Connected knowledge strategies

In the June 2026 issue of ISMR, Garth Coleman (CEO, Canvas Envision) explains why connected worker strategies are leaving workers behind and advocates for connected knowledge strategies. These capture, structure and deliver actionable knowledge across an entire workforce and lifecycle, closing the feedback loop so that an organisation gets smarter over time.

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Over the past two decades, manufacturers have invested billions into digital infrastructure. PLM systems manage product definitions with extraordinary precision. ERP platforms coordinate global operations. MES software orchestrates production schedules down to the minute. On the product and process side of the equation, the transformation has been genuine and substantial.

Yet walk onto most factory floors in some countries and you will find the people actually building products still working from static PDFs, printed checklists and documents that someone assembled by hand. The engineering systems upstream are world-class. The knowledge delivery at the point of execution has barely changed.

This is the paradox at the centre of the connected worker conversation. The industry has poured enormous energy into the “connected” part and, somewhere along the way, lost sight of the worker 

Two pillars transformed: one left behind

Manufacturing runs on three pillars: product, process and people. The product pillar has been transformed by engineering systems, digital twins and simulation. The process pillar has been transformed by smart factory automation, IoT and advanced execution systems. Both have absorbed billions in investment and delivered real results. The people pillar has not kept pace. The way most manufacturers transfer engineering knowledge into guidance for the workforce has not fundamentally changed. Products and processes have entered the modern era. The knowledge delivery to the people doing the work is stuck where it was twenty years ago.

That gap is not just an inconvenience. Every time that product complexity increases and the knowledge delivery method stays the same, the risk of errors goes up. Training takes longer. The cost of getting it wrong compounds. Engineering and automation are running on electricity. The people side of manufacturing is still “working by candlelight”.

The first and last mile of the digital thread

The issue is not a lack of technology. It is a failure of translation. Engineering teams define products in sophisticated digital environments. However, by the time that information reaches the people performing the work, it has been manually converted into formats that lose context, clarity and interactivity.

I describe this as the first mile and last mile problem of the digital thread. The first mile is capturing knowledge from engineers and experienced workers and turning it into structured, reusable instructions. The last mile is delivering that knowledge to technicians and operators at the moment they need it and in a form on which they can immediately act.

To read the rest of this article in the June 2026 issue of ISMR, see https://joom.ag/mVKd/p24