LNS Research, the leading advisory and research firm specializing in digital transformation initiatives at global industrial companies, just published a must-read eBook for all Industrial Transformation leaders focused on how digital technologies have opened a new frontier: the Digitally Connected Worker. The eBook, titled “Connected Worker: Connecting People and Systems to Transform Frontline Operations,” is based on an in-depth global survey with responses from 275 executives, management and operations personnel at industrial companies.

LNS Research defines Industrial Transformation as “a proactive and coordinated approach to leverage digital technologies to create step-change improvement in industrial operations.” The eBook highlights that the initial wave of Industrial Transformation investments focused on using asset-related data to drive improvement in areas such as asset reliability, energy management and product quality. Now, there is a strong trend toward a more integrated approach that incorporates the workers themselves into Industrial Transformation initiatives and leveraging human-related data to drive improvements. The rise of the digitally Connected Worker supports the conventional wisdom that improvement, whether incremental or step-change, requires alignment of people, process and technology capabilities – technology alone will not suffice.

Top takeaways from the new Connected Worker research

Key findings from the eBook include:

• The range of Connected Worker use case opportunities is very broad and operations-wide, with the potential to drive diverse benefits by fundamentally changing how workers interact with and engage in the work environment.
• Nearly half of industrial organizations are already well underway with implementing or piloting a wide range of Industrial Transformation initiatives to digitally connect their operations.
• However, there is considerable disparity in the achievement of actual business value. The research categorizes companies based on where they are in their Industrial Transformation journeys into three groups:
  • Leaders: the top 31% experiencing real success
  • Followers: the 54% that are still early stage
  • Stuck: the 15% still in pilot stages
• There are some interesting differences in adoption among industry sectors; for example, discrete manufacturers are further along than the process industries in implementation of Connected Worker technologies (38% vs. 19%).

The research confirms that Connected Worker initiatives are gaining traction in industrial organizations and are increasingly recognized as an integral component of Industrial Transformation programs.

To download the complete eBook with all of the findings, please click here. 

If you would like to learn more about how we are working with the pioneers of Connected Work to empower their teams with modern digital tools, please contact us. We’d love to discuss how we work with our customers to improve productivity, quality and safety.