Now more than ever, frontline workers are in need of digital workplace solutions to keep them safe. Over the past few months, industrial companies have faced major disruptions due to the impacts of COVID-19. Implementing a highly functional digital workplace solution for frontline workers and operational management is an essential step toward increasing safety, engagement, and efficiency across industrial operations.
Here are some key reasons to digitize your frontline workforce:
Whether you are using SAP PM, IBM Maximo, or any other plant maintenance platform, it is challenging integrating your frontline workers into the real-time, often mobile, maintenance process. With a connected maintenance team, you’re able to access pertinent information, giving you live visibility into plant equipment and worker activity. The old adage tells us that hindsight is 20/20, but Webalo’s patented technology provides immediate visibility into plant operations, letting you get ahead of problems before they arise.
Despite the fact that frontline workers account for nearly 80% of the workforce, they continue to be overlooked when it comes to modernizing workplace protocols through technology investments. This recent Forbes/Microsoft report addresses the fact that technological advances have a measurable impact on performance, growth, and worker job satisfaction, all while improving the bottom line.
Supporting your frontline workforce with the work instructions and data they need to complete their jobs results in greater accuracy and efficiency across the board. By digitizing your frontline workers’ day-to-day processes, you no longer have to worry that information that formerly had to be printed has changed, and is now unreliable. When essential information and instructions are digitized, you can be confident knowing that your workers always have access to the correct and most up-to-date information - and that they can easily adapt to changes.
Connected worker technology digitizes paper-based procedures, ensuring that workers are always following correct protocols in real time. Workers are able to follow SOP’s, receive clear work instructions via their devices, as well as capture and input information each step of the way – all of which can be easily measured. Managers are then able to tap into that human activity data, gathering insights that can lead to better decision-making and driving continuous improvement.
The frontline workforce is the backbone of any industry and their safety must be prioritized. Right now, your workers need protections in place to defend them against COVID-19, which means that taking concrete steps to ensure the safety of your frontline workforce is more crucial now than ever before.
A critical priority is eliminating paper-based work instructions and reports, which dangerously pass through multiple hands and carry the potential of spreading harmful viruses, such as COVID-19. Beyond eliminating potentially toxic materials from the hands of your staff, frontline workers also need to be able to receive contactless, actionable alerts and notifications in real time.
While current social distancing regulations may seem difficult to implement when your plant’s operations rely heavily on person-to-person interactions, digitizing your workplace through enabling Connected Digital Distancing™ makes it easy to ensure that social distancing practices are strictly followed, ensuring transparent reporting of job progress, and enabling remote working where required - all while increasing accuracy and efficiency across the board.
Whereas it may seem like the upfront cost of taking your plant digital could be overwhelming, Webalo is a low-cost option, merely fractions of the price of competing software solutions.
In a study of previous customer implementations of the Webalo Platform, we found that the return on investment is very fast, usually within the first year. Increased productivity and efficiency alone are enough for a rapid ROI, but in tandem with the added savings of not having to rely on manual processes, you’ll be seeing an even quicker ROI.
With a paperless workday, you’ll eliminate your reliance on paper and printer operations thus shrinking your office supply costs. When you combine lower costs with higher productivity, the benefits of taking your plant digital become abundantly apparent.
By making the switch from paper to digital plant operations, you not only improve your workforce interaction and decrease downtime, but also encourage your company to implement waste-reduction initiatives, starting with eliminating excess paper from the plant. While we can all do our individual parts to reduce waste and single-use items, when we implement these strategies at a corporate level, the positive impact toward sustainability is far more substantial. As both consumers and companies continue to place greater importance on environmental sustainability, decreasing your company’s environmental footprint will only become more critical.
As industrial companies deal with our world’s new normal, Webalo’s Platform for the Frontline Workforce helps empower frontline workers and remote management teams to communicate, collaborate, and get their jobs done safely, all while keeping up with supply and demand.
To learn more about how Webalo has digitally transformed workplaces across industries, visit our use cases page or schedule a personalized demo here.
In today’s world, there’s no time to waste; get started today for free. Webalo StartNow! helps optimize plant operations and digitizes your paper-based forms and checklists - all for no cost.
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