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HOW SMART MANUFACTURING IS REDESIGNING WORK
Gustavo Zecharies, Regional President, Europe, Middle East and Africa, Rockwell Automation, says as complexity rises, manufacturers are rethinking how work gets done, equipping teams with real-time insights to improve decisions and performance
E
very time we face an industrial revolution, a similar existential question emerges: is technology going to replace us, or will it increase
our capabilities? This is a recurring question in the world of manufacturing, and the concept of “work” is being redefined at a pace that few expected in recent years. The 11th Annual State of Smart Manufacturing
Report shows that 93 percent of organisations expect an evolution of their workforce as smart manufacturing advances, and 40 percent have re-skilled employees in the past year alone.
The drivers are clear. Rising complexity, tighter margins, and ongoing workforce constraints are forcing manufacturers to rethink how work gets done and who does it. At the same time, digital technologies are moving deeper into everyday operations, changing how decisions are made on the plant floor and across the enterprise. These technologies have the potential to expand our human possibilities by supercharging us with physical and intellectual abilities, enabling us to do more, faster and safer in a collaborative and connected environment. The vast possibilities mean we may feel both concern and excitement.
This shift marks a change in focus in how
to address accelerating retirements and skills gap shortages. The challenge is now how to redesign work so people can operate more effectively in increasingly connected, data- driven environments. For years, workforce challenges in manufacturing focused on labour shortages. While attracting and retaining talent remains important, the State of Smart Manufacturing findings point to a broader issue. Manufacturing environments have become more dynamic, more connected, and more dependent on real-time information. Operators, engineers, and plant leaders are
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expected to manage higher levels of complexity while maintaining performance, quality, and uptime. In many cases, the systems supporting them have not kept pace. Data is always available, but not always in a form that is timely or in-context to the problems facing teams on the plant floor. This disconnect creates friction in daily work.
Teams spend unproductive time gathering information, validating inputs, or reconciling differences across systems instead of focusing on improving outcomes. As variability increases, so does the burden on individual experience and institutional knowledge to keep operations running smoothly. Addressing this challenge requires rethinking how work is structured in the first place. Leading manufacturers are focusing on how to equip people with the information and tools required to act quickly and consistently. Connected systems play a central role here, too. When operational and enterprise data come together in a shared environment, teams gain a clearer view of what is happening and what actions to take next. Advanced analytics can then surface relevant insights within context, reducing the need for manual interpretation. This shift raises the value of workers by equipping them with more concrete, contextualised data, improving decisions. Experience still matters, but it is supported by real- time insight and consistent information. As manufacturers move forward, the
organisations that adapt most effectively will be those that treat workforce challenges as an execution issue. The goal is to enable people to perform at a higher level within connected, intelligent operations.
As integrated technologies move deeper into day-to-day operations, their impact is most visible at the point of work. The challenge is how to manage and interpret all of the data from existing systems to support the people using them. For example, consider a manufacturer builds
The 11th Annual State of Smart Manufacturing Report shows that as operations become more connected, success depends on how well organisations can turn information into action
and deploys equipment across a range of industries. The company’s teams spread across multiple platforms and systems, each with its own interfaces, requirements, and learning curves. This fragmentation makes it harder to scale expertise and increases the time required to design, deploy, and support new systems. To address this, manufacturers are
standardising their approach, bringing engineering tools, control systems and data into a unified environment. The shift means teams no longer needed to navigate multiple systems and allows engineers to apply their knowledge more effectively and efficiently. Most importantly, engineers spend less time managing system complexity and more time solving problems, improving designs, and delivering value to customers. The results are shorter design cycles, fewer manual adjustments, and clearer lines of sight into performance. People still decide, but they do so with better information and fewer barriers. The organisations seeing the most impact
are not introducing new tools in isolation. They are simplifying the systems around their workforce so that data, analytics, and AI can support execution in a consistent way. That consistency is what allows knowledge to scale, teams to adapt, and operations to keep pace with growing complexity. Success requires teams to access actionable, contextualised information and use it to act more quickly than ever before. Today, many organisations still struggle to capitalise on the data they generate. Closing that gap is what allows digital investments to improve day-to-day execution. This is how smart manufacturing is changing work. It does not remove the need for skilled people, conversely, it increases their impact.
Rockwell Automation
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Automation | July/August 2026 21
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