The global experienced workforce shortage in process manufacturing comes as no surprise to anyone. Industry has been predicting an expertise cliff for years if not decades, and it’s finally here. But what people didn’t anticipate quite as clearly was the parallel shift in the way people work, and the way those changes exacerbate the problem.

As David Kapolnek explores in his recent article in Smart Industry, workers are not just hard to find, but hard to retain,

“It is no longer safe to assume that a new hire will stay in a role for decades and become the resident expert in a very targeted role. Today’s plant personnel are regularly moving between roles every three to five years, taking their expertise with them, making it hard to maintain a deep store of knowledge onsite.”

A couple factors contribute to this transitory nature of modern personnel, but a common one is the need for a more modern workplace. Today’s best talent came up in the era of easy internet access and 24×7 digital decision support.

“These users are not only able to use modern digital solutions to help them perform at their best; they also expect those solutions to be available and up to date.”

If a plant is behind the technology curve, relying entirely on air-gapped software that is decades old, it might be hard to attract and retain the best people.

Delivering data

A great example of this new challenge is traditional maintenance rounds. The best new personnel were likely trained on systems that deliver data into the palm of their hand, dramatically reducing the need for them to walk around the plant on regular routes to collect data. They know they can be more efficient and effective when they have a constant connection to real-time data and visibility into the health of their assets and plant.

Modern continuous condition monitoring devices like the AMS Wireless Vibration Monitor and AMS Asset Monitor not only deliver critical asset health data on demand, but also use built-in AI software to provide technicians with decision support, helping every user perform at their best regardless of expertise. This means personnel get data at the cadence they need to be most effective and have the tools to make fast decisions and prioritize work more easily, leading to more efficient maintenance.

Bringing it all together

Organizations can further support modern digital workers with machinery health software like Emerson’s AMS Machine Works. Machinery health software

“is built on decades of industrial reliability expertise and automatically trends raw data—including subtle high frequency signatures—to deliver earlier, more accurate indications of developing faults. Using logical, rule-based models, the software alerts users to problems with indication of where the fault originated.”

Instead of spending time poring over raw data, or sending data to analysts and waiting for results, personnel using AMS Machine Works can get instant feedback for faster results, all via an intuitive dashboard that cuts through the noise to deliver actionable information.

Building for the future

Another expectation of today’s modern digital workforce is software that makes collaboration fast and easy. To stay competitive, the best reliability teams are not just focused on the plant; they’re looking across the entire enterprise to drive standardization, efficiency, increased performance, and high throughput. Siloed data is anathema to such a vision. If teams can’t easily share data, they cannot drive excellence at a high level.

As a result, many teams are moving toward solutions that are part of an emerging enterprise operations platform (EOP), built for seamless data mobility from the intelligent field, through the edge, and into the cloud. The software-defined EOP is the foundation of next-generation automation, bridging the gap between control, reliability, cybersecurity, and industrial AI—designed to help teams better navigate the IT/OT convergence and deliver operational excellence across the plant and enterprise.

It’s never too early or too late to start implementing the software tools that will attract the best talent. The organizations that do are not just bringing in the tools modern digital workers expect and rely upon, they are also building the ecosystem that will help them compete in an increasingly crowded and competitive marketplace.