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AI in Action: How Hunter Industries Reinvented Workforce Training with AI

Learn how Hunter Industries is transforming workforce training and operational performance using Augmentir’s AI-powered Connected Worker platform to reduce scrap, improve changeovers, and close skills gaps.

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Manufacturers today face a familiar but increasingly urgent challenge: how to train, upskill, and support a less-skilled, less-experienced frontline workforce while maintaining productivity, quality, and operational efficiency. As product complexity increases and experienced workers retire, traditional training methods simply can’t keep pace.

hunter industries transforms training with ai

A recent Assembly Magazine feature highlights how Hunter Industries, a global manufacturer of irrigation and outdoor lighting products, is tackling this challenge head-on using Connected Worker technology powered by Augmentir. The results demonstrate how AI-driven digital tools can transform training from a static process into a measurable, performance-driven strategy.

The Challenge: Complex Operations and Workforce Variability

Hunter Industries operates advanced manufacturing processes, including injection molding and extrusion, where changeovers and setup tasks require precision and expertise. Like many manufacturers, Hunter faced variability in skill levels across shifts and facilities. Tribal knowledge, paper-based instructions, and manual tracking made it difficult to standardize execution and measure training effectiveness.

As operations scale and workforce demographics shift, these challenges become more pronounced:

  • Skills gaps between new and experienced workers
  • Inconsistent execution of standard operating procedures
  • Limited visibility into training effectiveness
  • Downtime and scrap caused by human error
  • Difficulty scaling best practices across teams

Hunter recognized that improving frontline performance required more than digitizing documents—it required a connected, intelligent system that could adapt to workers in real time.

The Solution: AI-Native Connected Worker Platform

By implementing Augmentir’s Connected Worker platform, Hunter Industries digitized and transformed how work is delivered, supported, and optimized on the shop floor.

augmentir ai-native connected worker platform

Augmentir combines:

  • Digital work instructions to standardize processes
  • AI-driven insights to personalize guidance
  • Skills tracking and competency management
  • Mobile-first tools for frontline accessibility
  • Remote collaboration capabilities
  • Generative AI tools to accelerate content creation and knowledge capture

Instead of relying on static PDFs or binders, workers now receive contextual, step-by-step digital guidance tailored to their skill level. The system continuously analyzes performance data to identify where workers may need additional support, helping reduce errors before they impact production.

This shift from reactive troubleshooting to proactive workforce optimization represents a significant evolution in how manufacturers manage training and performance.

Improving Training Effectiveness with Real-Time Insight

One of the most impactful outcomes of Hunter’s deployment is improved visibility into training effectiveness.

Traditionally, manufacturers measure training completion—not training impact. Workers attend sessions, complete certifications, and move on. But do those sessions actually translate to better performance on the floor?

With Augmentir, Hunter can now connect training data directly to operational outcomes. Supervisors gain insight into:

  • How quickly workers complete tasks
  • Where errors occur most frequently
  • Which procedures require additional coaching
  • Whether recently trained employees are performing at expected levels

This real-time feedback loop enables continuous improvement. As noted in the Assembly Magazine article, Hunter’s operations training leadership can now evaluate whether training efforts are delivering measurable results.

“The use of Augmentir within our manufacturing operation highlights our commitment to our people and innovation in the workplace,” says Yunior Murillo, operations training manager at Hunter Industries. “Augmentir’s platform allows our technicians to perform at their best while improving efficiency across our manufacturing departments. Additionally, the operational insights provided by Augmentir’s AI allow us to focus our training efforts on individuals that need them most and intelligently guide our technicians in their day-to-day activities.”

By linking workforce development directly to performance metrics, Hunter has transformed training from a cost center into a strategic lever for operational excellence.

Reducing Scrap, Downtime, and Changeover Time

Beyond training visibility, the platform has driven tangible operational gains.

Standardized digital workflows reduce process variation, ensuring that critical steps are followed consistently. Built-in validation and guidance minimize mistakes that previously led to scrap or rework.

In high-impact areas like injection molding changeovers, this consistency is critical. Even small improvements in setup execution can significantly reduce downtime and improve overall equipment effectiveness (OEE).

Since implementing connected worker technology, Hunter has seen:

  • Reduced scrap rates
  • Decreased unplanned downtime
  • Faster and more consistent changeovers
  • Improved execution across shifts

These improvements demonstrate that workforce enablement directly influences production performance.

Capturing and Scaling Institutional Knowledge

Another key advantage of connected worker platforms is knowledge retention.

Manufacturers across the industry are facing a wave of retirements among experienced workers. When that expertise walks out the door, companies risk losing years of operational know-how.

Augmentir enables Hunter to digitize tribal knowledge and embed it directly into workflows. Experienced operators can contribute insights, tips, and best practices that become part of standardized digital instructions.

Generative AI further accelerates this process by helping convert legacy documents and subject-matter expertise into structured, accessible guidance. This ensures knowledge is preserved and easily shared across facilities and teams.

Expanding Beyond Manufacturing

The success of Hunter’s initial deployment is driving expansion into additional operational areas, including maintenance teams.

Connected Worker technology isn’t limited to production lines. Maintenance, quality assurance, safety, and field service teams all benefit from real-time guidance, skills tracking, and AI-driven performance insights.

By extending the platform across functions, Hunter is building a more agile, data-driven workforce ecosystem.

A Blueprint for Modern Manufacturing

Hunter Industries’ success story reflects a broader shift occurring across industrial organizations. Manufacturers are recognizing that operational excellence starts with workforce excellence.

Connected Worker platforms powered by AI allow companies to:

  • Close skills gaps faster
  • Standardize work across distributed teams
  • Improve quality and productivity
  • Capture and retain critical knowledge
  • Continuously optimize frontline performance

Rather than treating training as a one-time event, organizations can create a living, evolving system that adapts to workers and operations in real time.

The Future of Workforce Enablement

As manufacturing becomes more complex and competitive, companies that invest in intelligent workforce tools will be better positioned to scale, innovate, and outperform.

Hunter Industries’ journey illustrates what’s possible when AI, digital workflows, and skills intelligence come together in a unified platform.

At Augmentir, we’re proud to partner with forward-thinking manufacturers who are redefining how frontline work gets done.

 

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FAQs About AI for Manufacturing Workforce Training

  • How is Hunter Industries using Connected Worker technology to improve workforce training?

    Hunter Industries is using Augmentir’s AI-powered Connected Worker platform to digitize work instructions, personalize training, and provide real-time guidance to frontline workers. By replacing paper-based processes with intelligent digital workflows, Hunter can standardize execution, close skills gaps, and directly connect training efforts to measurable operational performance.

  • What are the benefits of AI-powered Connected Worker platforms in manufacturing?

    AI-powered Connected Worker platforms, like Augmentir, help manufacturers minimize downtime, improve changeover consistency, and accelerate employee onboarding. These systems provide digital work instructions, skills tracking, and performance analytics that allow companies to continuously optimize frontline workforce performance while improving overall equipment effectiveness (OEE).

  • How can manufacturers measure the effectiveness of workforce training?

    With Augmentir, manufacturers can link training data directly to operational outcomes. Instead of only tracking training completion, organizations gain visibility into task completion times, error rates, procedural adherence, and post-training performance metrics. This real-time feedback loop allows companies to continuously improve training programs based on measurable results.

  • How does Connected Worker technology help capture and retain institutional knowledge?

    Connected Worker platforms like Augmentir allow experienced operators to embed best practices, troubleshooting tips, and tribal knowledge directly into digital workflows. Generative AI tools can convert legacy documents and subject-matter expertise into structured digital work instructions, ensuring critical knowledge is preserved and scalable across shifts, facilities, and teams.

Driving Operational Excellence: Hershey’s Digital Lean Journey

Discover how Hershey’s Digital Lean transformation combines lean principles and connected worker technology to empower frontline teams and drive operational excellence.

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In an era where digital transformation is reshaping manufacturing, The Hershey Company offers a compelling roadmap for blending traditional lean principles with modern digital technologies. Through its Digital Lean initiative, Hershey is reimagining daily operations — putting frontline workers at the center of change, reinforcing standardized processes, and building a future-ready digital backbone that enables continuous improvement and operational visibility like never before.

digital lean and operational excellence

Building the Foundation for Digital Lean

Hershey’s Digital Lean journey did not begin with new technology — it began with strengthening the basics of lean execution. Before digitizing operations, the company focused on standardizing lean processes across its manufacturing network to ensure consistency in how work was performed and improved.

According to Will Bonifant, VP of Manufacturing, Engineering, and Supply Chain Strategy, the groundwork focused on three key areas:

  • Standardizing and refining core processes so they were truly lean and repeatable before being digitized.
  • Preparing and engaging the workforce early, ensuring employees understood the purpose of Digital Lean and how new tools would support their daily work rather than disrupt it.
  • Creating a connected digital infrastructure that links systems, data, and people across sites, enabling reliable, real-time visibility into operations.

With these elements in place, Hershey was able to move away from manual, disconnected workflows and toward digitally enabled daily management systems. This shift allowed teams at all levels to access consistent information, identify issues faster, and drive continuous improvement more effectively — defining characteristics of a mature Digital Lean approach.

Connected Workers as a Core Enabler of Digital Lean

Digital Lean at Hershey is already delivering value because it is tightly integrated with connected worker capabilities. As part of this approach, front-line teams are equipped to access information seamlessly, collaborate in real time, and execute work through guided, digital workflows that support lean execution at the point of work.

By embedding connected worker technology directly into its Digital Lean program, Hershey ensures that lean insights don’t stay locked in dashboards or reports — they translate into consistent, actionable behaviors on the plant floor. This alignment reinforces accountability, accelerates problem resolution, and supports continuous improvement across operations.

This approach closely aligns with Augmentir’s philosophy: the future of manufacturing is a human + digital synergy, where technology amplifies worker capability, strengthens lean behaviors, and enables people to perform at their best — every day.

What Digital Lean Looks Like on the Floor

Digital Lean at Hershey isn’t just a tech upgrade — it’s a shift in how work gets executed and improved every day:

Empowered Operators

In the past, operators faced slow, fragmented workflows when problems arose. Today, operators can:

  • Log issues directly via mobile devices,
  • See real-time updates as those issues are resolved,
  • Access performance data that helps them own outcomes on the line.

This enhanced visibility not only speeds problem resolution, but also boosts worker autonomy — a core principle of lean maturity.

Leadership Visibility, Real-Time Actions

Supervisors and plant managers gain a unified view of performance and losses from a single dashboard. This transparency allows them to:

  • Identify bottlenecks and losses quickly,
  • Prioritize corrective actions based on real data,
  • Drive continuous improvement across shifts and sites.

The shift toward digital workflows also means that information no longer lives in silos. Everyone — from operators to executives — benefits from the same accurate, timely insights.

Why Digital Lean Matters for Manufacturers

Hershey’s journey highlights several lessons for operations leaders:

  • Value starts with people first. Digital tools deliver impact only when they support equipped, engaged workers.
  • Standardization enables scale. Ensuring processes are lean before digitizing them reduces frustration and drives sustainable improvements.
  • Data unlocks action. Once lean processes are digitized, real-time insights accelerate problem solving and continuous improvement.

By anchoring digital transformation in lean principles, Hershey is proving that operational excellence and digital innovation are not separate pursuits — they’re mutually reinforcing.

Augmentir: Powering Hershey’s Connected Worker Strategy

As Hershey continues to mature its Digital Lean transformation, sustaining continuous improvement at scale requires more than visibility into performance — it requires connecting digital insights directly to frontline execution. To do this, Hershey leverages Augmentir as its connected worker technology, extending Digital Lean from dashboards into daily work on the factory floor.

augmentir connected worker platform for digital lean in manufacturing

Digital Lean provides the foundation by standardizing processes, digitizing daily management, and enabling real-time performance tracking. Augmentir operationalizes that foundation by connecting people, processes, and data at the point of work. Through AI-driven insights, Augmentir delivers personalized guidance, digital work instructions, and contextual support to operators — ensuring the right information reaches the right worker at the right time.

By using Augmentir as part of its Digital Lean ecosystem, Hershey is able to:

  • Translate insights into action by embedding continuous improvement directly into daily workflows.
  • Empower frontline workers with adaptive, skills-based guidance that evolves as experience and conditions change.
  • Reduce variability and reinforce standard work consistently across lines, shifts, and sites.
  • Capture and scale institutional knowledge to support onboarding, upskilling, and long-term operational resilience.

Within Hershey’s Digital Lean journey, Augmentir represents the critical bridge from visibility to execution — ensuring that digital insights don’t remain isolated in systems, but actively guide how work is performed every day.

As manufacturers move beyond digitizing processes toward truly augmenting human performance, Hershey’s use of Augmentir demonstrates how connected worker technology makes Digital Lean sustainable, scalable, and people-centric — turning continuous improvement into a daily habit rather than a periodic initiative.

Hershey’s Digital Lean transformation is a powerful example of how digital technologies — built on a solid lean foundation — can enhance operational agility, empower frontline workers, and drive measurable business value. As manufacturers navigate the next wave of digital disruption, the key takeaway is clear: start with people and processes, then scale with technology.

 

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FAQs About Digital Lean in Manufacturing

 

  • What is Digital Lean in manufacturing?

    Digital Lean in manufacturing is the integration of traditional lean principles with digital technologies to improve daily operations, visibility, and continuous improvement. It focuses on standardizing processes, digitizing daily management, and empowering frontline workers with real-time data. Platforms like Augmentir make Digital Lean actionable by connecting lean insights directly to frontline execution through AI-driven work instructions, guided workflows, and connected worker tools.

  • How does Digital Lean improve operational excellence?

    Digital Lean improves operational excellence by eliminating manual processes, increasing real-time visibility, and enabling faster problem resolution across the factory floor. When combined with connected worker technology like Augmentir, Digital Lean ensures that insights from dashboards and performance systems are embedded directly into daily work—helping operators, supervisors, and leaders drive consistent, measurable improvement.

  • Why are connected workers essential to Digital Lean success?

    Connected workers are essential to Digital Lean because lean execution happens at the point of work.

    Without connected workers:

    • Insights stay in dashboards
    • Standard work becomes inconsistent

    Augmentir connects workers by delivering real-time guidance, digital standard work, and collaboration tools—ensuring lean behaviors turn into daily action.

  • How does Augmentir support Digital Lean on the factory floor?

    Augmentir supports Digital Lean by turning standardized lean processes into guided digital execution.

    It enables manufacturers to:

    • Deliver AI-powered work instructions
    • Provide contextual, skills-based guidance
    • Reduce variability and errors

    This bridges the gap between Digital Lean visibility and frontline execution.

  • What can manufacturers learn from Hershey’s Digital Lean journey?

    Hershey’s Digital Lean journey shows that successful transformation starts with people and processes.

    Key lessons include:

    • Standardize lean before digitizing
    • Empower frontline teams
    • Embed improvement into daily work

    By using Augmentir, Hershey ensures Digital Lean insights drive real action at scale.

How Hershey Is Empowering Its Frontline Through Connected Worker Technology

The Hershey Company is redefining the role of the frontline worker through digital transformation — not by replacing people with technology, but by empowering people through technology.

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At the recent Connected Worker Summit in Chicago, The Hershey Company shared how it’s redefining the role of the frontline worker through digital transformation — not by replacing people with technology, but by empowering people through technology.

chocolate production line with connected worker

An article in FoodProcessing.com spotlights Hershey’s digital transformation — and we’re honored to be their partner on this connected worker journey. Powered by our Connected Worker Platform, this transformation is helping Hershey connect, support, and engage its workforce like never before.

Hershey’s Approach: People First, Technology Second

Logan McNear, Digital Manufacturing Program Lead at Hershey, emphasized a fundamental truth: digital transformation only succeeds when it starts with the people doing the work.

That philosophy guided Hershey’s decade-long lean transformation and its shift toward a more digital factory environment. Rather than imposing new tools from the top down, Hershey involves operators directly in the design and implementation of digital solutions — giving them ownership of both the process and the outcome.

This human-centered approach ensures that technology doesn’t just automate or monitor — it enhances capability, engagement, and pride.

Data That Empowers, Not Overwhelms

One of the most compelling stories McNear shared was about a packaging-line operator who wasn’t especially technical. With new connected worker tools, she gained easy access to:

  • Shift performance data
  • Previous shift hand-off information
  • Simple maintenance request tools

Armed with this data, she could proactively manage performance and coordinate with other teams. Within weeks, she took pride in leading the best-performing shift on her line.

This example captures what the connected worker is all about — giving every operator real-time insights that drive ownership, performance, and engagement.

McNear summed it up perfectly:

“If we could just get a piece of that from every operator — that they’re looking at data, they’re connecting it to the problems on the floor and connecting it to the right people to solve those problems — we’d be in a whole different era of production and a different level of digital engagement.”

The Role of Augmentir in Hershey’s Transformation

Behind the scenes, Augmentir’s AI-powered Connected Worker Platform — including intelligent AI Agents — is enabling these very outcomes.

Our technology helps companies like Hershey deliver:

  • Personalized, digital workflows that guide workers through tasks with step-by-step instructions and embedded insights, adapting dynamically based on worker skill level, context, and performance.
  • Real-time data capture from the point of work, ensuring frontline actions feed directly into continuous improvement initiatives and organizational learning.
  • Connected insights across shifts, lines, and sites, enabling teams to identify trends, uncover root causes, and pinpoint where coaching or process improvements will have the greatest impact.
  • AI Agents that act on operational data and insights, proactively surfacing issues, recommending interventions, and automating follow-up actions to streamline operations and accelerate continuous improvement.
  • Worker-centric analytics powered by Augmentir’s AI, helping manufacturers understand how work actually gets done and where targeted support, training, or process changes are needed most.

By focusing on people enablement rather than process enforcement, Augmentir transforms digital tools into intelligent, action-oriented systems — turning insight into impact and driving sustained engagement and operational excellence, as Hershey’s story demonstrates.

Lessons from Hershey’s Connected Worker Journey

Hershey’s experience offers a roadmap for manufacturers looking to empower their own frontline teams:

  • Start with your people. Engage operators early and give them a voice in designing digital tools.
  • Deliver data with purpose. Ensure information helps workers make decisions, not just report them.
  • Combine lean thinking with digital agility. Use connected worker insights to accelerate continuous improvement.
  • Celebrate empowerment as success. True transformation happens when operators feel ownership — not oversight.

Closing Thoughts

The Hershey story is proof that the future of manufacturing is human + digital — not one or the other.

By combining lean principles with Augmentir’s connected worker technology, Hershey is unlocking new levels of engagement, performance, and pride across its operations.

At Augmentir, we’re proud to help leading manufacturers like Hershey turn the “connected worker” vision into a daily reality — where every worker is informed, supported, and connected.

 

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