"Humans are and will remain integral to the manufacturing process," the report states. "Not just because robots require significant capital, skilled resources, long installation periods, and attendant programmers and engineers, but because of the fundamental qualities that make us human. We can logically reason. We can adapt. We are dexterous beyond anything robots are capable of today. And as manufacturers increasingly strive for lot sizes of one to satisfy customer demands for personalization and customization, these qualities are more valued than ever before."

However, the survey also revealed the flip side of human contributions to manufacturing systems: Survey respondents noted that 73 percent of variability on the factory floor stems from humans, and 68 percent of defects are caused by human activities. 

While manufacturing technology has seen increasing innovation for decades, the standard practices for gathering and analyzing tasks done by humans–and the foundation of holistic manufacturing practices like lean and Six Sigma–are time-and-motion study methodologies, which can be directly traced back to the time of Henry Ford and have not been updated for the digital age, the report notes. .

"The principles underlying these 100-year-old measurement techniques are still valid, but they are too manual to scale, return incomplete datasets and are subject to observation biases," says Prasad Akella, CEO of Drishti. "In the age of Industry 4.0, manufacturers need larger and more complete datasets from human activities to help empower operators to contribute value to their fullest potential. This data will benefit everyone in the assembly ecosystem: plant managers, supervisors, engineers and, most importantly, the operators themselves."