Upskilling production teams to be Industry 4.0 ready

QMI Team
QMI Team
Nov 5 · 3 min read

Manufacturing is undergoing revolutionary advances dubbed the ‘fourth industrial revolution’ or Industry 4.0. This term describes the digital transformation of conventional industrial and manufacturing processes by linking technologies including the internet of things (IoT), big data, augmented reality (AR) and virtualisation, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and digital communications infrastructure.

For Queensland manufacturing to survive and thrive, the impacts of Industry 4.0 demand rapid and fundamental change across our manufacturing workforce, requiring the production workforce to learn new skills and adopt new cultures, capabilities, attitudes, required to drive new ways of working and managing.

86% of businesses report they don’t feel their staff have the ‘people’ skills.

Continuous improvement is one of the biggest responsibilities of self-managing teams. Contrary to a vision of factories run by robots, successful manufacturing systems today depend more than ever on human insights. This demands team leaders and leading hands to optimise productivity, safety and performance on the production floor, bringing their workforce and management on a continuous journey.

While a lot of work is being done to train production workers in the new technical skills they need, up to 86% of businesses report they don’t feel their staff have the ‘people’ skills ─ the thinking, emotional intelligence, problem solving capabilities and mindsets ─ necessary to support successful transition to Industry 4.0.

Addressing production teams skills gaps

Through the Queensland government Department of Employment, Small Business and Training (DESBT) Training for Emerging and Innovative Industries Program, QMI created the Manufacturing and Engineering Emerging Innovative Industries (MEEII) project.

MEEII involved a partnership between QMI and Conscious Enterprise, to develop and pilot a custom training program to upskill current manufacturing and engineering workers. This unique training program created by Anna Stephenson, Managing Director of Conscious Enterprise is called Future Skills for Production Teams. It is aimed at supporting Queensland’s small-to-medium sized manufacturers to increase their productivity and global competitiveness through enhancing continuous improvement and team/human factor performance at the production floor level.

For the pilot program, teams were created with members from different companies. The program began with a Futures Skills for Production Teams Challenge Identification Workshop where participating manufacturers developed a challenge that the Production Team could work on. They also identified the range of skills they wanted to develop using the Team Challenge process. The selected challenge was a significant production and human factor issue affecting production.

The Workshop included an interactive presentation on Industry 4.0 for all participating staff. This was followed by the participants taking part in a 2-day Challenge Practicum — 2 teams of trainees from 2 non-competitive manufacturers undertaking a peer-to-peer, action learning process using the identified Team Challenge to learn and trial new people, problem solving and collaboration skills.

The program developed behaviours and thinking processes that empowered teams to perform effectively, foster cultures of continuous improvement, learning, and personal responsibility at the production team level.

The results

One of the key take-aways from this pilot program was it gave people the ‘people’ skills to manage and adapt to change. As companies grow towards a industry 4.0 future, this program teaches teams to work better across departments, breaking down silos.

82% of participants said the project helped give them the skills to adapt to the impacts of digital distribution in their industry.

This training was proudly funded by the Queensland Government through its Training in Emerging and Innovative Industries Fund.

QMI Solutions

Insightful solutions to advance manufacturing in Queensland

QMI Team

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QMI Team

Stories are written collaboratively with ideas and input from staff and industry, shared via medium.com/qmisolutions

QMI Solutions

Insightful solutions to advance manufacturing in Queensland

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