Closing the Manufacturing Skills Gap with
What Is the Manufacturing Skills Gap?
At industrial organizations, workforce training is more important—and more difficult—than ever before. As your experts are approaching retirement, you’ll likely feel a heightened sense of urgency to upskill your newer hires. But cultivating critical skills is easier said than done.
As products and processes become more complex, knowledge transfer takes too much of your experts’ time—and manual, paper-based instructions can’t be updated as quickly as requirements change. That’s why best-in-class manufacturers are embracing augmented reality (AR).
AR takes the pressure off your experts, closing the skills gap by making valuable, up-to-date domain knowledge accessible across key stages of the employee lifecycle, including:
By delivering highly visual and interactive experiences, AR helps manufacturers transition away from paper-based manuals and in-person classes, and leans into a new way of learning and working that appeals to the rising generation of digital natives.
As an accessible and visual learning method, AR work instructions provide digital natives with a more effective and familiar means for learning new skills. This approach also brings new hires up to speed faster and positions companies as innovative leaders to prospective candidates. Learn how PTC customer Harpak-ULMA leverages AR to improve efficiency in its packaging operations.
When it comes to rigorous quality checks and inspections, AR instructions replace stacks of paper with 3D data overlays and QA details that help increase recruitment attractiveness for key positions and improve new hire confidence. Learn how PTC customer Volvo leverages AR instructions for simplified inspections.
There’s no question that AR is an impressive alternative to traditional training methods. Specifically, AR offers multiple ways to modernize employee learning with easily consumable experiences. These different approaches all drive measurable, improved training outcomes that can close your skills gap in manufacturing.
By providing in-context training instructions that can be easily updated at any time, AR adds a critical visual element that compresses the timeline for human understanding of complex products, processes, and workflows, eliminates the reliance on paper-based methods, decreases overall training time, and increases comprehension for visual learners.
In-person mentoring, classroom training, and on-the-job shadowing in production environments are costly, time-consuming, and sometimes infeasible. By leveraging AR training methods, travel costs can be reduced by 100%. Plus, equipment and machinery can be freed up for production instead of training purposes.
At career and industry events, AR content with 3D CAD and IoT data helps you mitigate the costs of shipping physical products from event to event. According to PTC customer results, showcasing detailed, virtual products that demonstrate features and functionality help enrich candidate experiences, improve competitive differentiation, and change the perception of “old school manufacturing.”
Mentoring new hires is disruptive to subject matter experts, causing a reduction in productivity and a drain on high-performing tenured employees. By capturing their expertise and sharing it via AR, the new employees gain guidance and confidence while the experts focus on their work.
A safe and engaging workplace is paramount when closing the skills gap in manufacturing. When employees are engaged and aware of their surroundings, they’re more likely to use safer practices on the job. The interactive and visual nature of AR is proven to help employees stay engaged and safe at work: PTC customers achieve up to 48% fewer incidents because of AR-based training.
Immersive training experiences increase employee engagement and retention.
CAD-based AR inspection instructions provide precise 3D visual guidance to quality inspectors, which helps them reduce errors and improve inspection compliance.
Real-time, step-by-step assistance and on-demand expert insights empower technicians to improve safety and compliance—without taking experts away from their work.
AR experiences with 3D and IoT transform the training experience and empower frontline workers with relevant, visual instruction. Safety warnings are digitally displayed during task execution to ensure employee understanding and reduced errors.
AR helps employees at any level of experience share and scale knowledge for faster upskilling, more effective recruitment, more efficient training, and a safer, more engaging work experience. If you’re ready to start closing the skills gap at your organization, learn how AR empowers your workforce in a Q&A with PTC and a guest speaker from Forrester Research.
Augmented Reality
Empower and Upskill Your Workforce with AR
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Attracting and Retaining Talent
Improving Training Outcomes
Making the Workplace Safer and More Engaging
