Hybrid Work in Manufacturing

Hybrid Work is here to stay

Cisco empowers your manufacturing workers whether at home, in the factory, or anywhere. Because work is not where you go, it’s what you do. Provide hybrid work experiences so you can maintain communications and collaboration with your dispersed and remote workers during times of unforeseen business disruptions.

Explore Use Cases
Manufacturing supply chain operations	Advanced warehouse operations - People, machines, and materials are in constant motion within a manufacturing warehouse operations. Proactively monitor and manage supply chain for plant warehousing operations by connecting machines, sensors, scanners, and video systems with secure, standards-based connectivity to improve operations, supply chain visibility, productivity, safety, and sustainability. Inventory management - Complete visibility into all assets, raw material utilization, and material handling within the facility to meet plant demand and inventory management goals. Industrial mobility - Enable a comprehensive wireless asset roaming environment across and between plants, warehouses, and storage yards.
Advanced manufacturing operations	Industrial automation - Capture compute information from point of acquisition to target systems for faster decision-making, real-time insights, machine learning, and sustainability. Data collection and management - Enable associates to be more effective in their roles by improving employee communication and engagement. Asset visibility and control - Apply asset status, condition, and/or location to improve utilization. Remote operations - Gain visibility and insights, stop manual troubleshooting, and reduce time spent on issues with wireless solutions that are highly secure, scalable, easy to manage, and sustainable. Sustainable facility solutions - Build an intelligent plant to better manage energy, waste, and materials to achieve emissions and recycling objectives for a sustainable business while balancing social responsibility and regulatory compliance.
Workforce enablement	Plant floor collaboration - Provide reliable and sustainable voice and video communications to the plant floor from any location at any time. Digital workforce - Build a smart workplace environment for optimized communication and collaboration while improving employee productivity, asset utilization, and sustainability.
Industrial security and safety	Industrial security foundation - Build a cybersecurity foundation with a robust industrial infrastructure providing OT visibility, macro/zone segmentation, zone access control, and threat detection and response, all with security intelligence feeding a security operations center (SOC). Industrial security full spectrum - Extend foundational cybersecurity to provide greater granularity of policy enforcement and access control with software-defined microsegmentation for the industrial environment and increased cybersecurity visibility, threat detection, awareness, and response. Health, safety, and environment (HSE) - Monitor and enhance overall manufacturing operations for unsafe working conditions and practices. This is enabled by employee location and environmental conditions, enabling real-time operational insights, essential collaboration, and sustainability.

: Sustainability

Key stats

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42% of manufacturers are redesigning their work models to support a hybrid workforce

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29% of manufacturers are redesigning their security systems to better support remote access.

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54% of manufacturers say remote work has improved their workers’ health and safety

Put security first

Hybrid Work comes with its own security risks

Hybrid teams and remote experts rely on personal computers, routers, and mobile devices that can be difficult to manage and secure. Look for security solutions that:

Provide flexible cloud-delivered security.
Protect data by verifying the identity of users, devices, and applications.
Detect and block cyberattacks from email.

Optimize your hybrid operations

How do you ensure your hybrid teams can communicate effectively, stay connected to suppliers, monitor operations, and support remote experts all from home?

Make it easy for your workers to meet, collaborate, and share with a virtual workspace that captures all the information needed to continue operations. Look for a solution that:

Offers secure exchange of messages and files, across devices.
Makes it easy to search for conversations and documents.
Allows you to privately message one person or create a group chat in seconds.

Simplify, simplify, simplify

Over half of manufacturers cite team collaboration solutions, device management, and security as areas of investment needed to enable a hybrid workforce.

If you don’t have a large IT team, you may be worried that getting your hybrid teams connected might be complicated. But it doesn’t have to be. To reduce IT complexity, look for solutions that:

Integrate meetings, calling, and security.
Are cloud-based and easy for employees to deploy without onsite IT.
Are simple to manage.

Get started Now!

Cisco Hybrid Work is a cloud-based solution that combines security and collaboration in one package. You get video conferencing, messaging, file sharing, and white boarding capabilities—plus security solutions to protect users, devices, data, email, and more.

It is easy to purchase, deploy, and use-even without a big IT team. We offer several flexible buying options and a great partner ecosystem to help you.