How to Leverage Connected Frontline Workforce Applications Like a Leader

The Connected Frontline Workforce (CFW) applications space has shifted significantly as manufacturers double down on digitally enabling employees. With hundreds of solutions available across the market, quickly identifying the right application is pivotal to success.

Industrial software solutions are no longer a means to achieve competitive advantage but table stakes for survival (Figure 1). With AI shaking up the industry, ensuring insights are delivered to, through, and from the entire organization — from the top floor to the shop floor — has become a priority for maximizing ROI.

Figure 1: Manufacturers understand the importance of a Connected Frontline Workforce (CFW)

CFW applications have become a key lever for Leaders to leapfrog the competition. More importantly, they equip Chief Operations Officers (COOs) with insights into how CFW applications can better monetize the existing industrial software solution stack to drive a sustainable competitive edge.

How Leaders CFW Initiatives Unlock Insights and Maximize ROI

Manufacturers have a host of industrial software solutions already scaled across the enterprise (Figure 2). While industrial software investments have historically focused on specific operational areas or management levels, CFW applications deliver persona-based solutions—often called “a single pane of glass.” CFW applications have emerged to build digital capabilities across the organization, including the shop floor.

Figure 2: CFW applications help unlock existing solutions' insights to maximize ROI for manufacturers

LNS Research defines CFW applications as human-centric technology that goes beyond digitizing paper-based processes to accelerate collaboration, continuous improvement, and sustainable innovation to meet business demands while addressing employee expectations. Leaders are driving dramatic improvements by leveraging AI-powered CFW applications to enhance decision-making, streamline workflows, automate knowledge management (Figure 3), and empower employees from executives to the shop floor with real-time insights from across the existing industrial software stack.

Figure 3: Leaders are deploying CFW applications across
the organization to automate knowledge management

CFW applications enable businesses to accelerate corporate goals by reducing data overload with context-relevant knowledge and information, thus enabling faster data-driven decisions that achieve business outcomes. The sharp spike in investments has fueled rapid market growth, with CFW applications’ maturity radically advancing as vendors meet increased demands to accelerate workforce competency. With the right insights, manufacturers across industry verticals can maximize the ROI from enterprise deployments and upgrades by better leveraging rich data assets from enterprise software solutions to every employee across each role within the organization.

The Evolving CFW Applications Market Landscape

CFW applications uniquely package real-time information, knowledge, and AI-powered insights to prioritize actions and drive business outcomes. Industrial software vendors are increasing their focus on enhancing mobile capabilities, while CFW application vendors are investing in creating role-specific solutions and enhancing solution differentiation.

LNS Research’s latest benchmark study of 300+ respondents confirmed that the significant adoption of CFW applications continues. When comparing vendor solutions currently implemented or having begun pilots, trends across industry verticals confirm that adoption is rapidly growing as new entrants increase their presence within the market (Table 1).

*This list is not intended to be an inclusive list of CFW applications

Table 1: CFW Adoption insights from LNS Research survey data and vendor briefings

COOs can maximize ROI and accelerate CFW initiatives by adopting a comprehensive approach that enables digital Operational Excellence and upskills employees for the future of industrial work (FOIW). Success, however, begins with a well-defined business case focused on solving business problems and ensuring that plant personnel across the network are engaged in solution selection to accelerate adoption.

Recommendations for Manufacturing

CFW applications will continue to mature as momentum grows. The ability to navigate the sea of vendor solutions can be the difference in offering a variety of applications that employees don’t want versus driving true transformation that maximizes the value potential.

To deliver rapid time-to-value, organizations should focus on following these key recommendations when deploying CFW applications:

1. 1. 1. Focus on delivering real-time, context-aware insights. Prioritize efforts that go beyond digitized dashboards and reports to deliver dynamic, role-specific work instructions that adjust to real-time conditions. For example, CFW applications can help digitize the work schedule, analyze sensor data, predict failures, and present workers with prioritized recommendations for preventing incidents and improving productivity.

      2. Leverage AI-powered solutions to standardize and scale execution. Provide employees with the tools that quickly enhance work execution by creating digital instructions and checklists that scale. Look to incorporate Large Language Models (LLM) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) to assist with capturing, organizing, and transferring best practices across the enterprise.

      3. Seek solutions that offer Operational Excellence as a built-in capability. LNS Research case studies show that CFW applications integrate inspections, audits, and corrective actions into the daily workflow. By radically improving digital accessibility, organizations are eliminating time-consuming manual processes, reducing the dependency on “human glue,” and decreasing the time it takes to resolve issues.

      4. Retool knowledge management to build workforce agility. Preserving and expanding on critical institutional knowledge will differentiate Leaders from Followers in the FOIW. Align resources towards enabling a vision where employees can access work instructions tailored to their experience level and personal preferences, AI-guided in-context continuous learning delivered at the point of work, and self-service analytics tools for automating routine tasks to bridge skill gaps while increasing improvement activities.

Rapid, data-driven decision-making at the shop floor level is essential to stay competitive. As workforce dynamics shift, the demand for user-centric industrial solutions is increasing. CFW applications are critical for manufacturers building an Intelligent Supply Network (Figure 4), enabling Virtual Operations Centers, and seamlessly connecting employees to actionable insights across the industrial software ecosystem.

Figure 4: CFW applications provide a seamless interface across Intelligent Supply Network software 

To develop a forward-thinking strategy that accelerates your CFW initiatives, download the Transformation Blueprint for Knowledge Management and Industrial AI to bridge skills gaps with connected workers and Virtual Operations Centers for sustaining a competitive advantage.