Industrial AI: Why You Will Fail in Knowledge Management

Traditional knowledge management can’t keep pace with today’s realities, leaving manufacturers unable to maintain continuity or meet rising expectations. With retiring experts, siloed systems, and limited AI readiness compounding the challenge, manufacturers must rethink how knowledge is captured, shared, and applied. Turning to AI-powered Connected Frontline Workforce (CFW) solutions is no longer optional — it’s essential for bridging growing skills gaps.   

Leaders recognize that retooling knowledge management is critical to empowering better, faster decisions and ultimately delivering more value. To improve workforce competency, skills, and training, Leaders are prioritizing three key enablers (Figure 1): 

• • • CFW Applications 

• • • Industrial AI  

• • • Virtual Operations Centers

Figure 1: Leaders have adopted Virtual Operations Centers and are scaling
AI-powered CFW applications to retool knowledge management

While AI plays a key role, knowledge management is the foundation for developing decision intelligence and navigating disruption. Retooling knowledge management with new approaches to leadership and digital technologies is essential for empowering employees and unlocking significant business value. 

Why Traditional Knowledge Management is Failing 

Traditional knowledge management approaches and their long reliance on static documentation and standardized training programs were very effective as employees grew within the organization. While these methods were effective when employees spent decades in the same roles, today’s workforce dynamics require more adaptable and interactive solutions. 

Manufacturers focused on modernizing are often limited to modest gains, while Leaders are fundamentally reimagining knowledge management to achieve step-change improvements. The most common failure modes we see as transformation roadblocks include: 

1. Deploying Technology without Strategy. Digitizing the shop floor isn't a transformation. Without a clear business case that empowers change across people and processes, technology investments often lead to fragmented platforms and underused tools. Technology-led programs that lack clear ownership fail to achieve the level of trust necessary to scale best practices. 

2. An Over-Engineered Top-Down Approach. Shorter tenures make top-down approaches and training models unrealistic and inadequate. Without allowing flexibility and configuration, knowledge transfer stalls before it starts. Pushing solutions down and across the enterprise creates a compliance mindset rather than a culture of continuous improvement and innovation.  

3. Siloed Systems and Fragmented Knowledge. Systems that collect data in silos cannot replace the loss of experienced problem solvers who were previously acting as the glue between these systems. Failing to create context across systems and converting data into actionable insights overloads employees and creates confusion about what actions to take. Focus on providing insights in context to the work being done, so employees can solve problems on their own.   

Followers, who report feeling more confident leveraging and deploying new technologies than Leaders, often find their strategy ill-equipped for responding to disruption (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Followers, who are nearly ~1.5 times more likely than Leaders to be challenged by supply chain disruption, feel confident deploying new techniques.

How Leaders Leverage Knowledge Management for Enhanced Profitability    

Access to emerging technology for personal use has reshaped employee expectations as “Youtubification” has made learning more searchable, accessible, and engaging. As a result, manufacturers face increased demands for interactive, personalized, and mobile-accessible learning experiences. Leaders have embraced a new approach, retooling knowledge management to drive profitability and workforce engagement. 

Here’s how Leaders are successfully leveraging knowledge management as a strategic advantage:   

• • • Adopting a digital-first knowledge management strategy. Manufacturers must shift from passive to active knowledge management to remain competitive. Leaders leverage emerging technologies to ensure that employees can access and contribute to knowledge in real time, enhancing both business outcomes and personal development.  

• • • Elevating workforce development to achieve broader goals. Leaders are appointing dedicated Workforce Development VPs and Employee Experience Directors to champion initiatives owned by the COO. By aligning workforce development programs with operational needs, these organizations empower employees with the right information at the right time, driving safety, quality, and productivity improvements. 

• • • Integrating processes and technologies across the enterprise.  Knowledge management should not be static but embedded into daily workflows. Leaders use automation, AI-enhanced decision support, and integrated platforms to create a seamless exchange of expertise across teams and maturing decision intelligence across the entire plant network. 

• • • Leveraging AI to eliminate non-value-added work. AI-powered solutions are helping organizations reduce time-consuming, repetitive tasks, allowing employees to focus on problem-solving, innovation, and continuous improvement. Automating knowledge capture and analysis accelerates decision-making and drives efficiency gains. 

• • • Embedding accountability for cultural transformation. Leaders recognize that digital transformation is as much about people as it is about technology. Building foundational skills in addition to digital competencies empowers a culture where leaders promote inclusion and facilitate collaboration to sustain positive changes.   

Leaders recognize that success depends on enabling dynamic, real-time knowledge exchange. By implementing these strategies, manufacturers can create a comprehensive system for capturing, organizing, and leveraging organizational knowledge to improve decision-making and operational efficiency. 

How COOs Can Drive Competitive Advantage with Knowledge Management 

A modernized knowledge management approach is no longer optional — it is essential for achieving business resilience and workforce empowerment. Organizations that embrace digital-first knowledge management, prioritize employee development, and integrate AI-powered solutions will not only retain critical expertise but will also position themselves for long-term success in an increasingly competitive industrial landscape.  

COOs play a pivotal role in creating an environment where employees are actively engaged in identifying and sharing newer, safer ways of working. Here are five ways Global Heads of Operations can enable less experienced workers to make better, faster decisions to drive operational excellence, foster innovation, and maintain a competitive edge: 

1. Create expectations that prioritize positive behaviors. Focus the organization on long-term value creation by adopting metrics that reinforce safety, quality, and sustainability commitments over short-term wins.    

2. Align workforce, digital, and operational strategies. Implement a framework that embeds knowledge management into broader transformation efforts to drive scalable, cross-functional impact.

3. Build new pathways for upskilling across the workforce. Develop programs that foster leadership, support collaboration with AI, and embed problem-solving tools into everyday learning at all levels of the organization.  

4. Adopt AI-powered tools that automate compliance and reduce needed resources. CFW applications, with generative and Agentic AI capabilities, can automate the capture and organization of knowledge and streamline collaboration and compliance, all while empowering employees to escalate issues, resolve problems, and create reusable knowledge.

5. Facilitate enterprise-wide knowledge flow. Remove obstacles to streamline how documentation, insights, and best practices are shared to accelerate top-down guidance and bottom-up innovation across the network.  

Figure 3: Value enabled by AI Connected Frontline Workforce solutions

Knowledge management can no longer be about documenting critical knowledge across operations. Building a roadmap for Virtual Operations Centers that leverage AI across the workforce with CFW applications is essential for effective knowledge management and maturing decision intelligence. For real-world examples and actionable insights, download the LNS Research Become a COO with Superpowers eBook to build a winning Industrial Operations Strategy that embraces the people-process-technology trifecta.