The technology is there. It’s affordable, well-tested, and accessible. It can make everyone’s lives easier—end-users work more efficiently, project managers get their wins, plant managers make better decisions, and executives see financial results.
The business needs are there. Walk onto any plant floor and ask one simple question: “What would help production?” You get clear and practical answers.
Yet when you hire industrial experts for help, you get PowerPoint presentations and 100+ pages of documents talking at you in fancy AI-generated buzzwords about Industry 5.0, not to you with actionable steps in clear language.
We’ve seen this too often, and we don’t agree with this approach. We’d like to express a very different point of view.
The story that triggered this article
You’re a project manager and you’re tasked with getting the system up and running to open a new factory. Your boss wants specifics for vendor tenders—exact protocols, system connections, supplier specs. The pressure is on, and the expectations are clear.
You hire a prestigious engineering consulting firm. Impressive credentials, polished presentations, grand promises. They deliver several reports, amounting to more than 120 pages, filled with sophisticated language like:
“The Supplier shall facilitate continuous improvement and real-time decision support by utilizing standard processes and modules that will streamline operations and reduce errors.”
Great… but what does this actually mean in practice? How do you explain it to Finance, vendors, or end users?
After 120+ pages and thousands of euros, the value is close to zero. You still don’t know what steps to take. Your boss is still demanding answers. Vendors are still waiting for specifications. You’re back to square one, looking for another consultant.
This project manager bought help and got snake oil
Snake oil is any product sold with exaggerated or false claims. Original snake oil was legitimate Chinese medicine that actually worked. American entrepreneurs created fake versions using local snakes or no snakes at all, selling worthless imitations. Getting useless documents from experts is a lot like that.
Here’s a simpler example.
You want to install a kitchen sink yourself and hire a plumber to guide you.
They email you a 30-page document:
“We’ll implement a comprehensive Kitchen 4.0 water delivery ecosystem using our proprietary methodology. Our agile approach ensures seamless integration between supply channels and collection receptacles with industry-leading threaded interface protocols…”
What you actually needed:
“Shut off the water valve. Connect hot water (red) to left valve, cold (blue) to right using 1/2″ wrench. Hand-tighten, then 1/4 turn more. Connect P-trap with rubber washers. Turn water back on, check for leaks. Takes 30 minutes.”
Why does this happen?
Consultants make two critical mistakes:
They don’t adapt their communication. Corporate speak becomes their “one-size-fits-all” language. Adapting communication takes effort, but isn’t that part of consulting?
They use fancy language to appear smart. We’ve become mesmerised by people who use big words, even when they say nothing useful. People exploit this to seem intelligent.
Why should we care about it?
This isn’t just a communication preference or a random topic we decided to be preachy on to feed our egos. This has real consequences.
Projects get cancelled because integrators create million-euro plans with “all the bells and whistles,” scaring off factory stakeholders. Meanwhile, the practical business needs that started the whole process remain unaddressed. Worse yet, the people who actually use these tools—plant floor workers and managers—never get involved in those talks in the first place (which tells you those fancy presentations and expensive solutions aren’t rooted in what they actually need anyway). But they’re the ones who feel the impact of unresolved problems.
And that’s why we want to provide another perspective – because the technology is there, the business needs are there, and the possibility for positive change is there. It’s genuinely a pity that projects fail or get postponed because of project managers get delivered expensive mumbo-jumbo instead of practical help.
The bottom line
Having a vision is good. Smart factories where everything is connected, automated, and digitalised sound great. But reaching that vision requires small, practical steps—real specs, real code, real financial decisions, and most importantly, real people.
There’s too much big talk and not enough down-to-earth talk.
If you’re a consultant: Real people need real help in language they understand. Provide clear, precise, simple instructions.
If you’re a project manager: Don’t fall into this trap. Demand practical guidance that you can actually use.
If we truly want to implement digital solutions for the benefit of people supposed to use these tools, then we need to communicate in a way understandable to them.
