As more manufacturers begin to integrate smart machines into their production processes, employees throughout the industry seek to understand what it will mean to the factory of the future. To understand how new industrial technology will impact employees, a team from Intel's Internet of Things Group conducted a study to find out what workers from the factory floor to the boardroom can expect in the intelligent factory of the future. Led by Dr. Irene Petrick, industrial innovation director, and Dr. Faith McCreary, principal engineer and researcher, the global study involved interviewing 145 employees working in industrial manufacturing -- including petrochemical, metal fabrication, and food and beverage companies with factories, primarily in North America. "Current manufacturers who are considering new digital implementations need to think not just about the technology piece, but also about their workforce," said Petrick, an internationally recognized expert in strategic road mapping ...

We often speak about the technology (re)evolution that is driving the intelligent factory and Industry 4.0 –more robots, machines with embedded sensors that send signals to a networked factory, and machines that "talk" to each other and to the larger enterprise system. What we don't often address is the role of the human in this intelligent factory operation. Pundits claim that the intelligent factory will replace workers with machines and will obsolete human intuition and decision-making through artificial intelligence (AI). What these pundits get wrong is that not every job can--or should--be displaced with technology. Instead, we should be thinking about how technology enhances human tasks and performance--which is why we at Intel recently studied over 150 workers from the factory floor to the C-suite, to better understand manufacturing workers' pain points, their beliefs about the future of their operations, and their best guess for future technologies.