Too many Australian manufacturing companies are locked in ''pilot purgatory'' where they hesitate to embrace full-scale overhauls of their operations with artificial intelligence, robotics and agile thinking after dabbling with test projects inside their firms.

Management consultancy McKinsey & Co has concluded that Australian manufacturing and resources companies could lift profits by a combined $20 billion-plus and spark a much-needed lift in productivity by aggressively pursuing a large-scale revamp using digital technologies.