The Reliability and Maintenance Workforce of the Future

The Reliability and Maintenance Workforce of the Future

IMC Presentation 42:39 Minutes

by Emeka Anosike and Jamie Hart, Accenture

A fundamental characteristic of the human being is the ability to visualize the future. We are constantly thinking about the future and wondering what it holds for us based on what is prevalent at the current time, and then we extrapolate and plan. With the exponential advancement in digital technologies like Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), extended reality, machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), quantum computing, Block Chain, etc., how work is performed, and the workforce of the future is set to change fundamentally. Where these digital technologies have had a quicker adoption in our lives outside the manufacturing industries where we work, these industries are lagging in the adoption of “The New” that is already prevalent outside their gates and are only now exploring these technologies via proof of concepts (POC), with only a few organizations truly scaling across enterprise to benefit from the determined values delivered by these POCs. We literally have more technology in our homes than where we work. This means going to work in a manufacturing plant feels like stepping back into the past, and then it's “back to the future” when you get home.

The ways of working for plant maintenance and reliability practitioners are beginning to change and will probably radically change over the coming years. The fundamental question is: What will it change to? This presentation will explore those probable and possible changes in ways of working and look at the skills and behaviors that will be required by the maintenance and reliability workforce of the future. Being able to visualize the future will enable manufacturing organizations and educational institutions better prepare the future workforce today. The presentation will take the audience via real-life historical situations that have occurred in the past into what it is today and what it might be in the future.

Takeaways:

  • Skills and behaviors that need to be developed today to be able to build the maintenance and reliability workforce of tomorrow.
  • Benefits of proactive preparation of the maintenance and reliability workforce of the future.
  • Organizational impact of digital ways of working.
  • What the future maintenance and reliability workforce will be engaged in.