Behind the Ops

Increasingly, companies are choosing to bring manufacturing back to the United States for a variety of reasons, including increased labor costs in other countries and supply chain disruptions caused by events like the COVID-19 pandemic. The Chips Act, renewable energy, and geopolitical tensions with China are additional contributors to the reshoring trend. Companies need to carefully consider thei...

Have you come to subconsciously dread the sound of a Slack ping? In a world where you're constantly being bombarded with notifications coming from apps, emails, instant messages, and other channels, it's easy to feel like you're paying for less work with an influx of distractions. In this week's episode, Madi and Natan reflect on the role that a constant stream of alerts has on our cognitive load,...

Have you ever thought about how government espionage is not all that different than corporate sabotage? We have! (Consider tactics along the lines of "let blades go dull so people can't sharpen their saws"...) In this week's episode, Madi and Natan reflect on how the CIA espionage manual relates to the ways in which many big corporations create a bad work environment, discuss Natan's "obsession" w...

Vroom vroom. In this week's episode, Madi and special guest Kyle Oberholtzer, program manager of the Tulip Experience Center, discuss all things Formula 1. Madi quizzes Kyle (a Formula 1 fan, though a bit of a "Netflix newbie") on racing terminology (what in the world is a pole sitter?). And they reflect on the many ways in which the Formula 1 space is relevant to manufacturing. After all, the fac...

Are buzzwords a necessary evil, or do their costs outweigh the benefits? In this week’s episode, Madi and Natan dive deep into this question — exploring the difference between useful buzzwords and those that obscure the meaning of evolving concepts. They also discuss how Industry 4.0 and IoT have mutated into new terminologies, and play a fun game to identify popular buzzwords! LINK DUMP: Check ou...

Hallo from Hannover! In this episode — recorded on-site at Hannover Messe 2023 — Madi and Natan provide a breakdown of everything they saw and heard (and ate!) on the show floor. (P.S. Madi says German hotdogs are just “fine.”) Listen in to hear our co-hosts discuss the history of Hannover Messe, break down trends from this year’s event (in case you were wondering, the cloud has become like “khaki...

Sources, and data, and insights, oh my! We live in an information era, but how do you know that what you measure actually means anything if you don’t start with a baseline? In this episode, Madi and Natan discuss their love of benchmarks, highlight the challenges of knowledge sharing in the manufacturing industry, and reflect on the growing need to break out of the limitations of a paper-based wor...

Happy International Women's Month! Did you know that this holiday is only 36 years old? If it were a person, it would only be a millennial! While we’ve seen some progress for women in the manufacturing and tech sectors, we still have a long way to go. In this episode, Madi and Natan discuss historical challenges for women in these fields, dive into the latest career advancement trends and data, an...

We talk about AI a lot on this podcast. So, who is better to bring into the studio than Head of Artificial Intelligence at Tulip, Dr. Roey Mechrez? In this episode, Dr. Roey brings expert insight into how consumer-focused AI tools like ChatGPT and Dall-E 2 work, examples of industrial use cases of Computer Vision, and plays a game of "Can AI Fix It?" LINK DUMP: Follow Dr. Roey on LinkedIn Learn mo...

Happy New Year! In this episode, Russ and Madi reflect on the past year by presenting categories to each other and having the other choose and justify their favorite winner from a pre-selected list of nominees. Hear why people are the true unsung heroes of manufacturing in 2022, how retargeting algorithms once almost ruined Madi’s engagement proposal, and the predicted frontrunner for Category of...

How would Santa produce and deliver presents to all of the good children around the world in a modern manufacturing environment, sans magic? He would face all of the same problems you do – an elf shortage, increasing consumer demands, quality management. In this episode, Russ and Madi propose an elf-centric approach to digitizing Santa's Christmas operations. See ChatGPT's answer to the prompt "Ho...

Glitter. It’s everywhere. But since at least 2018 there’s been a semi-dark corner of the Internet turning over a revolving door of conspiracy theories about shortages of the sparkly stuff. Lately, Tik Tok has been awash with armchair detectives trying to find out who the top buyer is. Nevermind that Boston-based podcast “Endless Thread” have already done a full investigation based on a Reddit r/Un...

Things go wrong constantly in manufacturing. It’s a competitive environment and a lot of businesses have slim margins. Amazing manufacturing organizations are good at building relationships at scale, which is much easier when you have information close at hand and easily shared. Sometimes, you’re going to get rained on (metaphorically) so prepare the best you can and make your mind up about how yo...

Do your non-manufacturing friends think about where things come from? Or when? Or how much? In this episode, Madi and Russ discuss mainstreaming of manufacturing technology problems from supply chain management to skilled worker shortages. Manufacturing has accounted for less than 10% of all US jobs going back to the 2008 recession, which means limited reach for shop talk at the dinner table. But...

Fresh out of the judge’s panel reviewing the 2022 Tulip Groundbreaker Awards nomination submissions, Russ and Madi could not wait to discuss the who, how, and why of the program. This leads to a discussion of the evolution of problem-solving in the digital era of manufacturing, and how this year’s nominees embody dynamic engineering thinking and the spirit of citizen development. Learn more about...

Relationship building and maintenance is multi-faceted in business and in regular life. The hosts take a middle ground stance, but take it firmly. Old ways of selling heavy equipment are applied to a new crop of younger buyers, but hope springs eternal for virtual showrooms. Internet friends become once-a-year friends thanks to experiential selling, and an attempt is made to pry out the “versus” f...

Part 1: Pop Quiz! Madi and Russ answer difficult questions to prove their personal worth. Failure is an option. Part 2: Community Service From the Tulip forum, Russ presents recent top posts. The hosts discuss the relative merits of Dark Mode, and infinite looping steps in software. Preparations are made for opening an interdimensional portal. LINK DUMP The Tulip Glossary of Industry Terms , but m...

In this episode, we’re joined by Jean-Paul Moniz, Technical Services Coordinator at Cameco Fuel Manufacturing. JP talks about his 20+ year career in industrial automation, how nuclear fuel is made, and the rise of open source software and interoperability in manufacturing solutions. Links: How It’s Made - Uranium Part 1 How It’s Made - Uranium Part 2 Connect with JP Special Guest: Jean-Paul Moniz.

In this episode, we’re joined by Continuous Improvement Engineer Sofiya Baran from Stanley Black & Decker. Sofiya talks about how she fell in love with manufacturing despite never learning about it in her mechanical engineering classes, designing transportation carts and tabletops to improve operator safety and efficiency, and the unique challenges of manufacturing custom storage solutions. No...

In this episode, we’re joined by Sam Feller, Product Manager of the Edge team at Tulip. Sam talks about teaching an engineering course with popsicle sticks, designing the Amazon Dash Cart, and his current book recommendations. He’s an eclectic guy. Links: "Collegiate Level Popsicle Sticks" Continuous Discovery Habits - Teresa Torres Decisive - Chip Heath, Dan Heath Connect with Sam

In this episode, we’re joined by Samir Patel and Justin Cook from Sequence Inc., a Tulip partner. Samir and Justin talk about how they fell into the Life Sciences manufacturing solutions industry working with some of the top pharmaceutical companies in the world. They discuss the unique challenges that come with quality, compliance, and safety that have held back digital transformation in Life Sci...

In this episode, Gio introduces Kyle Oberholtzer, the host of the second season of Behind the Ops, premiering March 24, 2022. Kyle joined the hardware team at Tulip 2 years ago and has recently transitioned to managing the Digital Factory, the demonstration shop floor at Tulip’s HQ. From Lincoln Logs to edge devices, Kyle has always been in love with building things and can’t wait to hear about al...

In the episode, we're joined by Jackson Weise, from SWIFT Components, a manufacturer of sound installation for automotive applications. Jackson is a computer science student and has been learning hands-on at SWIFT Components. There are a wide array of use cases at SWIFT that Tulip is solving for, and Jackson is going boots on the ground building and implementing solutions.

In this episode, hear from Peter Hartnett, Manufacturing Engineer at Protolabs focusing on injection molding and the last-mile delivery of custom orders. Peter discusses how he extended Protolabs digital thread to the packing and shipping part of the production, the paper-based tracking they replaced, the tools they tried, navigating change, and the effective solutions that stuck. Peter talks abou...

In the episode, we're joined by Eddie Carrillo, Senior Manufacturing at Bellwether Coffee. Eddie's rich and diverse experience has enabled for a unique perspective on the state of manufacturing at large. Previously, at PFF, Eddie took a consumer robotics product to production using Tulip as the backbone of the operations. And currently, Eddie is at Bellwether Coffee starting to scale production of...