Conagra’s commitment to its shop floor workers starts with Microsoft Teams

Modernizing the food and the floor

Conagra combines a storied tradition of making great food with an entrepreneurial spirit. Boasting 42 manufacturing facilities and more than 18,000 employees, the company has remained a significant player in the Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) industry by skillfully blending culinary expertise with data-informed insights. A pivotal element of Conagra’s longevity is its vibrant and inclusive culture. Focusing on people, their growth opportunities, and an inclusive culture is the cornerstone of its enduring success.

Thousands of highly engaged frontline workers are at the heart of Conagra’s manufacturing facilities, performing tasks such as preparing sauces, making meals, and ensuring these items are ready for transportation. Plant operations are a collaborative effort that involves multiple teams, from material and logistics planning to daily manufacturing and maintenance. 

Shop floor employees were having to manage various communication methods to coordinate daily activities and report goals. Plus, along with the paper trail of requests, alerts, and other types of interoffice communications, Conagra had historically relied on a radio communication system. Employees, such as line leads, key personnel, and team leaders, would use two-way radios to deal with issues on the plant floor. This was often a time-consuming, multi-step process to solve a problem or even send a message. To truly connect and share data, they needed a robust, easy-to-use, and secure communication and collaboration platform. Conagra was also mindful of its frontline employees, who spoke up to 22 languages on the shop floor at some plants. 

Conagra strives to have the most energized and inclusive culture in the food industry, and it recognized the need to rejuvenate its workforce and its approach to operations. “Our next frontier is modernizing our processes, and there’s no better place to start than with the 15,000 people across our supply chain,” says Craig Weiss, Senior Vice President of Supply Chain at Conagra Brands.

Empowering frontline workers with Microsoft technology

Through a digital, mobile-first program called the Connected Shop Floor (CSF), Conagra’s aim was to ensure everyone—from frontline workers to supervisors and above—was empowered to communicate through technology that’s both familiar and intuitive as the smartphones and other connected devices they were already using. “We had really good systems before, but a lot of it was paper-based, and we were trying to get away from that,” explains George Barton, Plant Manager at Conagra Brands, Council Bluffs, Iowa.

Switching to real-time technology was all about getting things done faster on the shop floor, so staying in communication and keeping up the flow of data was the goal. Conagra wanted to prioritize clear, effective, and easy-to-use communications among its connected workforce. The company also planned to make sure everyone could communicate with everyone else, no matter what language they spoke. Microsoft Teams and Surface Hub devices were a logical choice for shop floor communications.

Teams offers Conagra unprecedented access to all sorts of collaboration channels, files, goals, and line data on tablet devices. Frontline workers can communicate issues and updates within their own teams or across the organization. “We’re always trying to find ways to better link our enterprise to our operations, and the great thing about Teams for our frontline workers is it gives them the ability to respond to data in the moment,” says Weiss. 

Teams and Surface Hub devices are being used together to create a collaborative area and information hub that combines whiteboarding, video conferencing, and projection. “We wanted something that was interactive and that had an immersive camera so we could remote folks in,” explains Weiss. “Surface Hubs offered us something that could be seen, something people could stand up, move around, and drag—just to get that interactive feeling.” Using Surface Hub devices, Conagra runs its Daily Direction Setting (DDS) meeting through Teams for daily shop floor standups and goal setting meetings. From 10 to 50 people can gather around the screen and interact with it, using Teams to view and discuss action items, follow-up tasks from the previous day’s activity, or pass-downs from previous shifts that are now tasks.  

In Teams, workers can access and manage their daily shift activities using features for task or project management. Whether it’s maintenance items requiring attention, safety checklists, or inspection activities, they can enter a task into Teams to assign and track it, make quick decisions about it, and communicate that decision effectively throughout the shop floor. “Connecting all our workers through Teams helps us with what might otherwise get lost in translation and get the right resources to the right place at the right time,” says Barton.

In addition, because multiple languages are spoken on shop floors, Conagra shop floor teams can share pictures and video with coworkers, maintenance, and managers in Teams. “A picture is worth a thousand words and helps ensure that key information is communicated accurately and instantly,” says Weiss. And with a strong focus on data privacy, the multi-user feature for Teams on tablets gives operators access without risking security issues. Adds Weiss, “Teams is easily deployable, and with the corporate security and cybersecurity backbone it has, it’s an easy rollout for us. We believe that Microsoft is committed to this area and will only continue to make the frontline worker products better.”

Teams seamlessly integrates with Power BI, Conagra’s analytics and visibility platform, and the company wants its teams to become power users, visualizing and analyzing data in meaningful ways, creating dynamic reports and dashboards while facilitating collaboration across different departments. This allows the company to solve problems with the teams closest to the issues while expanding people’s digital skills, thereby making them more marketable as they grow their careers. “When you put technology in the hands of our frontline workers, they embrace it and start to run with it,” says Jason Buus, Vice President of Information Technology at Conagra Brands. “People are using technology in ways we never dreamed of.” 

Transforming the shop floor with a commitment to employees

The giant steps Conagra is taking to modernize its workforce is helping the company attract the right people to the industry while also providing them with upskilling opportunities to propel their careers forward. Digital integration has fostered teamwork, employee retention, the ability to recruit, and overall productivity. This step forward in modernizing its workforce has had a big impact on Conagra’s daily operations and communications processes. With a supply chain workforce of 15,000 people encompassing diverse backgrounds, there’s immense untapped potential. “When you can democratize the information, put it in the hands of people who are closest to the work, it’s amazing what they’re able to do,” says Weiss.

People are at the heart of Conagra’s mission, and the company’s inclusive and dynamic culture is the foundation of its long-term success. By giving frontline workers access to Teams to make everything visible and accessible, Conagra has streamlined production and reduced waste and error, while staff members have more support when handling requests or problems. The company has experienced significant reductions in print usage, even up to 50 percent in some cases. And as a result of the Connected Shop Floor initiative’s use of Teams, Conagra has identified improvements in worker knowledge sharing, employee retention, and decision-making speed, all leading to a better outcome for the company, its employees, and its customers. 

Using the capabilities of Teams and Surface Hub devices has reinvented the way Conagra’s frontline workers engage, connect, and collaborate. These tools have ultimately made it easier for them to work together while making the food people love.

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