With the manufacturing and industrial sectors seeking greater efficiency, increased agility and resilience, the spotlight is turning to a sector of the workforce that has long been underserved by digital innovation: frontline workers.
“Frontline workers are the heartbeat of operations across industries – they keep factories running, supply chains moving, stores organised and serve as the first touchpoint for customers,” says Parag Ladha, director of manufacturing industry marketing at Microsoft. “Equipping them with technology is essential not just for operational success but also to boost engagement and retention in a time of labour shortages and an ageing workforce.”
Despite their importance, frontline workers often struggle to access the vital information they need to complete their daily tasks, leading to slow decision-making and negatively impacting productivity. Now, manufacturers and industrials are turning to AI to help them overcome these challenges. Amey, a UK-based engineering firm that manages infrastructure affecting 75 per cent of the UK population, faced this particular challenge. Its mobile workforce found it difficult to retrieve health and safety documentation when needed.
“To solve this, Amey turned to the Microsoft 365 Copilot ecosystem, deploying the SharePoint agent – a powerful AI assistant that puts answers just a chat away,” says Ladha. “Now, 99 per cent of Amey’s millions of documents are stored in SharePoint and can be accessed via a natural language chat – right from a mobile phone, in any language. This leads to faster decisions, safer workers and fewer delays.”
Ladha adds that Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat, an AI-powered assistant designed to enhance productivity by integrating natural language interactions with work data and web resources, is another digital tool that can be transformative for manufacturers: “It offers a unified system of engagement tailored to the needs of frontline workers. Agents in Copilot Chat can automate repetitive tasks, freeing up workers to focus on higher-value activities, encouraging growth and professional development.”
Parag Ladha is director of manufacturing industry marketing at Microsoft
Real-world examples continue to show how generative AI and digital tools are reshaping frontline roles.
A February 2025 white paper, Putting Talent at the Centre, from the World Economic Forum and McKinsey & Company highlights how Western Digital Storage Technologies (Thailand) revolutionised its frontline operations. Through industrial internet of things, AI-driven predictive maintenance and touchless process control, the data storage firm boosted frontline worker productivity by 21 per cent and cut diagnostic time from two hours to just 10 seconds – with over 90 per cent accuracy. Nearly half of job roles were redefined, with 37 per cent of employees being upskilled into higher-level positions.
Textron Aviation, a major player in the general aviation industry, has deployed TAMI (Textron Aviation Maintenance Intelligence), an AI assistant built with Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service and Microsoft for Manufacturing. The tool has streamlined access to its 60,000 pages of technical documentation. “Troubleshooting time has dropped from 20 minutes to just one or two minutes, reducing aircraft downtime and improving service efficiency,” says Ladha.
Similarly, Schaeffler, a Germany-based automotive and industrial manufacturer, has embraced factory-wide AI agents to empower engineers and plant managers. “Now they can ask questions like, ‘What caused downtime on line three yesterday?’ and receive immediate, detailed responses,” says Ladha. “This real-time insight has significantly increased operational uptime and productivity on the shopfloor. Schaeffler’s pilot demonstrated how generative AI empowers factory workers with actionable intelligence in near-real time, making them more agile and self-sufficient when solving problems.”
Generative AI has empowered factory workers at Schaeffler with real-time data and insights
While an increasing number of manufacturing organisations are reporting measurable operational improvements after implementing AI, the majority are yet to equip their frontline workers with these tools. According to Gallup’s October 2024 report AI in the Workplace, 81 per cent of employees surveyed in production and frontline roles never use AI in their work. This statistic doesn’t surprise Ladha. “Many frontline environments still operate with fragmented systems and paper-based processes, limiting real-time visibility and collaboration,” he says. “A major solution lies in leveraging AI-powered digital tools, which not only address challenges like employee engagement by fostering connectivity and empowerment but also enhance operational agility and efficiency through streamlined processes and real-time data-driven insights.
“Security and compliance concerns also hold companies back, especially in regulated industries like manufacturing, healthcare and energy, where mobile device policies and data governance restrict frontline access to critical systems. There’s also a disconnect between corporate IT strategies and the practical needs of frontline teams, resulting in low technology adoption or tools that don’t integrate with daily operations.”
This gap leads to disconnection and disengagement. “It can be challenging for frontline workers to feel connected to the corporate mission or even coworkers on the same shift,” explains Ladha. “To solve this, we’re evolving our unified platform to make connecting as simple and intuitive as possible”
Role-specific, secure tools like Microsoft 365 F1/F3 (subscription plans designed specifically for frontline workers and include communication, collaboration, and productivity tools) and Copilot Chat are built to overcome these barriers by providing frontline workers with intuitive access to critical data. “They need a wealth of information at their fingertips to make better decisions in the moment, but that information isn’t always so easy to find,” says Ladha. “Microsoft’s role is to provide frontline workers with the right tools to keep data secure, regardless of their role, device type or organisation size.”
Microsoft is working with multiple partners to develop AI solutions, two of which are technology companies, Tulip Interfaces and Sight Machine.
Tulip uses Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Fabric to power a no-code platform that digitises shopfloor workflows, connects machinery and provides real-time operator guidance – leading to improved accuracy and reduced downtime. Meanwhile, Sight Machine’s Manufacturing Data Platform, integrated with Azure and Fabric, analyses the entire production line as a system. With tools like Factory Copilot, a natural language AI assistant, frontline workers can query production data in real time, facilitating quicker decision-making and operational efficiency.
For instance, global packaging and protective solutions company Intertape Polymer Group implemented Factory Copilot, achieving a 50 per cent reduction in Sight Machine onboarding time and a 25 per cent increase in weekly system usage.
“These advancements are proof that AI and cloud platforms can transform manufacturing operations and empower workers at scale,” says Ladha.
From predictive maintenance and documentation access to real-time diagnostics and decision-making, AI is proving its value on the frontline. The tools exist, but the challenge is adoption. By bridging the digital divide with role-specific tools and secure platforms, manufacturers can unlock the full potential of their frontline workforce and unlock new levels of operational efficiency and agility.
DMG Mori, a manufacturer of high-precision machine tools, has integrated Tulip Interfaces’ no-code platform to empower frontline workers, streamline processes and enhance operational efficiency
Partner perspectives
We asked selected Microsoft partners how they are using Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing, Copilot, Microsoft 365 and Dynamics 365 to empower frontline manufacturing workers to be more connected, efficient and effective.
“As manufacturers face unprecedented disruptions, frontline workers need instant access to self-serve insights from raw materials to retail if they are to achieve the goals of reducing waste, conserving energy and improving overall responsiveness and sustainability across their plants,” says Sree Hameed, consumer products industry strategist at AVEVA. “ AVEVA’s market-leading manufacturing execution system (MES) now enables manufacturing teams to leverage hybrid cloud functionality together with on-premises solutions.”
“Using Cognite Data Fusion as the backbone, our solution enables seamless access to critical operational insights via Microsoft Fabric,” says Julie Pratt, director of Microsoft business development at Cognite. “This unified data layer expands industrial use cases, improving decision-making and efficiency on the shopfloor. With integrated reporting and visualisation through Microsoft Power BI and Microsoft 365, frontline teams gain real-time, actionable insights.”
“Integrating GEP with Microsoft’s AI-driven solutions enables seamless collaboration between procurement and supply chain organisations, enhancing operational efficiency and empowering frontline manufacturing workers with real-time insights, streamlined workflows and intelligent automation,” says Alex Zhong, global head of product marketing at GEP. “By working with Microsoft Cloud solutions, GEP offers workers comprehensive visibility and instant access to critical data, simplifying tasks like inventory management and maintenance scheduling, and enabling smarter, faster decisions.”
“Tulip Interfaces’ no-code platform empowers frontline manufacturing teams by making it easy to build applications for their specific needs,” says Roey Mechrez, head of ecosystem and general for EMEA at Tulip Interfaces. “Designed for the realities of the shopfloor, Tulip Interfaces operates within an open ecosystem – customers can readily connect with Microsoft tools like Fabric for advanced data analysis, or integrate with Azure AI services, including Copilot, to provide intelligent guidance directly within worker applications.”
Read more from these partners, as well as Coretek, M-Files and Vicinity Software, in the Summer 2025 issue of Technology Record. Don’t miss out – subscribe for free today and get future issues delivered straight to your inbox.