Autistic individuals bring unique strengths, but often face distinct challenges in the workplace. To explore how digital technologies can support them to access and thrive in employment, we hosted a creative workshop for autistic students and trialled the use of LEGO® Serious Play® to encourage communication and generate innovative ideas.

Accelerating digitalisation in healthcare is essential to improving quality of life and supporting economic growth and community well-being. However, the complexity of the sector demands a people-led approach to stakeholder engagement. We ask what are the key enablers of effective stakeholder involvement—principles that can drive digital transformation success across industries?

Understanding how your workforce is feeling about the transition prior to the introduction of a digital technology is key to smoother transitions.  In this research we applied an empathy-led approach to digitalisation. In doing so we help organisations to create supportive environments that empower employees as technology reshapes their roles.

Digital technologies have the potential to bring considerable benefits to the construction sector including improved efficiencies and workflows, automation and improved accuracy, information sharing and collaboration, improved safety, and reduced costs. However, realising successful implementation of these technologies relies on good stakeholder involvement to understand their digitalisation needs and requirements.  Our research identifies six factors which act as barriers to stakeholder involvement in the construction sector.

Digitalisation is transforming manufacturing, but the process can be complex. Professor Milton Borsato’s research highlights the crucial role of people in this transformation, exploring the challenges and opportunities they face. To bring his findings to life, he created a board game that challenges players to manage digitalisation, balancing leadership, change management, budgets, and new skills in key technologies like data analytics and digital twins.

Robotics and automation technology (RAT) can offer significant benefits, such as increased productivity, efficiency, and enhanced worker safety. But how are these technologies being adopted in the manufacturing sector? Our research examines the benefits and challenges of RAT adoption and provides practical advice on how to drive growth.

The Covid-19 pandemic compelled companies to quickly adopt digital solutions to maintain operations during lockdowns. This raises an important question: how significant was the pandemic in driving digital adoption? Within my research I investigate how companies across Europe invested in cloud computing during this period.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is reshaping industries worldwide, but its complexity often leaves users in the dark. Enter Explainable AI (XAI), a concept designed to make AI systems more transparent and understandable. However, XAI itself can sometimes feel like another layer of complexity, hindering its adoption. So, why is XAI critical, and how can involving users from the start unlock its true potential?

Use of Industrial Digital Technologies (IDTs) such as robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), and immersive technologies (AR/VR) has long been seen as key to boosting productivity, efficiency, and global competitiveness in manufacturing. Yet, the UK has lagged behind leading nations like Germany, Japan, and the United States. This blog post explores the crucial role of enablers in this transformation and how a shift in perspective could help UK manufacturers harness the full potential of digitalisation.

In the manufacturing industry, Augmented Reality (AR) has been shown to improve workers' performance in various tasks such as training, assembly, maintenance, etc. For this reason, it is at the heart of the 4th Industrial Revolution and has the potential to revolutionise this industry. But why is AR adoption in manufacturing so low despite all these benefits? 

Higher productivity leads to economic growth. As such, it is high on both industry and the UK Government’s agenda. But what should organisations be investing in if they want to boost productivity? Although it may be tempting to think that investing in physical capital will boost productivity, the Organisation for National Statistics (ONS) industry data shows that investing in intangibles such as employee training, R&D and software, can deliver real impact.

Skill shortages harm the productivity and economic growth of countries as organisations do not have the appropriate workforce to exploit new technologies or processes. Despite the identification of these gaps, job-related training in low and middle-level skills has seen a unique decline in England compared to other advanced economies. What is behind this trend?

The suggestion that Industry 4.0 should be people-led invites the question of why this might matter and how it might contrast with prior practice. A quick look back can begin to frame answers to these questions.

Within the Automotive sector, addressing challenges like self-driving cars, net zero emissions, sustainable production, and the innovative software-defined vehicle will require greater reliance on digital technology. But how can we ensure these tools are both effective and adopted? Our research suggests that the key lies in the thoughtful development of use-cases.

No one wants to do work which is undignified, but the digitalisation process and its aftermath could pose a threat to the dignity of workers. Any decent employer is concerned about the dignity of their employees, and will want to take steps to ensure that dignity for all is safeguarded. But what is dignity? And precisely how can it be maintained during and after digitalisation?

British businesses are struggling to implement the latest technologies and processes necessary for smart manufacturing due to a lack of appropriately skilled workers. The 2022 British Chambers of Commerce survey of 5600 firms, found that while around 66% of firms wanted to hire people, 80% said finding skilled and unskilled workers was difficult. This skills shortage undermines the ability of businesses to adopt new technologies and processes, threatening the UK’s opportunity to unlock the potential innovation and growth benefits offered by industry 4.0.

Although often used synonymously, the terms digitisation, digitalisation and digital transformation can be understood differently. When undertaking digital change initiatives, you need to be mindful of the language you use or risk creating confusion and misunderstanding.

"Not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted." This quote is attributed to Albert Einstein and captures the challenge of measuring the success of digitalisation projects. Fundamentally, what you measure, or conversely don’t measure, may change whether the project is considered a success or not.

Over the past few years digital twins have been a very popular subject within academic writing – indeed in 2022 there were over 3.5 thousand journal papers published using this term. Although the concept and definition of digital twin are still evolving, they are increasingly being deployed in industry. With this in mind, academia is starting to turn its attention to the next level of digital twin design – one which recognises how the human works with the technology.

Digital technologies offer opportunities for companies to transform their business models and improve their business processes in ways that put their customers at the centre of their operations. However, many companies struggle to realise the full value from the adoption of digital technologies because they fail to fully consider essential elements of the change process.  This article describes the four essential pillars of digital transformation which every business organisation must consider if it desires to achieve clarity and the success of its digital transformation initiatives.