The $90 Million Automation Mistake (And What I’m Doing Next)
Why perfectly engineered systems fail on the shop floor, and an invitation to my free live webinar to help fix it.
It’s now been 5 months since I left the big corporate ‘world of KUKA’. I was a little bit more absent than I wanted to be here on Substack, so you might wonder: What’s she up to?
One thing that bothered me throughout my career is the money wasted because the people who actually KNOW the shop floor are not listened to. If you’ve been reading my articles here on The Unseen Obstacles, you know this is a drum I beat often. We’ve explored how “Innovators” design systems using explicit knowledge, completely ignoring the vital tacit knowledge of the “Stewards” who actually run the line.
Because of this disconnect, we all know the horror stories of robots sitting in boxes, robotic cells pushed into the corner, and pilot projects that never scaled. So I started to ask myself: WHY is that happening over and over?
While there are different reasons, you can find one big common theme: Underestimating THE HUMAN SIDE OF AUTOMATION.
Black & Decker had to close a whole plant in 2023 because of it—after investing $90 million in automation. And no, I’m not talking about better HMI design or easier-to-program robots. While those improvements are undeniably important, they don’t solve the underlying problem.
We design perfect systems on sterile engineering whiteboards using a framework of “Work-as-Imagined,” but drop them onto a chaotic, messy shop-floor reality where “Work-as-Done” takes over. And then we wonder why veteran operators resist using them. We buy the machines, but we completely forget to build the “Social Operating System” required to actually run them.
Bridging that gap between technological enthusiasm and the gritty reality of the shop floor is exactly what I am doing next. I am focused on being REALISTIC about automation without discarding its importance—hence why I’m calling myself the “Automation Realist.”
Let’s do a Reality Check
Want to get a first impression of what ‘being realistic’ about automation actually looks like?
On June 4th, I’m hosting my first live session: the Automation Reality Check webinar. It’s a free, 45-minute interactive session where we will look past the ROI spreadsheets and figure out how to actually escape “pilot purgatory.”
If you are evaluating a major robotics proposal, trying to get one adopted on the floor, or just curious to learn more about the human side of automation, I’d love for you to join the conversation.
Click here to register for the Automation Reality Check
I’m excited to be back, and I’ll see you on June 4th.
— Denise