Companies are more concerned than ever before about employee productivity, and rightly so!

Statistics show that less than 60% of working hours are spent productively. A company can increase profits by 21% if employees become optimally productive.

So, what’s stopping employees from being productive?

There could be various reasons for that:

Manual Work

According to an Automation Anywhere survey, employees spend more than three hours on manual tasks that could have easily been automated. Manual and repetitive tasks are time-consuming, error-prone, and stop employees from focusing on high-value work.

Labor Shortages

According to a World Economic Forum article, both developed and developing countries face labor shortages due to mismatched skills. To add to the woes, the workforce from the baby boomer generation is retiring, widening the gaps. Productivity will take a hit if this problem is not resolved quickly. The article does cite that technologies like automation will create 12 million more jobs by 2025 than they eliminate.

Lack of Transparency

Lack of transparency between teams could lead to miscommunication and misunderstanding and impact productivity. 

Operational Inefficiencies

Some business processes are still manual, fragmented, and complex. They require legacy technologies or involve too many unnecessary steps to complete a task. It causes several bottlenecks, slows down operations, and decreases productivity. 

Inaccuracies

Since most tasks are still manual, there are high chances of human error. These errors could impact decision-making or final business outcomes if not checked early. Detecting them and making corrections would be time-consuming and impact employee productivity.

One way to overcome such challenges is by using technologies like Computer Vision.

What Is Computer Vision, and How Can It Improve Employee Productivity? 

Computer vision is a field in Artificial Intelligence (AI) that enables computers to extract information from images, videos, and other visual inputs, analyze them, and make informed decisions. It trains machines to perform activities, such as inspecting products, identifying defects, and ensuring safety. Optical Character Recognition (OCR), Facial Recognition, and Object Detection are a few examples of Computer Vision. Let’s find out how companies can use it to improve employee productivity.

1. Automating Processes

Since computer vision-powered systems work 24/7 with minimal human intervention, companies can accelerate critical processes like product assembling, inventory management, or approving insurance claims without hiring a large team. This is especially useful at a time when companies are struggling to fill positions. 

Computer vision-powered systems can be trained to perform mundane, low-value tasks, leaving the human workforce to focus on tasks that require cognitive intelligence. 

2. Improving Workplace Safety

According to the National Safety Council, work-related deaths and injuries cost the nation, employers, and individuals over $171 billion in 2019. Besides the economic loss, workplace injuries and death could also impact productivity. 

Companies and employees working on the work site may not always have clear visibility of safety hazards. Sometimes employees may even forget to wear smart glasses or helmets.

Computer vision can prevent such situations. It can check if employees are wearing a helmet or safety glasses, if the equipment used in the work sites is safe, and send real-time alerts to employees and security officials when it identifies a deviation from normal operations or a security hazard.  

3. Reducing Inaccuracies

Manual processes are error-prone. Computer vision can detect minuscule errors and flaws that usually go unnoticed by the human eye and alerts the company on time. This helps the company to eliminate errors early and maintain the quality of the process. 

Computer vision is especially beneficial when companies produce large quantities of products and need assistance to check their quality. It also improves employees’ productivity as they get more time to focus on other critical tasks than finding and rectifying errors. 

4. Reducing Downtime

Unplanned downtime can cost manufacturing companies up to $50 billion annually and take up over 10% of production time. Add to those other problems like loss of productive hours, overtime costs, and lost sales opportunities. 

One of the reasons for unplanned downtime is the breakdown of machines. Machines stop working when they are not serviced or companies don’t detect issues on time. 

Computer Vision can prevent such problems by detecting machine downtime early and alerting the maintenance team to repair it before it escalates. It also checks if the machine has been serviced regularly to ensure it works uninterruptedly. This helps employees work without interruptions and enables companies to save costs on repairs and lost business opportunities. 

5. Tracking Employee’s Actions

Supervisors often face difficulty in monitoring employees’ actions when they work remotely. Computer vision can help them monitor employees’ movements even if they are not present in the same location. 

For example, computer vision can capture the in-time and out-time of an employee and track them based on their badges or wearable devices to ensure their safety. The technology can also help analyze video feeds to track the number of occupants in a particular zone and use strategically placed cameras to detect abnormal behavior or non-compliance to safety guidelines. This can help supervisors make appropriate decisions to improve employees’ productivity. 

The Final Word

Companies must invest in a computer vision platform approach to improve employee productivity. A computer vision platform leverages AI to process visual data continuously and deliver valuable insights to improve employee productivity. 

KamerAI helps companies make sense of the visual data and make the right decisions. From automating timekeeping and reducing the hassles of biometric scanning to safeguarding employees with KamerAI’s hard hat detector, KamerAI can reinvigorate employee productivity across different industries. 

Get in touch with us to learn more about KamerAI’s computer vision platform and how it can improve productivity in your company.