communities’ insights.

Additionally, Viva Learning provides easy access to training content for job-related learning to quickly onboard operators and constantly build their skills. Continue to learn more about the value coming in the Microsoft Viva roadmap here.

Learn more

For a deeper dive and a demo of Teams for manufacturing workflows, check out the Manufacturing day in the life with Microsoft Teams video.

Join us in a LinkedIn Ask-me-Anything conversation between Emma Williams, Corporate Vice President, Modern Workplace Transformation, and Andrew Chrostowski, CEO of RealWear, facilitated by Julie Sanford, General Manager of Global Industry Marketing. Tune in as they talk about what they’re hearing from manufacturing customers on the frontlines. 

To learn more about how to empower your frontline workforce to do more with Microsoft Teams, register for the upcoming webinar, check out this blog on virtual Kaizen Events, dig deeper into each product announcement in the tech community blog, and stay informed about Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing to learn how you can help manufacture a more resilient and sustainable future.

The post How Microsoft Teams is powering hybrid work and the frontline in manufacturing appeared first on Microsoft 365 Blog.

This is especially true as it relates to an organization’s Firstline Workforce. In manufacturing, Firstline Workers are the employees who deliver products and materials, drive product quality, and keep critical equipment running. To help manufacturers with their digital transformation, we’re enabling new ways to work with Microsoft 365 for Firstline Workers to learn, communicate, and collaborate more effectively.

Upskilling and equipping the Firstline Workforce

With the rise of Industry 4.0, manufacturers must reimagine the roles, skills, and tools to transform work throughout their organization. This means providing digital and soft skills, empowering workers with modern tools, and blurring the boundaries of technology with new immersive experiences. In an increasingly digital and complex landscape, the types of skills that employees need are rapidly evolving, and it is increasingly difficult for the workforce to keep pace.

Solutions in Microsoft 365 that enable Firstline Workers to learn, communicate, and collaborate include:

• Using Microsoft Teams and SharePoint Online, manufacturers can securely centralize training efforts, easily distribute onboarding and training materials, and connect all levels of the organization to find and share best practices.

• Using Microsoft Stream, organizations can deliver dynamic, role-based content and video to increase engagement and retention of training programs and support peer-to-peer information sharing.

To help equip workers to operate in a digitally-enabled manufacturing environment, Teams provides a single hub for teamwork to communicate, collaborate, and coordinate production from the engineering rooms to the factory floor.

• Earlier this year, we announced new capabilities—including urgent messaging, location sharing, and image annotations—which organizations can use to create a safer and more efficient workplace. For example, these features can help workers identify, communicate, and share the location of hazardous spills to help reduce operational disruptions.

• Additionally, Microsoft Teams is extensible and allows companies to transform business processes using Microsoft Flow and PowerApps. These services help to digitize everyday activities—such as documentation during quality assurance, data capture, and inventory management—helping reduce costs and free up time for Firstline Workers to focus on higher value activities.

As Industry 4.0 reshapes the manufacturing industry, finding new innovations to help workers learn, communicate, and collaborate remains a top priority. Microsoft is addressing these challenges through breakthroughs in hardware design, artificial intelligence (AI) experiences, mixed reality with HoloLens 2, and through business-ready solutions with Dynamics 365 and industry partners.

• Using Dynamics 365 Remote Assist, technicians can solve problems faster by calling in remote experts via Microsoft Teams to help walk through repairs using mixed reality annotations, sharing diagrams and schematics. And with Dynamics 365 Guides, employees can learn new skills with step-by-step instructions that guide employees to the tools they need and how to use them in real work situations.

Helping our customers succeed

Leading manufacturers choose Microsoft 365 to prepare, equip, and empower their employees at all levels:

To accelerate productivity and information flow, Cummins replaced its existing productivity and collaboration tools with Microsoft 365, introducing a modern knowledge management and collaboration framework to reduce skills gaps and anchor a new culture of work.

“Our modern, tech-driven workplaces give employees the tools they need to innovate, so we can introduce new energy products and technology solutions to the market. It’s also a key strategy in attracting top talent.”
—Sherry Aaholm, VP and CIO for Cummins

Goodyear is using the integrated and adaptive tools in Microsoft 365 to help accelerate innovation and enable new capabilities inside the company. For example, Goodyear is connecting its workforce via tools like Teams, which is driving productivity and generating efficiencies to deliver the right products to the right place at the right time.

“Enhancing collaboration is crucial to us for improved decision making and to drive innovation, both in tires and beyond tires… Our multigenerational and multicultural global workforce is now sharing perspectives and ideas more quickly and easily than ever.”
—Sherry Neubert, CIO for The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company

We’re incredibly excited about our opportunity to help manufacturers transform and we are just getting started!

Join us at Hannover Messe and learn more

Next week, members of the Microsoft team will be at Hannover Messe, the annual manufacturing conference. Visit us at Microsoft stand C40 and learn how Microsoft is enabling Intelligent Manufacturing.

The post Closing the skills gap in manufacturing with Microsoft 365 appeared first on Microsoft 365 Blog.