7 Manufacturing Processes to Automate Before Hiring More Staff

Orders increase. Production gets busier. Managers start seeing delays, longer handovers and more time spent chasing information. The first reaction is often simple: “We need another person.” Sometimes that is exactly right. A factory may genuinely need more operators, engineers, maintenance technicians or quality specialists.

But sometimes the additional workload is being created by the process itself. Skilled employees may be spending hours updating spreadsheets, checking inventory, following up on approvals or preparing reports that could move automatically between systems.

That is where Manufacturing Workflow Automation deserves a closer look. The goal is not to replace skilled workers. It is to remove repetitive coordination work so those workers can spend more time on work that actually requires their expertise.

Quick Answer: What Manufacturing Processes Should You Automate Before Hiring?

The first manufacturing processes to review for automation are usually production scheduling and work order updates, material and inventory requests, quality checks and nonconformance routing, maintenance requests, purchase approvals, production reporting, shift handovers, and dispatch updates. These processes often involve repeated data entry, manual approvals and multiple handoffs. Manufacturing Workflow Automation can move information between steps automatically while leaving important decisions with the people responsible for them.

Before Hiring, Find Out Where the Extra Work Is Coming From

A growing workload does not automatically mean a staffing problem. Before adding headcount, separate the work that requires more people from the work that requires better processes.

A genuine capacity shortage may look like:

• More welding or assembly work
• More machine setups
• More engineering requirements
• More inspections requiring skilled judgement
• A sustained increase in customer demand
• A new production line or shift

These situations may require additional staff. Process-created workload looks different. Employees may be:

• Updating the same information in three systems
• Calling another department for order status
• Creating reports manually
• Sending approval emails
• Copying production figures into spreadsheets
• Checking stock by phone or message
• Searching for maintenance history

These are much stronger candidates for workflow improvement. If workload grows because production grows, you may need people. If workload grows because administration grows, first look at the process.

That distinction can prevent a business from hiring people to manage inefficiency that will continue to grow with the business.

1. Production Scheduling and Work Order Updates

Production schedules rarely stay static. A customer changes an order. A material becomes unavailable. A machine goes down. A priority job appears. The planner updates the schedule, sends a message to a supervisor and someone on the shop floor works from a different version.

The problem is not necessarily the planning itself. Production planners need to make decisions based on capacity, materials, priorities and constraints. The problem is how much manual coordination surrounds those decisions.

A Manufacturing Workflow Automation process can connect the steps:

Order received → material availability checked → work order created → priority assigned → relevant teams notified → production status updated → exception returned to the planner

The planner still decides what should happen when conditions change. Automation simply keeps the information moving. This can reduce repeated schedule updates, limit the use of outdated versions and give supervisors better visibility into current work.

It is particularly useful where production information already exists across an ERP, planning system, spreadsheets and communication tools. Instead of asking employees to keep each source manually aligned, the workflow can update the relevant systems or notify the right person when human intervention is required.

The main benefit is not “automated scheduling” for its own sake. It is less manual coordination and faster response when production changes.

2. Material and Inventory Requests

Material requests can involve surprisingly little decision-making but a lot of waiting. An operator needs a component. The request goes through paper, a message or a spreadsheet. A storekeeper checks stock. A supervisor may approve it. The warehouse issues it, while someone updates the inventory record afterward.

With each handoff, there is another chance for the request to sit, get duplicated or lose context.

A cleaner workflow might run like this:

Material request → stock check → approval where required → warehouse task → material issue → inventory update → production notification

Consider a production operator who needs a specific component for an urgent work order. Instead of calling the stores team and waiting for someone to check availability, the request can be linked to the relevant work order and sent to the appropriate person. If approval is required, it goes to the right approver. Once the material is issued, the transaction can update the relevant inventory record.

Warehouse staff and supervisors still have a role here. They continue to make decisions, handle exceptions and physically manage the materials. The aim is to reduce waiting, duplicate requests and manual updates around the physical movement of materials.

For manufacturers handling frequent material requests, this also creates a clearer trail. Requests, approvals and material issues can be traced more easily, making recurring shortages or delays easier to investigate.

3. Quality Checks and Nonconformance Handling

Quality processes are a particularly strong candidate for workflow automation because timing and traceability matter. Consider a common manual process. An operator identifies a defect and records it. A quality employee reviews it later. Production may continue while someone sends an email to a supervisor. The affected material is placed on hold manually, while corrective action is tracked somewhere else.

The individual steps may be reasonable. The weakness is the gap between them.

An automated workflow can connect the process:

Inspection result entered → failed check detected → lot or work order flagged → quality team notified → production hold status applied → corrective action assigned → evidence collected → approval recorded → case closed

The software does not decide whether a defect is acceptable, determine the root cause or replace the judgement of a quality professional. Those decisions remain with qualified people.

Instead, automation handles the movement of the problem.

When an inspection fails, the right people should know quickly. The affected work should have the appropriate status. Corrective actions should have clear ownership. Supporting evidence should be associated with the case rather than scattered across emails and files.

That can improve response time and traceability without pretending that quality itself can be reduced to an automated checkbox. For manufacturers, the distinction is important:

Automation handles the movement of the problem. People still decide how to solve it.

4. Maintenance Requests and Follow Ups

Maintenance coordination often begins with something simple. A machine starts making an unusual noise. An operator tells a supervisor. The supervisor contacts maintenance. Someone checks technician availability. Another person checks whether the required spare part is available. The repair happens, but the maintenance history may not be updated until later.

None of these steps necessarily requires sophisticated technology. But repeated across dozens of machines, shifts and maintenance requests, the coordination time adds up.

A Manufacturing Workflow Automation process can turn the request into a defined workflow:

Issue reported → machine and location captured → priority assigned → technician notified → parts checked → repair status updated → production informed → maintenance history stored

The important information is captured at the start rather than reconstructed later.

A technician can see what has been reported and where. Production can see whether a machine is being repaired. Parts availability can be checked as part of the process. Once the work is completed, the maintenance record can be updated without relying on someone remembering to enter it later.

This can reduce chasing and clarify ownership, particularly when maintenance requests currently move through calls, messages and informal conversations.

Predictive maintenance can eventually build on better operational data, but manufacturers do not need to start there. Fixing the maintenance workflow first is often the simpler starting point.

5. Purchase Requests and Approvals

A production team needs a replacement tool, a spare part or additional material. The request is sent by email. Someone checks the budget, another person confirms the supplier and purchasing waits for an approval that is sitting in somebody's inbox.

The decision to spend money still belongs to the people authorised to make it. The repetitive work around that decision is often what slows the process down.

A connected workflow can make the steps explicit:

Purchase request submitted → required information checked → correct approver notified → decision recorded → purchasing task created → order status shared with the requester

Approval routes can reflect the request type, department and spending limit. Missing information can be returned to the requester before purchasing starts chasing it. An overdue request can prompt a reminder or go to a designated alternate approver, following the business's agreed rules.

This does not mean approving purchases automatically or bypassing financial controls. Budget exceptions, supplier changes and unusual orders still need appropriate review. The aim is to give each request a clear owner and visible status so production teams do not have to keep asking what happened to it.

6. Production Reporting and Shift Handovers

At the end of a shift, supervisors may collect output figures, downtime notes, rejected quantities and unfinished work from several places. Someone enters the information into a spreadsheet, prepares a report and explains the same issues again to the next shift.

If the underlying information already exists in operational systems, repeatedly copying it creates extra work without improving the decisions that follow.

A practical workflow might be:

Production data collected → missing or inconsistent entries flagged → supervisor review completed → shift report prepared → open issues assigned → next shift notified

The handover should make exceptions easy to see: a machine awaiting repair, material on hold, an urgent work order or a quality issue requiring follow-up. Each open item needs an owner and a next step, not just a line in a report.

Supervisors still need to confirm important figures and explain context that software cannot infer. A report should also show when its data was last updated, so an old system reading is not mistaken for the current situation.

The benefit is less report preparation and a more consistent handover. The next team can begin with the information it needs instead of reconstructing what happened during the previous shift.

7. Dispatch and Delivery Updates

Finishing production does not always mean an order is ready to leave. Quality release, packing, warehouse availability, transport booking and customer communication may all depend on separate updates.

When these steps are coordinated by calls and emails, warehouse staff can spend as much time checking readiness as preparing the shipment.

A dispatch workflow can connect the milestones:

Production completed → quality release confirmed → packing task assigned → shipment readiness checked → collection details recorded → dispatch confirmed → relevant teams notified

The workflow should use confirmed events. A scheduled collection is not proof that goods have left, and a completed work order should not override a quality hold. Exceptions such as partial shipments or missing documentation need to return to the responsible person.

Once dispatch is confirmed, sales and customer service can receive the same status without asking the warehouse to repeat it. Where the relevant systems support it, tracking details can be linked to the order and passed to the appropriate team.

Warehouse staff still handle the physical checks and movement of goods. Automation reduces the repeated status checking around them and helps teams spot a blocked delivery before the customer has to chase it.

Which Process Should You Automate First?

A process being inefficient does not automatically make it a good automation candidate. Rate each one from 1 to 5 across six areas:

• Frequency: How often does the process happen?
• Manual time: How many hours do employees spend copying, checking or updating information?
• Number of handoffs: How many people or departments touch it?
• Error cost: What happens if something goes wrong?
• Delay cost: Can waiting stop production or delay delivery?
• Ease of automation: Are the steps already reasonably clear and repeatable?

High-frequency processes with significant manual work, multiple handoffs and measurable consequences are usually the strongest starting points. Common candidates include invoice approvals, employee onboarding, purchase requests, customer onboarding, inventory updates, service requests, order processing, scheduling and management reporting.

Do not automatically choose the most complicated process in the factory. A smaller workflow with a clear baseline can provide a better first automation project because the business can measure the result and learn before expanding.

Automation vs Hiring: A Simple Cost Check

Automation should be evaluated against the cost of the current process, not against an assumption that software will always be cheaper than people.

Start with:

Monthly manual process cost = number of employees × hours spent on the process × hourly employment cost

For example, if five employees each spend 15 hours a month handling the same administrative process at an average employment cost of $35 per hour:

5 × 15 × $35 = $2,625 per month

A similar UK example would be four employees spending 10 hours each at £25 per hour:

4 × 10 × £25 = £1,000 per month

These figures do not mean a business should automatically spend that amount on automation. They establish the cost of the current process.

Management should also consider overtime, production delays, rework, missed orders, reporting time and errors. Then compare the cost of improving the workflow with the cost of adding another employee.

When You Should Hire Instead of Automate

Automation is not a substitute for genuine production capacity. Hire when the factory needs more skilled hands because demand has increased. The same applies when additional expertise is required for engineering, quality, maintenance or a new production line or shift.

For example, if an additional production line requires more machine operators, automation cannot solve the underlying capacity requirement. Likewise, a growing engineering workload that requires specialist judgement may need another engineer rather than another workflow.

There are also tasks that cannot safely or practically be automated.

The useful question is therefore not “Can software do this?” It is “Is software removing unnecessary work, or are we trying to hide a real staffing shortage?”

Good automation removes repetitive coordination and administration. It should allow existing employees to spend more time on skilled work, not create an excuse to under-resource the operation.

You Do Not Need to Automate the Whole Factory

Manufacturing automation can sound like a major factory-wide technology programme involving robots, a new ERP, connected machines and a large smart-factory project.

Workflow automation does not have to begin there. A manufacturer could start with one maintenance request process, quality approval or material request. Map what happens today, automate the repetitive handoffs, measure the result and fix whatever does not work.

Once the process is stable, another workflow can be addressed. This approach is particularly useful for SMEs that do not have the budget or internal capacity for a major transformation. It also reduces the risk of trying to change too many processes simultaneously.

The objective is not to automate everything. It is to identify where repeated administrative work is creating avoidable operational effort and improve those workflows one at a time.

What Does Manufacturing Workflow Automation Need to Connect With?

The workflow rarely exists in isolation. Depending on the operation, automation may need to connect with an ERP, MES, inventory system, QMS, CMMS, CRM, accounting platform, warehouse system or shop-floor device.

The difficult part is often what happens between systems. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) also highlights interoperability and information flow as important parts of connected smart manufacturing systems.

For example, a quality failure may be recorded in a quality system while production planning continues to show the work order as active. Someone then has to communicate the issue manually. A connected workflow can pass the relevant status to the next process so the appropriate team knows what has happened.

The right architecture depends on the factory's existing systems and requirements. Automation does not necessarily mean replacing them. In many cases, its value comes from connecting the systems the business already relies on and ensuring information moves between them at the right point.

Final Thoughts: Fix the Workflow Before You Add Another Person to It

Hiring remains an important part of manufacturing growth. Good employees cannot simply be replaced by software. But skilled people should not spend their days copying production data, sending status emails, updating spreadsheets, chasing approvals or preparing the same report repeatedly.

Before adding headcount to handle that workload, map the process. Identify the repeated work and slow handoffs. Then decide what should be automated and what still requires human judgement.

Trudosys can help manufacturers map manual processes and build Manufacturing Workflow Automation around the systems and teams they already use.