The rush to embrace digital innovation often leads manufacturing giants down a perilous path where costly technological solutions are built upon inefficient and outdated operational foundations, ultimately amplifying existing problems rather than solving them. In a strategic move to avoid this common pitfall, The Hershey Company has embarked on a comprehensive “Digital Lean” transformation, demonstrating a disciplined, process-first approach to overhauling its manufacturing and supply chain operations. As explained by Will Bonifant, the company’s vice president of manufacturing, engineering, and supply chain strategy, the initiative is guided by a clear consensus: successful digitization is impossible without first optimizing and standardizing the underlying operational workflows. This philosophy is embodied in a carefully constructed “maturity ladder,” which began with a foundational commitment to “lean before digitizing.” Before a single new sensor was installed or a line of code was written, the company engaged in a deep, collaborative effort to redesign its core processes, ensuring maximum efficiency and establishing a stable, streamlined base upon which a lasting digital future could be built.
Building a Foundation on Lean Principles
The cornerstone of Hershey’s transformation was an unwavering commitment to operational excellence before technological integration. This initial phase required extensive collaboration between leadership and frontline teams to revisit, redesign, and rigorously standardize all manufacturing processes across the organization. The objective was to eliminate waste, reduce variability, and create a highly efficient, repeatable operational model. Only after these lean principles were firmly embedded in the company culture and employees were thoroughly trained on the new standardized procedures did the focus shift to technology. This deliberate sequencing ensured that the subsequent digital solutions would enhance already-optimized processes rather than automate flawed ones. By prioritizing operational integrity, Hershey created a solid and resilient foundation, preventing the common scenario where new technologies fail to deliver their promised return on investment due to underlying systemic inefficiencies. This methodical approach proved critical for the long-term success and scalability of the entire digital initiative across its U.S. and international sites.
With its lean processes firmly established, the company proceeded to construct its “digital backbone,” an essential technological infrastructure designed for system-wide coherence and resilience. This foundational layer is composed of several critical components working in unison. It includes a robust data architecture capable of handling vast streams of information from the factory floor, a seamlessly integrated software system that connects disparate operations, and an advanced asset intelligence platform for monitoring equipment health and performance. A key element of this architecture is the “Unified Name Space,” a centralized data model that ensures all systems, from the plant floor to the enterprise level, speak the same language. This unified approach eliminates data silos and provides a single source of truth, enabling consistent and reliable information flow throughout the organization. By engineering this sophisticated yet coherent digital foundation, Hershey ensured that its transformation was not a collection of piecemeal projects but a cohesive, integrated ecosystem prepared for future innovation and growth.
Empowering the Connected Worker
Having implemented this foundational phase, Hershey has now advanced to its “Connected Worker” initiative, a strategic effort aimed at dismantling information silos and fostering unprecedented collaboration. This phase translates the power of the digital backbone into tangible tools for frontline employees, empowering them with real-time data and streamlined communication channels. A prime example can be seen on a Twizzlers production line, where an operator facing an equipment issue no longer relies on a time-consuming manual reporting process. Instead, using a mobile device, the operator can instantly log the issue into a digital system, which immediately triggers an alert for the maintenance team. This direct line of communication drastically reduces response times and allows the operator to track the status of the fix in real time, minimizing downtime and enhancing operational transparency. This shift represents a fundamental change in how work is managed, moving from reactive, siloed communication to a proactive, interconnected, and highly efficient workflow that empowers employees at every level.
This enhanced connectivity extends far beyond the production line, fundamentally transforming how leadership manages plant operations. Supervisors and plant managers gain access to integrated automated workflows, which consolidate all critical information onto a single, intuitive screen. This centralized view provides them with a real-time, comprehensive understanding of the entire production environment, enabling them to instantly identify daily production losses, pinpoint the exact source of an inefficiency, and take immediate, data-driven action to get work back on track. The system’s ability to provide actionable insights replaces guesswork with precision, allowing for more strategic decision-making and continuous improvement. By bridging the gap between the factory floor and management with a seamless flow of information, Hershey’s “Digital Lean” initiative not only optimized individual tasks but also cultivated a more agile, responsive, and data-centric leadership culture that positioned the company for sustained operational excellence.
