_____________________________________________________________________________________ Digital
Transformation
Manufacturers don’ t need to abandon process work. But they do need to build human reasoning into the methods and tools they already use.
An aging workforce raises the stakes
The aging workforce in most companies makes this effort urgent. Experienced workers are retiring along with the judgment they carry. Their decision-making logic that was never captured because no one ever asked for it, is heading out the door with them.
AI offers a way to retain that knowledge if the judgment behind it gets captured before the people who hold it leave. That’ s a narrow window, and it’ s closing faster than many transformation timelines account for. What makes that knowledge usable by a system is understanding how an experienced operator reasons through a trade-off, not just the call they ultimately land on.
What this means for manufacturers
Process work doesn’ t disappear, and not every decision should move to AI. The unit of transformation has been expanded, and the new secret ingredient now is how we capture and enable decision making. Manufacturers who evolve their thinking and transformation processes, rather than retrofitting AI onto processes built for a different era, will be the ones who harvest the value fastest. ■
Greg Pitstick www. huronconsultinggroup. com / en
Greg Pitstick is a Managing Director at Huron, where he helps manufacturing, industrials, and supply chain organizations navigate digital transformation and organizational change. Huron is a global professional services firm that collaborates with organizations to help solve their most complex challenges and achieve their most ambitious goals. Working across the private and public sectors, it partners closely with clients to improve performance, accelerate transformation, and unlock new opportunities for growth.
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