Manufacturers today are constantly exploring innovative solutions to address the ongoing challenges in industry, including labor shortages, increasing raw material costs, growing consumer demands for productivity, and profitability headwinds.
In recent months, manufacturers have had even more business uncertainty with new tariffs increasing costs and demand, and new immigration laws raising labor costs but creating fewer available workers. In fact, by 2030, it’s estimated that there will be 2.1 million unfilled manufacturing jobs.
Traditionally, manufacturers have relied on the same solutions to address ongoing challenges. But doing it “the way you’ve always done it” doesn’t often deliver the best outcomes and serves as a band-aid to a problem rather than a solution.
Instead, forward-thinking manufacturers are turning to automation as a long-term solution to labor gaps, rising costs, and productivity demands and finding real success. However, getting started with automation doesn’t always feel straightforward, which is why we’re breaking down how to avoid the automation “tarp of shame” and how to simplify factory implementation to get it right the first time.
How Manufacturers Have Traditionally Addressed Labor, Cost, and Efficiency Challenges
Manufacturers typically address gaps in labor and efficiency in a few ways: temp labor, lean manufacturing, product diversification, and traditional automation. However, there are a few cons to relying on these solutions:
- Temp Labor: Lowered efficiency, continual retraining, high turnover and long-term costs, and lack of employee morale.
- Lean Manufacturing: Vulnerable to supply chain disruptions, overemphasis on efficiency hurting innovation, employee burnout, and reduced flexibility.
- Product Diversification: Increased complexity and cost, dilution of brand identity, risk of lower profitability, and a longer time to see any return on investment (ROI).
- Traditional Automation: Expensive, time-consuming, inflexible, and requires internal engineering and robot operator expertise.
While these approaches have their place, the landscape is evolving. In 2025, new automation technologies are emerging that offer innovative alternatives to address these challenges more effectively.
Your Automation Options in 2025
Just like there are pros and cons to temp labor and lean manufacturing, there are positives and negatives to the various automation options available to manufacturers today. The three primary automation solutions available are DIY, Pay the “Pros,” and Full Service Automation.
The best automation approach depends on factors such as internal engineering capabilities, available capital, and long-term business growth objectives. For instance:
DIY is good for manufacturers…
- With spare in-house engineering capacity
- Looking for a “deal” (used equipment)
- With temporary projects
- With large in-house maintenance staff
- With moderate & flexible CapEx available
- A forgiving customer base with slower demands
Pay the “Pros” is good for manufacturers…
- Requiring highly customized solutions and unique projects
- With large CapEx budgets
- With in-house maintenance capabilities to keep running at an optimal capacity
- With strong in-house project managers who can control cost and deliverables
- Who knows they will need the same equipment or will run the same SKUs for 5+ years
Full Service Automation is good for manufacturers…
- Who has to succeed on the first try
- Who wants to “try” before they decide what they need in the long run
- With high customer demand for speed and efficiency
- Who wants a continuous service level commitment
- Who need automation fast
- Without large in-house engineering capabilities and maintenance staff
- Who have long project lists requiring their CapEx or smaller plant improvement budgets/want to stretch budgets
- Who predicts or expects a change in production needs over the next 5 years
In general, traditional automation requires multiple complex steps, including scoping, buying equipment, deploying the equipment, hiring internal expertise to maintain the equipment, and ensuring the equipment can remain flexible amid business growth. Combining these efforts can be a recipe for failure — which we like to describe as the “4 SLAMS of Automation.”
- Subpar Supplier: Over-promised, under-delivered
- Lackluster Design: Doesn’t function as expected
- Awkward Deployment: Not as efficient as human labor
- Mounting Maintenance: Constant breakdowns
Approximately 90% of automation projects fail due to technical challenges, often leading to what's known as the "tarp of shame." This occurs when an expensive automation system fails to meet expectations, resulting in the equipment being relegated to a corner, covered with a tarp, and becoming a topic no one wants to discuss — whether at family dinners in family-owned businesses or during key business meetings. Perhaps most regrettably, it also eliminates the appetite for future attempts at automation.
But automating production processes doesn’t have to be complicated and time-consuming.
Enter: Full Service Automation
There are many preliminary steps to deploying automation, but being strategic about what to automate first is the most important. It can be tempting to automate the most complex task on the production line, but you will find greater automation success by starting with more straightforward but ergonomically demanding tasks to deliver quick wins in efficiency, cost savings, and worker safety.
This means starting at your end of line, which requires the most manual labor, causing productivity challenges. At Formic, we advise starting with palletizing because it has immediate and measurable ROI, greater scalability, and quick deployment with low complexity.
To take this a step further and make automation even easier, Formic was founded to help remove traditional barriers to automation like time, human capital, and cost for U.S. manufacturers. We do this by offering month-to-month agreements with full operational support and $0 upfront.
To help manufacturers avoid the “tarp of shame,” our full service model includes 24/7 tech support, 100% preventative and corrective maintenance, contracted performance, unlimited equipment swapping, and team training.
Most manufacturers don’t have the time or extra resources to fail, and with Full Service Automation, manufacturers are never on their own. That’s why we have a 98% renewal rate, and 66% of our customers have already signed on for additional systems. By the end of 2025, we will deliver 500,000 robot usage hours for manufacturers that have solved labor and productivity challenges with automation.
Automation shouldn't just be about installing robots and leaving it at that; it’s about creating a long-term partnership that allows you to scale and evolve. Many manufacturers invest in automation only to face hidden hurdles like unscheduled downtime, underperforming systems, or difficulty integrating new technologies into their existing operations. This can lead to the “tarp of shame.”
We’re your Automation Managed Services Provider, but we’re also your partner. As Patrick Henson, Rumiano Cheese’s VP of Operations puts it, “Formic likes to partner with people; it’s not just a business transaction.”
But Where Do I Start?
One of the biggest misconceptions about automation is that it eliminates jobs. At Formic, we haven’t seen this be the case, as many manufacturers are experiencing labor shortages and rely on automation to fill in gaps in manual labor. Instead, we’ve seen jobs transform, with most employees who were doing the bending, lifting, and twisting becoming robot operators.
To uncover the best place to get started on your production line, do a labor audit to figure out where to move employees to more value-added tasks. Here are some questions to consider:
- Which tasks require the most manual labor?
- Where are we experiencing labor shortages?
- Which jobs have the highest turnover rates?
- How much time is lost due to breaks, fatigue, or injuries?
- Are workers spending time on low-value or repetitive tasks?
- How much overtime are we paying for labor shortages?
- Are employees struggling to meet production targets?
- Which roles have the highest training costs?
- Are there safety or ergonomic issues impacting workers?
By addressing these key questions, you can identify the areas where automation will have the most impact. The goal isn’t to replace your workforce, but to enhance their roles and increase overall efficiency. With the right strategy and support, automation can help alleviate labor shortages, reduce costs, and improve productivity — allowing your employees to focus on higher-value tasks while improving their working conditions. Start small, think strategically, and watch how automation transforms your production line.
You can also get a free automation evaluation with Formic here. Avoiding the tarp of shame is possible with the right support.