Leveraging AI and Digital Workers to Overcome Workforce Shortages

Welcome to the Industry 4.0 Club's fireside chat. The club's purpose is to engage a diverse worldwide talent to accelerate the global evolution to Industry 4.0. We accomplish this by hosting and supporting respectful, thoughtful, and interdisciplinary open conversations and creating quality content on wide-ranging Industry 4.0 topics to expand the reach of our community. My name is Mike Ungar, and I am the CEO of the Industry 4.0 Club. I have over 40 years of leadership and business experience, with most of that experience in manufacturing at Michelin. I'm joined today by my co-host, Mike Yost, who's chairman of the club. Mike, could you introduce yourself please?

Sure, thank you, Mike. Welcome everybody. As Mike said, my name is Mike Yost. I'm the volunteer chairman of the Industry 4.0 Club, one of the co-founders. I've been in the industry for a little over 30 years or so, so really excited to have the conversations that we're having here today.

Welcome. Thanks, Mike. So today we have the pleasure of speaking with Carmel Wijnkoop. Carmel is the partner in charge of AI analytics and automation for Amanino. She's going to be presenting at MD&M West in Anaheim, California on February 5th, 2025, and the title of her presentation is Leveraging AI and Digital Workers to Overcome Workforce Shortages. A little bit about Carmel. So she leads the business analytics and automation practice providing for Amanino, providing both data-driven process improvements and automation solutions to a growing number of industries for complex issues. She has more than 25 years of experience leading highly effective cross-functional teams, enabling business process transformation through technology to achieve the strategic goals of her clients. Known as a change agent, Carmel has led and completed projects across a wide variety of types of complexities. She has a great deal of hands-on experience modernizing and transforming business process through best practices and process automation in industries such as manufacturing, life science, construction, and technology. She's also led large-scale ERP implementations around the world to help organizations lay the foundation for digital transformation. So Carmel, welcome. We're glad that you could join us.

Thank you so much. Wow, that was— that, Mike, you can do my introduction anytime.

Thanks again.

Yeah, yeah. Well, we welcome you, Carmel. Thank you for being here, and thank you for agreeing to be at the event coming up early next year. So just before we jump in and start talking AI and such, I wanted to address— you'll be talking about leveraging AI and solutions to help address the workforce shortages. And so are we really facing— is it a A bodies issue? Are we— is it the number of people or is it people with the proper skill sets that you see that we're missing in manufacturing?

Yeah, I mean, I think it's the number of people, right? So we've got a growing number of folks retiring and not as many people entering the workforce. And so, I mean, we can all feel it, right? We're being asked to do more with less. And so this is, as we think about AI and how we can do that, we look at, can we augment our folks to help them be more efficient utilizing technology, whether that's a digital worker like robotic process automation or some generative AI or, you know, embedded AI. In the applications that already exist. And I mean, for years we've had outsourcing, right? The outsourcing model. If you needed help, you could outsource. And I think what's happened is that triangle has turned into sort of a diamond shape now where, uh, it's, it's just not enough just to do the outsourcing. It's— you really need to augment with, with automation and, and robotic process automation and AI in order to really continue to be able to move at the pace and scale that organizations are having to deal with now.

Yeah, I guess just to follow on with that, you know, we've all been in the industry for a long time and, you know, there's historically been a concern of folks saying, you know, automation replaces workers and all that sort of stuff. But I do think that certainly since the pandemic, we've seen people recognizing what you said, that there's a shortage of workers. And so, you know, How do I make myself more competitive? Have you seen the conversation flip a bit over the last couple of years, folks being more open to conversations about leveraging technologies to make their teams better?

I think what we see is there's still some fear for sure of folks feeling like AI is going to replace them. We say AI is not going to replace you, but someone who knows AI is going to replace you. the people embracing it and really taking it on and learning how to use it well and be that much more efficient because of the AI. I think that's an area where we will start to see a shift. And then I do think you're right. The pandemic sort of moved all of us to more of a digital sort of way to interact, right? So I can tell you that before the pandemic, I was on-site at clients on a more It's more like this, right? We're doing a lot more through, uh, medium online. And so, uh, I think, I think people are seeing that the AI can help them, uh, be more efficient. And it's an interesting thing that happened during the pandemic too, because, you know, when you went to the office, you were not home. And so your Your coworkers expected to see you there, and then you would all depart, and maybe you worked a little bit at home, maybe not. Now you're at home with your family and you still have to work late, but you've been in that office all day. And so, like, if we can start using tools, right, like Teams and Zoom both have AI embedded in them now so that they can take notes and, and you can You know, you're not the one having to take those notes. Now, the thing I like about all these AI tools as well is that if you think about a human in the loop for these, right, it's not— we're not replacing the human thought. We're helping relieve some of the median tasks that folks have to do that are just a part of our, our world and our job, right?

Okay.

But you still get to edit and make changes to those things and influence over it. You don't just have to Right. Take it and that's all you get.

So, well, you mentioned having folks who are working remotely, and of course in manufacturing, if I'm on a production line, that's hard to do. So, yeah, do you see AI applications mostly helping those in support roles in manufacturing, or do you see the AI also being able to help those who are on the plant floor?

I think it's a combination of those things. And if you look at like some really large manufacturing organizations, they've already embraced things like robotics process automation, where on the manufacturing floor they've got robots that are doing some of the work, right?

Mm-hmm.

And they've retooled the skillset of the employees to manage those robots on the manufacturing line. But I do think even folks that have embraced it on the manufacturing floor, they sort of let their back office fall behind. And so that is an area where we see— and the difference between robotic process automation in this scenario is you have a large robot on the floor that's actually picking things up and putting things down, uh, and, you know, helping build something, where robotic process automation in the back office is more software, right? And so it, it can mimic tasks that a person can do on a computer, things like a bank reconciliation as an example, right? Or transfers, uh, things like that. But I think the back office is really one of those areas that we're going to see more and more AI and more and more digital workers because it's sort of been neglected for years.

If we were to kind of go a little bit deeper on that, our first talk about worker shortages, then, yeah, um, is, is the back office where the worker shortages are, or the shop floor, or both from your perspective?

Um, I'm seeing it more in the back office, although I think it is a little bit on the floor as well.

Mm-hmm.

But if you look at some, you know, if you look at the statistics around who the back office workers are, it's folks that are getting close to retirement age, right? And so we don't have a lot of new— I mean, if you look at the accounting world as a whole, the numbers of folks graduating with finance and accounting degrees is plummeting. And so we're not getting the same influx into the back office positions that we used to. So, I mean, I think it's holistic. The, the, you know, shortage of workers is holistic, and I don't think it's just impacting manufacturing as an industry.

Right.

We see it across almost every industry, although I think technology is probably one of those ones because of AI that you're probably having more and more folks get degrees and come into that space. Yeah, so I do think the back office is sort of one of those areas that is a little bit trickier from, you know, hiring new people that are super interested in doing that.

So are you having conversations— the AI conversation in manufacturing, front office, back office, plant floor, what have you— is it centered around augmenting existing workers? So taking a worker or workforce you have and making them more productive, or is it the the job replacement, you know, we can get rid of folks. What are the discussions you're getting into most often?

Yeah, it's not the job replacement. It is augmenting the folks that are there that, you know, either someone's about to retire or they just have a very small team that's helping them manage their business. And, you know, again, we continually pile on to those with new tasks and new things that we want people to be focused on. But the routine things that they— that still have to happen in order to manage the business don't go away. So once we ask somebody to do something more, that doesn't mean you were taking something off their plate, especially if you have a really small team, right? And so we think of the AI as augmenting that and giving them, you know, an assistant, an AI assistant, So that they can be one, feel better about the work that they're doing. So if they've got, let me give you an example. We had a person that was working, and this manufacturing company also had some an investment portfolio. And so they were looking at she was spending 700 hours doing reconciliations for banks and investments. 700 hours a year—that's a lot of time. So if you can automate that and have her focus on higher-level things that are really going to impact, you know, your bottom line, that's going to be a much more effective use of her time. She's going to enjoy her job more. This was a real example. So, but yeah, I mean, I think it's about sort of taking those mundane tasks that have to get done and they're repeatable and automating those so that we can all focus on Higher-level things.

We don't have to worry. It sounds like what you're saying is that leadership and companies should be— if they're focused on the right things, that's just augmenting. Workers don't have any real concern about being replaced. It's really— in fact, they should be concerned more so probably, it sounds like, if they're not moving forward with some of this additional support.

Yeah, 100%. And I think, you know, if we look at, if we look at the trajectory here, Gartner and a number of other research organizations are saying that, you know, if companies aren't investing in AI or some sort of automation in the next 3 years, they're going to fall woefully behind and maybe not even exist at that point, right? So, and I always sort of think of the AI being accessible now. I mean, AI has been around for a long time. But it hasn't been accessible to everyone. But if you think of it like the launch of the internet, when that also became accessible to everyone, can you imagine doing business and not being on the internet today? That's just unfathomable. Now, if the internet goes down, we all sit around and go, well, I don't know what I'm supposed to do. None of my stuff works. I'm not connected to anything. I think we're going to see that from an AI perspective as well. It's here, it's going to stay. It's how do we adopt it and how do we do this in a smart way that's responsible and that is augmenting people and not replacing them?

Well, I guess a quick question along that point because I use this conversation regularly, like my parents use AI, but they have no idea that they're using it. It's built into things that get smarter and have more capabilities. How much of the work of leveraging AI in the future is going to be knowing it, programming it, or versus it just being embedded and knowing more of the practices and principles of using these more advanced tools?

I think that there's still going to be a large need for people to know how to install it and develop it. Then we're now also seeing that when you think about large language models or even small language models, the data behind that has to get cleaned and you have to understand what data you're allowing that model to learn from and understand. I think that's going to be the next big area that folks are going to have to start paying attention to. Again, we've been talking about big data for decades also and You know, there's not a whole lot of people that are paying a great deal of attention to that in normal organizations, right? This, you know, Amazon is paying very close attention to their data because you're buying stuff and you can see all the trends, and right, so it's, it's very— that data is very clean and they can use all the AI to, um, to understand that data and then predict what you're going to buy Netflix does the same thing, predicting what you can binge on, right? So those large companies and companies of that size have been using those AI tools for years. Now it's accessible to everybody else. And so I think it's really about, you know, the data behind it. But there is definitely still going to be an IT component in that, that, you know, security—

Right, keeps it secure.

Yeah, to keep everything secure, access, you know, and, and what it's gonna actually go and learn and talk to. So, um, just because it's on and out there doesn't mean that it doesn't still need care and feeding, because it is going to.

Right. You know, I think about, um, the adage in business, if you're not growing, you're dying. And it sounds like if you're not growing and incorporating AI into your business, you're dying as you describe it. That's interesting.

Yeah, I mean, that's what Gartner is telling us, so I'm going to say yep.

No, it's interesting to think about that a little bit differently when you're leading a business in terms of the actions you should be taking. That's really neat. There's a lot of buzz around AI, obviously, and so I think You know, you mentioned earlier this— there's a fear about the unknown. We talked about where the internet's going, the same fear like with the internet. I remember when I was a kid, it was the same fear about TV, right? So way back when— I'm dating myself too much, right? But these things evolve. That's really true. It's very interesting to see things, how they change our society and move us forward. But, you know, I think a lot of it, a lot of times, to waylay a lot of those concerns and Folks need to be able to get facts and become comfortable with understanding how this can impact them. Where would you recommend folks go to learn more about AI and to really understand how it might impact them?

I think, you know, Gartner is a great research tool. Forrester is a great research tool. I also think going straight to the source and, you know, looking at the sites that are producing those things. Go to OpenAI's website and read everything that they say that they're doing and understand that Microsoft, Google, Claude is now moving quite fast. Then I think the other place is really don't be afraid to ask folks that do this for a living. I think that's a good way to to get some understanding as well. It's, uh, there's plenty of folks that focus on AI and, and love to talk about it all day long, me being one of them. And, uh, you know, we're happy to do it. So I think relying on those things, but also, you know, in your sphere of LinkedIn friends, uh, you know, grab those folks that, that are doing something with AI and see how— what they, what they think of it. And how they're using it. But it is funny because, Mike, you mentioned your parents use AI. My mom actually said, I hate AI. And I was like, well, you have a Ring doorbell that you're talking to every single day, so I don't even know how you can say that. And you have, you know, you've got Google sitting on your counter that you talk to every day to turn things on and turn things off and play music.

Right.

So it is funny that we use it in our personal lives and we don't really think much about it, you know what I mean? But in our professional lives, it— that's— people are still a little like, oh, that's a little scary because, because there is still a fear that it's going to replace folks. And I, I don't see that happening. I think there's, there's, there's too much. There's too much here and here, right? So, and we still need that in a big way.

Well, you talked about resources available to familiarize yourself and such, and obviously you're going to be speaking at the MD&M conference coming up beginning of next year. So what can folks expect if they're— if they can make it to the event and hear your session and get the opportunity to talk with you?

It tends to be a little bit humorous and entertaining, but also we try and give some very tangible ways to get started with AI and things to think about. Usually there's a couple demos in there where we will either have something recorded or I'll do it live, which is always crazy to do live demos, but we do them. How to get started, how to sort of think about the bigger picture. What do you do for small wins? Like, I typically don't recommend people start with predictive analytics and let's go look at my entire data warehouse. We're going to start there. Let's, you know, so we give tangible things that people can take away and do right now on, you know, ChatGPT or Gemini, and then things that you can start thinking about ways to leverage AI and robotic process automation in, in your business.

That's great. That's actually super. Well, um, we are excited to, to, to see you in California. So I want to thank you for taking the time to give us this preview of your presentation at MD&M West. And again, for everybody listening, it's going to take place on February 5th at the Anaheim Convention Center. In California. As Carmel mentioned, we hope you decide to join us. I think it'll be really great and it'll be super to see you there and, and, and to, but to have you participate and hear Carmel's presentation. To register for the event, please go to mdnmwest.com and you can register to hear Carmel when you register for the Design, Engineer, and Build Conference. So it's in that particular area. of the event. So hopefully we'll see you there. And just to kind of talk about the club for a moment, we'd like to encourage you to take action to advance the deployment of Industry 4.0, to read an article, attend a workshop, develop a smart manufacturing roadmap for your plant or company, or just challenge your organization to move forward with the deployment of Industry 4.0. We'd like to know what actions you're taking to integrate Industry 4.0 into your operations. It's really important for the future. We routinely host conversations like these on LinkedIn and YouTube. So if you'd like to join us on a future broadcast, we'd be happy to host you as well. Our website is www.industry40club.com or follow us on our LinkedIn page. So on behalf of Mike and Carmel, thanks again for joining us. And we wish everybody a wonderful rest of the day and rest of the week.

Thanks, guys.

Thanks for having me.