If you’ve ever sat through a vendor pitch that promised to revolutionize your operations with an AI-powered platform, you know the feeling. Slick demos, impressive buzzwords, and promises of instant results. But here’s what they don’t tell you: the companies winning at digital transformation aren’t focusing on platforms, they’re looking to solve problems with their people.
The Real Secret of Digital Leaders
Nick Leeder, an award-winning digital transformation advisor who works with global manufacturers, cuts straight to the heart of what actually works at Beyond the Line 2025. “The pace at which technology is advancing is so fast, but that speed doesn’t mean that value arrives automatically,” he explains.
The most successful manufacturers, including those in the World Economic Forum’s Global Lighthouse Network, understand something fundamental that others miss: “Value is created through discipline, not just digital.”
While most manufacturers are asking, “What solution do we need to buy?” the winners are asking “What problem are we actually trying to solve?”
“Will It Break?” Meets “Will They Use It?”
Nick points out that predictive maintenance technology is fundamentally “about answering one critical question, which is, will it break?”
That seemingly simple question requires complex data, like real-time vibration or temperature information, to “detect really subtle changes in machine behavior that give you those early warning signs of something going wrong, such as a shaft misalignment or excessive wear on a bearing.”
But as Nick explains in a recent World Economic Forum article, “For digital transformation to succeed, the end-user experience must be prioritized – not treated as an afterthought.”
When companies evaluate platforms based on the end-user’s experience and if the technology meets teams where they are, that’s when “training shifts from reactive to proactive, workers become more confident, more engaged, and more likely to stay.”
The PepsiCo Proof
Before implementing Machine Health, PepsiCo’s Vancouver facility was stuck in reactive maintenance mode, and that was the problem they were looking to solve.
When they deployed Augury, something remarkable happened: they avoided 222 hours of downtime by routinely addressing issues before machines failed.
As Maintenance Supply Chain Engineer Emma Carbary explains, “One of the best parts is it’s incredibly user-friendly. Even if you don’t have deep technical knowledge, you can pick it up and understand what’s happening.”
That accessibility became the foundation for upskilling their teams. Mike, Emma’s maintenance planner and a former mechanic, now uses the platform with confidence to plan interventions and guide technicians. With 98.3% of alerts responded to and eight active users, the technology isn’t just embedded—it’s enabling the team to win and gain control of their operations.
Three Rules That Turn Buzz into Business Results
So, how can you realize digital transformation success? Here are Nick’s three ground rules:
1. Start with Problems, Not Platforms
“Start with the problem and not the platform or the technology. Make your first move, focus on solving something very, very specific in your facility. Make sure you know your ‘why.’”
2. Build Capabilities, Not Dependencies
“You don’t want to build a dependency on technology. You want to build a capability to use it.” Here’s where most digital transformations go sideways: “Technology on its own, it doesn’t actually solve anything. The thing that makes a difference is your people. And when they’re trained, when they’re involved in the project and when they’re empowered with the project, that turns these technologies into a real solution in a business.”
3. Think in Systems, Not Silos
“Manufacturing is actually a very complex thing, and it’s interconnected. It is made up of many things; processes, machines, and people work as a whole system.” This is where the magic happens: “The biggest gains you will get are when these things come together. For example, when predictive maintenance comes together with other things. It comes together with the inventory, it comes together with production planning, it comes together with your energy use.”
The Bottom Line: Why Before What, Every Time
“In today’s manufacturing environment, everything is pretty uncertain. Not a week goes by without some fundamental changes,” Nick observes. Add in the increasing worker shortage and bigger demand for upskilling, AI solutions that teams can easily use and trust become even more important to staying productive, agile, and competitive.
The companies that will win aren’t the ones chasing the latest platform or the flashiest AI capabilities. They’re the ones that “ask the three fundamental questions really early on and not just focus on the technology, they focus on their ‘why’. They’re the ones that turn these changes into lasting results, and ultimately, a competitive advantage to the business.”
Because in the end, technology can’t achieve much without the people who use it, and the best manufacturers are the ones who start there.
Want to learn about how you can win with purpose-built predictive and prescriptive analytics? Here’s what Gartner® has to say.
