In manufacturing, trust is the backbone of every successful operation. When you give your team a job, you trust they’ll complete it to standard. Supervisors can provide oversight, but at the end of the day, they’re human too. On the shop floor, trust must extend beyond people: it has to include your data, your processes, and the systems that keep everything running.
For small and midsize manufacturers especially, that level of trust can mean the difference between hitting customer deadlines and losing contracts.
trust in people (and its limits)
The relationships you build with your team and management depend on trust. Strong, reciprocal trust leads to better communication, accountability, and results. Each of you has to work at it and contribute. But as with new team members, trust often has to be earned. Until people prove themselves, you’re left wondering if they’re telling you reality, or just what they think you want to hear.
History shows that public trust erodes over time. The National Election Study from the Pew Research Center, which has measured U.S. public trust since 1958, is one of the longest-standing public trust measures. The study asks voters if they believe the US government will “do what is right just about always / most of the time.” It started high with a 77% trust number under Eisenhower. That number plummeted to a low of 26% in the Johnson through Carter years, and rose back to 50% under George H. W. Bush, hovering in the high teens to low 20s since George W. Bush (the son).
It’s impossible to take these data points out of context and expect to be able to point to a reason. Information - real or imagined – travels faster these days than ever and it’s so much easier to sway public opinion (both positively and negatively) with just a few big-font words on a screen. Add some flashy graphics, a video or even an AI-generated image and you might be able to impact that number directly.
While politics and manufacturing are worlds apart, the pattern is familiar: without the right culture, trust weakens. And when trust breaks down, whether in government or on the shop floor, decision-making suffers.
how trust breaks down in manufacturing operations
On the shop floor, things aren’t always so nefarious. An operator might give you the information they think you need without realizing how it affects production. Some teams are like this, they share information openly and willingly provide data – good or bad – without reserve. That’s a great first step on building a team and a culture. But let's consider this scenario:
Your team uses a caliper that’s due for calibration. The tool is returned to the industrial vending machine, but replacements aren’t available, so the operator keeps using it. Maybe they record the tool’s serial number, maybe not. This situation might even fall within your acceptable workflow, but without a verified digital system that does shop floor tracking for you, how would you know that your team went beyond the standard?
These gaps aren’t about dishonesty. They’re about the limits of manual tracking, spreadsheets, and human oversight. Without the right systems, even good teams create blind spots.
paperless production: data you can trust
We’re talking about trust – in people and in data. These two elements are forever entwined on the shop floor and shop floor productivity tools are not just helpful to keeping them straight. They are a requirement today in modern production.
That’s where paperless manufacturing systems come in. Trust in people must be matched with trust in your data. Modern manufacturing execution systems (MES) give you both.
A digital MES doesn’t just collect and report data it:
With Quantum MES, small and midsize manufacturers gain more than visibility, they gain confidence. Instead of second-guessing reports, you know your shop floor data is accurate, complete, and current.
competing in today’s market
North American manufacturers face global competition and constant pressure to deliver on time, on budget, and at the right price point (we talk about this more in our manufacturing trend report). People are moving faster, materials are often running late and require you to keep up, and demands on jobs are increasing. Tariffs may shift the equation, but price and delivery still matter most. Without a digital manufacturing solution, your shop floor runs on assumptions–and assumptions don’t win contracts.
At CIMx, we help small and mid-size manufacturers replace whiteboards, spreadsheets, and paper travelers with a single source of truth for production operations. That’s how you build a culture of trust: where both people and data support the decisions keeping your business moving forward. If you’ve not sure if tools like this could help you or worry about how expensive they may be to implement and keep, reach out and ask us how we can help
Takeaway: Trust your people. But verify with your data. And the only way to truly trust your shop floor data is with a digital MES.