Companies globally are looking to adopt Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) technologies to boost both productivity and sustainability. However, the path to success is fraught with challenges, from outdated legacy systems to the critical need for workforce upskilling. In some cases, companies need to overcome an image problem that makes it hard to recruit and retain the talent required to fill vacant production roles.
In this episode of McKinsey Talks Operations, host Christian Johnson is joined by Jackie Jung, vice president of Global Operations Strategy and Corporate Sustainability at Western Digital, Kiva Allgood, head of the Centre for Advanced Manufacturing and Supply Chains at the World Economic Forum, and Enno de Boer, senior partner at McKinsey. In this engaging discussion, they examine how the Global Lighthouse Network and its community are helping companies overcome these barriers and the exceptional results they are enjoying, the evolution of the network, and the secret to achieving long-term success with 4IR technologies.
The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Christian Johnson: The Global Lighthouse Network (GLN), an initiative of the World Economic Forum (WEF) cofounded with McKinsey, was launched in 2018. The idea was to recognize how more production organizations around the world could capture the value available from digital transformation. Since then, the network has published on a wide range of topics, showcasing findings from across a community that, at the time of this recording, counts more than 150 sites, including 17 Sustainability Lighthouses, showing how 4IR technologies can help in combating climate change.
All of this is especially welcome news at a time when organizations have a more urgent need than ever to drive productivity, but there is more work for the network to do. So, to discuss the next stage of the evolution, I am delighted to welcome back Enno de Boer, senior partner at McKinsey, and to welcome to McKinsey Talks Operations for the first time, Kiva Allgood, head of the Centre for Advanced Manufacturing and Supply Chains at the World Economic Forum, and I’m delighted to be joined by Jackie Jung, vice president, Global Operations Strategy and Corporate Sustainability at Western Digital.
I’d like to start with Enno. Can we expand a bit on the context of our discussion today? Describe a little bit about how and why the Global Lighthouse Network got started, the evolution, and maybe some of your personal highlights over the past six years.
Enno de Boer: When we started this back in 2018, there was a lot of hype around Industry 4.0, the Fourth Industrial Revolution. There were many shiny objects out there, but people were struggling to see how it all came together. It reminded me of the days when the book The Machine That Changed the World came out, and everything shifted to lean. Everyone was traveling to Japan to see how Toyota, Honda, and others had done it, to then invent their own production systems. I was struck by the fact that back then, there was nothing like that. There was no place to go. When we spoke with the World Economic Forum, we said, “We need to do something here.”
We aim to make the Fourth Industrial Revolution as inclusive as possible, ensuring that everyone can participate and that it benefits the world by addressing supply chain challenges. To achieve this, we need to highlight real-world examples. This platform brings together the best examples of digitized supply chains, offering a place where people can see and learn from these practices. That’s precisely what we did. We started with 16 Lighthouses in 2018, and since then, the network has grown significantly—now exceeding 150 Lighthouses.
Christian Johnson: Jackie, I’d love to bring you in here since you have the opposite perspective from a company that has been a participant for some years now. Could you share a little bit about Western Digital’s journey to becoming a member of the Global Lighthouse Network, especially the “why”? What motivated your organization to be a part of this?
Jackie Jung: At Western Digital, we have undergone a significant transformation in automation and analytics. We want to consolidate our learnings across the different sites, and additionally, we aim to be recognized as the best—world class—and strive to be a global leader. Back then, we were exploring different avenues when we discovered the GLN network. The criteria and the process are very objective, rigorous, and holistic, and I believe that these criteria represent the best.
At that time—I remember it was 2020—[there were] 73 Lighthouses in the world but none in the countries of Malaysia and Thailand. At Western Digital, we have a significant manufacturing presence there, which motivated us to focus on those two countries and guide them through a learning process.
Working closely with the factories to achieve Global Lighthouse Network designations and become the first sites in their respective countries has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my career. This success generated significant momentum within Western Digital, inspiring many other factories to accelerate their own transformation journeys. As a result, three additional sites have since undergone learning processes and received additional geo designations.
Christian Johnson: Jackie, thank you very much. It is great to hear reinforcement from the company’s perspective about what this momentum in the network really means and how it inspires additional transformation. So, what’s next for this community? Kiva, I’d love to hear from you about what’s happening in the next stage of development for the Global Lighthouse Network.
Kiva Allgood: For me, the most inspiring thing about the Global Lighthouse Network is exactly what Jackie mentioned: the fact that it is bringing technology to the factory for operational excellence. Having spent almost 30 years in supply chain and operational roles, I’ve seen that when you’re trying to motivate and encourage someone on the shop floor to do something differently, there has to be purpose and a focus on operational excellence. But it starts with the people. One of the key things we’ve learned from the 700 different use cases we’ve explored across all of the different Lighthouses is that without leadership and the people component, you can’t drive that transformation. Often, it’s not about the technology; it’s about people’s willingness to examine a problem statement, think it through from an operational excellence perspective, and find a new way forward.
Jackie’s organization has done an amazing job of upskilling and reskilling individuals to rethink their jobs, transitioning from working on the shop floor to managing a network operations center. That’s really the transformation we’re starting to see. However, I’d also like to highlight that the Lighthouse Network rewards people who take brownfield factories—those that have been around for 50 years processing the same thing—and apply new technologies. We’re looking at how the best of the best can create operational excellence that positively impacts people, benefits the planet, and ensures the next generation of technology [is] on the shop floor.
Christian Johnson: You mentioned the people element of this. How are you seeing the network changing as workforces are changing?
Kiva Allgood: One buzzword is AI, and anyone who has been in the operations space and has worked with a lot of data—whether that involved doing money collar analysis way back when or now using AI for forecasting and production—has found it incorporated into a hundred percent of the new applicants. If we rewind to the previous waves, the applicants from last year and the year before included some use cases of AI. Now we’re seeing that almost every Lighthouse is using AI on the shop floor today in some meaningful way. I’d say we’ve seen that transition, and we are now seeing technicians upskilling and reskilling to understand how they can participate in that process as well. It helps them do more with the additional information, and it also allows them to gain a new skill in their careers.
Christian Johnson: How do you see the impact now as new generations of workers, particularly Gen Z, come into the marketplace?
Kiva Allgood: We’ve recently published an article on the facts and fiction of who’s doing what. One of the key points is that, especially for Gen Z, they are already digitally native. We had to go through this process of pilot purgatory and try to convince people to go digital. Now people are digital; they’re walking onto the factory floor. I mean, I have two kids in their 20s who just graduated from college and actually work on the factory floor. For them, it lacks that digital connection. They’ve grown up with it; they’ve never not had a cell phone. I grew up on a party line on a farm. So, I think really trying to attract that community means that the technology on the floor has to change too; otherwise, it won’t be a job they are interested in doing. I think that’s the pressure we’re facing right now. It’s not just about how to keep the people we have, but how to attract and retain folks who are digitally native, which means we have to talk about the noble work we do. Jackie’s job is probably one of the most exciting in the world. She gets to build things every single day. She gets to help save the planet. She figures out how to save water and energy. Not many jobs allow you to do that.
Enno de Boer: Kiva is spot on about this. I want to add two things here. First, it’s crazy that in your private life, you pick up a smartphone and learn how to use it in a matter of hours, yet when you go into a factory, we still have legacy equipment where workers sometimes need to learn these machines for several months. The user interfaces we are used to, and that the digital-native generation is accustomed to, are just not present in factories. Additionally, more than 50 percent of factories don’t even have Wi-Fi. We need to keep up with technology and bring the tools we use in our private lives into our work lives.
But then, secondly, I like the point, Kiva, that you’re making about Jackie having the coolest job on the planet. All our Lighthouses have the coolest jobs. If you think about it, where else can you find a job that involves artificial intelligence, automation, 3D printing, IoT [Internet of Things], and all these technologies—ten to 15 very different technologies—coming together to make an impact? You need to create something out of this. That is the coolest job on the planet. So, to the young generation, hear my words: get ready. If you want to work in cool tech, come to the shop floor. This is the place to be in the future.
Christian Johnson: Where do I sign up? Jackie, over to you. How are you seeing these play out day-to-day on the factory floors where you are walking?
Jackie Jung: First, I want to echo Kiva’s point about people. People are the most important asset of the company, and Enno says that we get to develop technology. Most of our solutions are developed by our own people, for our own people, and with our people. There are many opportunities for young people. Gen Z is particularly interested in technology and making a societal impact. More important, they want to maintain flexibility in their lives. Technologies such as robotics, AI, machine learning, IT sensors, and simulation are driving manufacturing toward autonomy.
Christian Johnson: I’d like to drill down on the people aspect of this because this is another area where the perception is that the forces we’re describing are intentional. I’ve been around long enough to hear people tell me that lean stands for “less employees are needed.” I’ve had people tell me this before. So, I’d love to hear a little bit more about how we see some of the implications for people here and what workforce changes or development initiatives we’re seeing these Lighthouses undertake that will really matter for the next wave of improvement.
Kiva Allgood: When you think about industry transformation and the transformation of factories, it’s important to recognize our starting point. I know we began the conversation by referencing the [Toyota] production system. The way we used to make cars is definitely not how we make cars today. If you’ve been to any factory, you’ve seen cars going upside down all around—on a little rollercoaster. People’s jobs there have changed, but I would argue they’ve become more meaningful in the sense that employees are able to gain different skills. You’re now 3D printing parts instead of doing the exact same manual task repeatedly. I use the analogy of when I went to high school and learned how to type on a manual typewriter. I could still type on a manual typewriter, but it would take me twice as long, and I wouldn’t provide the same quality. Plus, I wouldn’t have nearly as much fun doing voice-to-text or typing quickly on a keyboard.
The faster we can adopt technology and change people’s perceptions of what the industry looks like, the faster the manufacturing and logistics sectors will transform as well. I think this is critical, especially as we start to see the labor gap that is developing, particularly in markets like the US, where we have dismantled trade schools and have not focused on highlighting these career journeys. They are not just jobs; we don’t position them that way, but they very much are. The number of people I’ve met who started off on a factory line and are now managing a whole set of robots or overseeing the full automation segment love their jobs; they brag about their jobs. That’s what we hope to inspire the next generation to do as well.
Enno de Boer: There’s a lot of talk about automation taking jobs away, and let’s address this head-on, because we’ve been having that debate since 2018. We were approached and asked, “Is this now the way to get to a factory without people?” It’s all about augmenting the operator, making the operator’s work safer, and reducing repetitive tasks to unlock the human capital and skills of the operator. I think another important fact is that, in the US, we have roughly 200 robots for every 10,000 operators—200 per 10,000. So, this myth that there are like 99 percent robots and only one human is not true. There may be some shop floors in very specific industries where there’s more automation, but in general, humans and operators are core to letting the machines run.
Jackie Jung: I can echo that. Earlier this year at Davos, we had a live stream to show how the factory operates. The operators may not be on the shop floor doing manual work, like repetitive manual loading of machines, but they are in the control rooms. We showed that operators have been upskilled; they are remotely assisting the machines through the control panels. Technicians are looking at the screens. Instead of responding to a traffic light chart on the machines, they receive a signal from the watch that says, “Hey, this machine has this problem; likely this is the solution. Go to this shelf, take this part, and address it.” You get to be more efficient and really do more innovative and value-added work.
Christian Johnson: I’d love to hear from both of you about what the opportunities are for women and what the need is for women in production networks.
Jackie Jung: I consider myself a woman pioneer in many areas. I volunteered to go to the factory and drive analytics, AI, and manufacturing. I started that journey ten years ago. I also initiated sustainable operations within Western Digital. It is hard, but it is very rewarding, and it is the right thing to do. I think women have the niche because they are resilient, they really care, and they can make a difference.
Kiva Allgood: I have often spent my career as the only female in the room and the only female on the shop floor. I always say I was born to do this. I’m one of five kids; I have four brothers and two sons. So, if I can’t handle it, I don’t know who can. But I also think that it has changed, and my view is that operational roles are problem solvers, and women love to solve problems; they’re great at multitasking. All of those things that I had the opportunity to do as a mother and as an operational-excellence master black belt are problem-solving. They’re really unique and fun roles. I think, especially in the United States, we have a lot of work to do, particularly in K through 12th grade, to encourage people to think about jobs in operations, in factories, and in science. We have to do a better job.
We need to figure out how to achieve gender parity in engineering programs and gender parity on the shop floor. There are some amazing examples. Flex, a global third-party manufacturer, has done some really great work, and there are states in India, like Tamil Nadu, that have implemented full programs. So, when people say it can’t be done, I point to those examples and say it has been done; they’re just not looking in the right direction.
Christian Johnson: Enno, I’d like to come back to you for a moment. Could you tell us a bit about the importance of improving the performance of organizations that are already using 4IR technologies?
Enno de Boer: We are living in the real world. We have supply issues, geopolitical tensions, and challenges. We have sustainability agendas that need to be fulfilled. We have an aging workforce. All these problems are at hand, and we are coming out of a decade where manufacturing has actually stagnated in productivity. So, I think these tools are very welcome, but nobody has the time, money, or guts to implement them just for the sake of using the tools and pursuing the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Nobody cares about that. What everyone cares about is how we solve the supply issues and all these challenges we are facing in manufacturing. How do we get those solved? The amazing thing is that we now have a toolbox. Kiva mentioned earlier that we have 700 use cases that we see used repeatedly, and these have proven to drive impact.
We have up to 5,000 benchmarks that show that the benchmarks reset in every industry. It’s no longer about 5 or 10 percent improvement; we’re seeing changes of a hundred percent or even a tripling of performance. Initially, people were only looking at productivity, but while productivity is important—and yes, we need to be more productive—we also need to be more agile. We need to get closer to the customer, speed up time to market, and become more sustainable. Last, if you want to fundamentally transform your network, it’s hard work. It requires significant investment, but the return on investment is very high. We have the figures: the return on investment for the best use cases is ten times.
Even for the more challenging ones, like the AI projects, it’s still three times. So, it’s very attractive, but it needs to be attractive. If there is no R in the ROI, there is no I available. We need that performance. That’s why, when we started the Lighthouse Network, we emphasized that we are not celebrating any Lighthouse that is merely investing in great tech but can’t show us the R. We want to see the R—the return, the performance, the improvements. They need to be there, sustainable, and achieved with and for the people.
Christian Johnson: I’d like to drill down on one of the areas where I think it has traditionally been hardest for people to imagine the R in the ROI, and that’s sustainability. We now have this designation: Sustainability Lighthouses. Jackie, I’d like to hear from you about how that has been important for your organization and how you see it playing out at Western Digital.
Jackie Jung: I lead corporate sustainability for Western Digital, and we are particularly passionate about it. Our efforts have been recognized with the designation of two Sustainability Lighthouses: the first in Asia and the first in China. A notable case study is our SanDisk semiconductor factory site in Shanghai, China, where we make computer storage devices. Between 2017 and 2021, we doubled our exabyte capacity, while also reducing our environmental footprint.
We achieved this through the optimization of a water recycling plant and real-time data predictions to correct abnormal energy consumption. We implemented use cases around in-house recycling facilities. The world benchmark for recycling is about 70 percent, but our site implemented IoT sensors within the system, alongside machine learning algorithms to predict water quality, allowing us to dynamically adjust the filtration rate. This innovation resulted in over 90 percent of the water being recycled, surpassing the benchmark. Knowing that water is a scarce resource and that this is one of the most important environmental objectives truly helps the planet. This initiative also generates significant wins because many sites can adopt the same technologies. Furthermore, we have committed to reducing water withdrawal by 20 percent by the year 2030. This illustrates how significant it is to drive sustainability within our organization.
Enno de Boer: I think with the Lighthouse Network, we have dispelled one myth: the myth that sustainability costs. This is not true with digitization, and it’s very simple to understand. What we found is that many of our Lighthouses use the same digital infrastructure of sensors and data for all their sustainability use cases. You have already seen how this impacts performance, productivity, and agility, but now, on top of that, you are adding sustainability use cases to reduce energy and water consumption. And guess what? It comes with very low additional incremental investment because the infrastructure is already in place. Now the return for those sustainability use cases is quite high, making them super attractive. That’s why we have seen that, in the very beginning, more than half of our Lighthouses achieved really good results in both productivity and sustainability. So, we figured out that everyone is doing both. We looked deeper into this and then started the category of Sustainability Lighthouses in 2020 because we saw some that would take it to the next level. I think it’s exciting because sustainability is productive.
Kiva Allgood: I think the conversation around sustainability and operational excellence is—are they friends or foes? They’re symbiotic. If you’re truly going after something specific, Jackie’s example is exactly the power of the Lighthouse Network when you think about embarking on a learning journey with the best in class. It’d be like getting a mini cooking class from every Michelin-starred chef out there. You get a chance to really share those best practices on how you can implement something and scale it across your entire operation. Ultimately, I think in the past, when we talked about wanting to be sustainable, it was seen as too costly or too complicated, but that’s not the case anymore. We can’t afford not to be sustainable.
Sustainability goes hand in hand with resilience. You can’t be resilient as an organization if you’re not protecting the resources you’re using. I think over time, that mindset has changed, but I don’t think it has changed quickly enough. Almost every use case where we’ve shown digital transformation has had a positive impact on ESG [environmental, social, and governance] and sustainability goals as well. Like I said, they’re symbiotic. They work well together; they don’t fight against each other anymore.
Enno de Boer: Kiva’s right. It’s people, planet, and performance. These can all come together in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and I think that’s exciting. It’s good for the people, good for the planet, and beneficial for the performance and productivity of our organizations.
Christian Johnson: One thing I thought was especially important is the idea of the Global Lighthouse Network as a network, as a community, and how organizations that are part of the network help each other. Kiva, could you give us a little bit more context on that?
Kiva Allgood: I want to bring it down to the ground a little bit and root it. This truly is a learning journey, and it’s an opportunity for operations leads. Again, you don’t have to be part of the forum, but you apply, and there’s a peer group of evaluators and an advisory board, and the bar gets raised every single year. So, it’s continual. I think Jackie articulated it well earlier when she said it’s one of the only global, objective, rigorous ways to validate and reward. All the sites are visited, so it’s not just on paper, creating a little bit of competition. A lot of my favorite stories are from within the same company. How quickly can each site scale the operational improvement and the technology because they want to win? They want to be the winner that year.
When you get there, they’re celebrating with shirts and prizes, and it’s a big deal. There aren’t a lot of those opportunities in our space. So, it’s significant when your site is awarded a Global Lighthouse. That means you’re the best of the best that year. You have demonstrated that you can execute well, drive sustainability, drive operational excellence, and adopt new technologies. It has a proven impact on improving the location. But then, what we do every month is go on that learning journey together, and we have Lighthouse explorers. We have plants in Malaysia or plants in India demonstrating what they’ve done so that people can see that firsthand. They can ask questions in a peer-to-peer network, and I think that’s super unique.
Often, you’ll go to a conference, and you’ll see a presentation. Rarely are you able to walk into a factory, do a tour, and ask the operators and the plant manager how they overcame this obstacle, how they thought about this, and how they made the business case work. That’s the community that we create. We also have a database of best practices and use cases that really focus on scale, saying, “This is how you can do it once and then scale.” So, there are a lot of different tools within the network that allow you to share best practices on a repeatable basis.
Enno de Boer: We had a lot of discussions about this at the very beginning, and some organizations said to me, “No, I will not share my secret sauce with the world.” Back then, I said, “I think you’re wrong here because this is a very dynamic space, and your secret sauce might be secret now, but it might be irrelevant tomorrow.” We have 700 use cases and 5,000 benchmarks. We have seen in the first couple of years that there was pilot purgatory. People needed one or two years to pilot one use case. Now they have 700 use cases. You can talk to the operators and figure out what their experience was, what worked, and what did not. Rather, focus on scaling, because scaling is really the tough thing, as well as innovating. Jackie, you’re right; there’s so much innovation. The use case that worked three years ago is now working very differently and has different technology enablement. This is such a fast-moving, dynamic field. By doing it together, you can go much faster.
Christian Johnson: That leads us to an important point here, which is if you are listening to this podcast and you’re potentially interested in what this network can do, what are some of the next steps? What’s the process? Enno, can you give us an update there?
Enno de Boer: We are always looking out for the best applications, and we have several application rounds here. For the next application, it will open in December 2024 and close by January 2025, but there will be more rounds. If you feel that you are on the journey, come to us, and we will guide you on whether you are ready to apply now or if you should do a couple more things before applying in the next round. This is a continuous process. Read the white papers, listen to all the available information that’s out there, learn from it, and then participate and hopefully jump on the journey to accelerate your progress.
Christian Johnson: Thank you, everyone. It has been a great discussion. It’s so exciting to hear about how the network will continue to grow.
