August 29, 2025
A comprehensive approach to assessment, training, and automating can help reduce the number and impact of human errors
Mistakes happen. In multifunction box plants—where a variety of machinery and a wide range of employee experience likely coexist—it is a testament to the industry’s commitment to ongoing training, standard operating procedures (SOPs), and a safety culture that they do not occur more frequently. Still, people are human. Mistakes are never completely off the table.
The effects of those mistakes can be significant. A 2017 manufacturing survey by Vanson Bourne found that 19% of all unplanned downtime can be attributed to human error, resulting in failure to deliver services to customers, lost production time, and an overall drop in productivity. But downtime is one possible outcome. Mistakes can also result in product inconsistency, material loss or damage, and even injury.
Pinpoint the Problem Areas
The first step to reducing human error is identifying when and where mistakes are most likely to occur.
David Wiens, founder and CEO of BPS AI Software, believes the most vulnerable areas for human error are any processes involving hand reporting. “When you create maintenance
or production data in a handwritten format and then give that to somebody else to key in to your system, there are multiple opportunities for mistakes
and misinterpretation,” he says. “For every hand that touches the data, you have another opportunity to have it
be incorrect.”
Wiens says another notable area of vulnerability is the so-called skills gap—that is, the gap in experience and knowledge that can occur when skilled employees leave the workforce and are replaced by still-inexperienced, still-in-training workers. New employees are likely to make mistakes their more experienced colleagues would avoid.
This situation affects vendors, as well, says Diane Abruzzini, chief operating officer and co-founder of Rigorous Technology, a robotics and manufacturing automation provider. “A lot of vendors’ technicians, who have been so pivotal in bringing their products to market and making them run well for the past few decades, are retiring. Our customers are telling us all the time that machines that were once under great service contracts are now waiting weeks to have someone come take a look or to have a part replaced.”
Malfunctioning or offline equipment—and the short-term workarounds needed to keep production rolling—can lead to unfamiliar processes and greater chances for error.
Other vulnerable areas may not be so obvious, requiring a comprehensive assessment. For example, even a seemingly sound approach to predictive and preventive maintenance is worth evaluating for potential error-causing problems. Scott Ellis, Ed.D., founder of manufacturing consultancy Working Well and author of MacGyvering Simplified: Problem Solving for Teams, points out that preventive maintenance often is scheduled for an allocated period of time. “But let’s say you are working on a flexo folder-gluer,” he says, “and you get through the print sections, move on to the slotting section, and then run into a problem that’s going to cause a breakdown. So, you stop doing the PM and fix that issue. And then, you run out of time for the job.”
It’s great that an issue was found and fixed. But, Ellis says, “often there’s no tracking that indicates you only got as far as the slotting section during the last round of service. It would make sense for the next round of PM to start there so you get the rest of the machine done. But it’s not unusual for me to see machines where, due to the lack of tracking, the back end of the machine has not been touched in a year because they keep finding little things along the way that they stop and fix, which eats up all of their allotted time.”
Minimize Mistakes
When weighing your options for reducing human errors, look for the most efficient, value-rich steps that target your most vulnerable processes. For example, Wiens says, “if companies aren’t already digitizing their quality and production reporting and their maintenance logging, that would be a really good place to start.”
If production reporting and maintenance logging are currently being done by hand, via a PDF or an Excel spreadsheet for example, Wiens believes, it is a fairly simple process to digitize those documents so information can be input electronically. You can then limit the types of information that can be added to those forms, which helps to eliminate careless mistakes. “It’s not going to mean you suddenly have zero errors,” he says, “but it’s a way to take small steps in that direction that doesn’t involve bringing in new software that everybody has to train on.”
For boxmakers who are already digitized, the next step might be to connect all of your data together on the back end. The goal, Wiens says, is to have “what’s known as ‘a single source of truth’ for your maintenance manuals, your documentation, your SOPs, all those things. This kind of approach closes a lot of gaps where human errors can creep in.”
Bridging the skills gap seems straightforward: Train new equipment operators and maintenance people to the level of the experienced employees they are replacing. But experienced employees do not work solely from manuals and SOPs. They have specialized knowledge gained from years on the floor and, potentially, years of working with and servicing specific pieces of equipment, which makes a significant difference in the quality of their work. Because of that, “the more you can document, the better,” Ellis says.
Documenting how a job is done also is key in situations in which one operator has consistently fewer errors than others on the same equipment. Ellis suggests bringing everyone together to look at the SOP for that equipment or process. “Ask them, ‘Is that how you actually do it?’ Have them discuss it and compare notes so everyone is on the same page.
“Another option is to record a video of everyone performing a process, and then review that as a team like game footage,” Ellis continues. “Say, ‘You do it this way, but you do it this way. Why is that? What’s the best way?’ Or, ‘What’s your reasoning behind that?’ The goal is to come up with an ‘our way’ that gets codified in the SOP. This can build engagement, which can reduce errors, because everyone not only knows the correct steps, but they also know the why behind them.”
Automate for Error Reduction
When it comes to reducing human errors from performing the most repeatable or most ergonomically demanding tasks, robots offer a solution, Abruzzini says. “Robots love to do the same thing over and over and over again. They tend to drive really fast ROI [return on investment] when handling processes and applications that are constantly being repeated.” In addition, she says, “they allow you to move operators from positions where they are moving material from one point to another or repeatedly lifting heavy loads so that they can go to areas requiring more critical thinking and problem-solving.”
Some smaller boxmakers may not think they’re big enough for this level of automation or robotics to make sense for them. But Abruzzini notes that if you’re consistently involved in repetitive tasks or if you’re relying on a limited range of equipment to run a wide variety of products, robotics can help.
“My advice is to start small and focus on something that has a very clear, measurable ROI, specifically with a turnkey system,” she says. “We recommend people start with an area that is a high touch point, something that’s done repeatedly throughout the number of shifts that you run. We often start with palletizing the end of folder-gluers—when boxes are packed into other boxes, and those boxes are then put onto pallets in specific pallet patterns all day long.”
Abruzzini acknowledges that in the beginning, employees may assume more automation is going to mean fewer jobs. “But by installing that first robot and getting people comfortable using it, operators start to realize that they’re really just a tool—and one that typically takes away a task they didn’t want to do anyway.” For example, she says, “when we first started installing the Box Hopper, which is the pre-feeding robot, a lot of folks were skeptical. But then they saw the system lifting five times what any person would lift. [Workers] are no longer having to lift 10,000 pounds every hour in this one station.”
The use of robotics automation “also inspires younger generations to come be a part of the company,” Abruzzini adds, “because they’re excited about the software and working with novel technology.”
Artificial intelligence (AI) is another novel technology continuing to develop into a powerful error-reduction tool for boxmakers.
For instance, Wiens says, “depending on how deep your data-AI integration is, maintenance people could discuss an issue with an AI assistant regarding a machine they’re troubleshooting—talk back and forth—and then have the information from those interactions stored in a knowledge base, which could help guide and inform future maintenance.”
As an example of just how helpful AI can be—particularly in situations where maintenance staff may be less experienced or are approaching an unfamiliar piece of equipment—Wiens offers a personal anecdote.
“I bought an old 1960s excavator for my property. I don’t know anything about how to maintain it. I don’t have a manual, and I couldn’t find anything online. So, I used my AI assistant, which can see through my phone camera and talk with me in real time. I pointed my camera at different parts of the engine and asked what each one was. It explained how things worked and helped me to troubleshoot what I needed to do.
“Of course,” Wiens continues, “if you propose this to the guy in your maintenance department who knows everything about all of the pieces of equipment, he’s going to say he doesn’t need a damn machine to tell him anything, right? But it gives the opportunity for the people who aren’t that guy to learn how to do it right, to take all of this knowledge and continue to improve upon it. That should potentially lead to greater efficiency, improved maintenance, and ultimately, fewer errors along the way.”
Turning Mistakes Into Opportunities
Despite everyone’s best efforts, mistakes will happen. But each incident gives managers and their teams an opportunity to learn from what they did wrong and improve their processes along the way.
“When human errors occur, get together as a team and figure out what went wrong so you can at least avoid that mistake in the future,” Ellis advises. “As a manager, don’t go into a meeting like this convinced that you know what happened or with a solution already in your back pocket. Engage with your team, and ask them what may have happened. Draw them out.
“This is the place to put our ranks aside, discuss the issues, and see if we can learn some lessons.”
Robert Bittner is a Michigan-based freelance journalist and frequent BoxScore contributor.
