UK manufacturers are losing significant amounts of productive time each day due to manual reporting processes, according to new research from manufacturing software company
OFS.
The study of 500 manufacturing professionals, published in the report Same factory, different reality – the growing divide between manufacturing leadership and operators, found that operators spend an average of 21 minutes per shift logging information, transcribing data and preparing reports. Across a three-shift operation, this equates to more than an hour each day dedicated to administrative tasks rather than production activity.
While the figure may appear modest, the cumulative effect is considerable. Over the course of a year, this lost time can amount to around 380 hours, highlighting what the report describes as a persistent reliance on manual processes beneath the surface of supposedly digitised factories.
Despite ongoing investment in digital transformation, just 8% of manufacturers said their reporting processes are fully automated. The majority still devote significant time to manual administration, with 68% spending up to 30 minutes per shift on reporting tasks and a further 14% exceeding that figure.
The findings also reveal inefficiencies in how operational data is used. Frontline teams reportedly utilise less than 40% of the data collected, while nearly a third of businesses say operators rely on just 0–25% of available data when making decisions. Access to real-time information remains limited, with only 26% of operators able to view production data directly, while many depend on supervisors to retrieve it.
This lack of visibility is having tangible consequences for performance. Only a third of production issues are identified immediately, while more than one in five take longer than a full shift to surface. As a result, 46% of manufacturers report experiencing downtime linked to delayed issue detection, 41% cite increased costs, and a third say they have missed delivery deadlines and lost revenue.
James Magee, CEO at OFS, said: “Manufacturers often think they have digitised because the data eventually ends up in a dashboard somewhere. But if operators are still manually transferring information between systems, escalating issues through supervisors and spending nearly half an hour every shift on admin, the reality on the ground is still highly manual.
“A huge amount of operational data is being collected but never properly used by the people closest to production. And when visibility is delayed, the financial impact shows up quickly through downtime, missed deadlines, rising costs and firefighting.”