New research from OFS shows UK manufacturers risk wasting digital transformation investment as frontline teams create workarounds when systems fail to reflect shop floor reality – showing the importance of ‘human in the loop.’
The study of 500 UK manufacturing professionals, published in the report Same factory, different reality – the growing divide between manufacturing leadership and operators found 79% of manufacturing operators are using workarounds outside official systems, raising questions over whether digital transformation projects are being built around the reality of modern factory floors.
66% of operators rely on workarounds at least occasionally, while a further 13% do so frequently. The findings suggest that despite significant investment in digital systems, many manufacturers are still struggling to create tools that support how frontline team’s work. Rather than rejecting technology, operators are finding alternative ways to keep production moving when official systems do not provide the context, accuracy or speed they need.
The biggest reason for workarounds is that systems fail to capture the ‘why’ behind production issues, cited by 33% of respondents. A further 20% point to accuracy concerns, while 20% say speed is the issue. Given only 18% of operators believe they are involved before a new digital system is implemented, this may not be surprising.
James Magee, CEO of OFS says: “Workarounds are often seen as a people problem, but they are usually a systems problem.
“Operators are not creating extra processes because they want to avoid technology. They are doing it because the system does not always reflect the complexity of what is happening on the factory floor.
“A dashboard might show that something happened, but operators need to understand why it happened, what changed and what needs to happen next. If a system cannot capture that reality, people will naturally find another way.”
The research suggests a wider disconnect between digital strategy and frontline operations. While 71% of manufacturers say leadership actively seeks operator input, fewer than one in five (18%) involve operators before rolling out new operational digital systems. Instead, decisions are more likely to sit with operational management (44%), senior leadership (43%) and IT teams (41%).
Jonathan Newton, General Manager Europe at OFS added: “One of the biggest myths in manufacturing is that investing in smart machines or an MES system automatically solves the data problem. Many manufacturers believe automated fault codes and machine data give them a single source of truth, but machines only show part of the picture. They can tell you what happened, but they rarely explain why. No PLC error code can capture the human context behind downtime, recurring issues or missed opportunities for improvement. This is why 66% of operations teams still rely on workarounds outside official systems, with 33% saying it is because those systems fail to capture the real root cause of problems.
The missing link is the operator. The people closest to the line often hold the insight manufacturers need to improve performance, and our research shows they want to share it. The problem is that many systems have historically been designed from the top down, built for management visibility rather than frontline problem solving.”
OFS takes the opposite approach, putting the shopfloor at the centre and giving operators a frictionless way to capture real downtime reasons, ideas, feedback and continuous improvement opportunities. By combining automated line tracking with human insight, manufacturers can stop losing valuable knowledge to spreadsheets, notes and informal conversations, and turn frontline experience into measurable operational improvement.
