P&G's Dark Shift Factories Gaining Traction

Procter & Gamble is scaling its ability to run fully automated factory shifts that remove human supervision. 

The company shared details last year about its first pilot at a Gillette factory in Berlin that ran without a technician on the floor during the less-desirable overnight shift.  

This unattended four-hour span, known as a dark shift, is run entirely through automation and robotics. This includes the movement of materials across the floor, from ingredients to finished product, shared Jon Moeller, P&G president and CEO, at an investors' conference last week.    

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Running an unattended shift delivers between 15% and 60% of productivity improvement, according to CFO Andre Schulten, and the CPG has since expanded the technology to nine other pilots. 

Moeller said employee morale associated with the move is "fantastic." 

"We have 88% favorable ratings in our employee surveys from that [Berlin] facility, which are among the highest in the company," he noted. "People are thrilled that they get to spend the evenings with their family instead of working that third shift."