Dive Brief:
- L2L, a connected workforce solutions provider based in Salt Lake City, is adding a frontline training and visual job aid platform to its portfolio through the acquisition of software-as-a-service company SwipeGuide.
- Integrating SwipeGuide’s technology will bolster L2L’s ability to provide data to facilities managers, mechanics and maintenance professionals on shop floors or buildings, helping them set standards for maintenance tasks — standards that may not have previously existed — and enable facilities managers to keep maintenance documentation up-to-date, reducing the time wasted on outdated information, said Eric Whitley, director of industrial transformation at L2L.
- The acquisition will also accelerate training for new hires, allowing them to “get up to speed much more quickly,” Whitley said. SwipeGuide customers, on average, have cut their training time by 50%, amid an ongoing shortage of skilled employees in the manufacturing sector, according to a news release Wednesday.
Dive Insight:
A skilled labor shortage is among the top three challenges listed by more than half of the 252 manufacturing and facilities maintenance professionals surveyed by Limble, according to a report it released in February. Fifty-two percent of facilities management respondents to Limble’s survey stated they plan to invest in recruitment and training to bridge the skilled trades gap.
L2L, which separately surveyed over 600 workers in the manufacturing sector last year, found that communication difficulties on the shop floor exacerbate these challenges for industrial businesses, compounding the issue of chronically understaffed factories. Forty-five percent of L2L’s survey respondents reported difficulties communicating with workers on different shifts, while 35% pointed to struggles communicating with workers in different departments.
Digital tools could bridge these gaps, with 66% of L2L survey respondents expressing a preference for such tools to communicate with their teams. Nine in 10 respondents using digital collaboration tools reported faster onboarding and 82% of such users reported significant reductions in upskilling time. However, 37% of overall respondents stated they still use handwritten communication methods and 77% said they communicate verbally to get messages across to their teams, according to L2L’s survey.
“Upgrading digital technology … is a much greater draw to the workforce,” Whitley said. “New workers want digital technology. While upskilling on the shop floor, they want iPads, phones and desktop kiosks. We want to create an environment where we can onboard people much faster. We [need] a system … that [captures] information from outbound employees. We need to give people who are retiring an easier way to provide that information and share the tribal knowledge that they have … in a digital format.”
SwipeGuide collects knowledge from experts with crowdsourced digital work instructions and standard operating procedures, according to its website. Its integration with the L2L platform will help companies identify, develop and certify the right person for the job, from maintenance and repairs to quality inspections, L2L said in its news release.
SwipeGuide’s mobile-first work instructions and checklists will provide frontline workers with the resources they need alongside L2L’s Dispatch tool, a connected worker hub that helps workers improve performance task management and strengthen compliance, while providing a digital record of all events to diagnose root cause issues, per the release.
In 2024, there is still a clear and urgent need for manufacturers to have more resources for frontline teams — resources beyond what SwipeGuide can deliver alone, SwipeGuide founder and CEO Willemijn Schneyder said in a video discussing L2L’s acquisition of its platform.
L2L customers have seen a 30% increase in employee engagement on average and a 20% reduction in unplanned downtime, SwipeGuide reported. Some L2L clients have already reduced fines for noncompliance through a system where the latest versions of digitalized reports are automatically submitted to regulatory bodies like the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Whitely said.
