Manufacturing Happy Hour

What if your AI strategy doesn't need more agents, just a better plan? This week Chris sits down with Joseph June, who leads AI strategy at PTC to talk about what companies are getting wrong with AI - going too broad too fast. Joseph goes into why picking one problem and really solving it is the way to go when onboarding AI. He shares a great example of what a strong AI use case looks like on the...

Andres Naranjo sailed a race around the world, wrote Japan's digital agenda, and spent his sabbatical teaching himself AI from scratch. This week Chris sits down with Andres, CEO of Software Toolbox, to hear some incredible life stories and dig into what bringing AI into the industrial world looks like right now. Andres has lived a lot of lives as a consultant, entrepreneur, ocean racer and AI bui...

Your frontline team can only perform as well as the processes they're handed. So why are so many leaders still blaming the wrong people instead of listening to the ones closest to the problem? In this weeks’ episode Chris sits down with Jason Woodard, a 35-year manufacturing veteran, CEO of Geislinger Corporation, and author of Manufacturing Leadership That Works. Jason gets pretty candid about wh...

Growing your own machinists and orchestrating robots across four continents, is this what the future of manufacturing looks like? This live episode from Hapa's Brewing in the Bay Area features two panels of people who have built careers at the intersection of mechatronics, automation, and industrial innovation. First up, Vinod, Kevin, and Adam get into what it takes to build a skilled workforce fr...

What if the biggest efficiency problem in your factory isn't your machines, it's the dead time you waste before you even get to one. Workers queuing at ADP and ERP terminals every morning. A wing rib scrapped at the cost of $18,000 because the wrong work instruction was on screen. A program gone forever when the machinist who maintained it quietly for a decade retired to Poland. David witnessed al...

What happens when manufacturers stop competing for talent and start working together to develop it? In this special LIVE episode of Manufacturing Happy Hour, Chris travels to Wausau, Wisconsin for a collaboration with the Central Wisconsin Manufacturing Alliance (CWIMA) to explore how manufacturers across the region are working together to strengthen workforce development, accelerate innovation, a...

Content becomes forgettable when the key message isn't wrapped in storytelling. People don’t retain information anywhere near as well as they remember stories they hear, and this is where manufacturing is missing a trick. Manufacturers are battling false perceptions that the industry is dirty, dingy, not innovative and not creative. But what’s really happening is a failure to communicate the good...

20 years ago , automation was a pipe dream for industrial workers, 10 years ago it existed in research and development labs. Now it's fully operational in warehouses, production facilities and even mines. The companies driving robotics forwards are going one step further than developing smarter AI. They’re figuring out how to apply that advanced engineering to ‘gritty’ manufacturing – and there ar...

For women working in skilled trades, running into someone who knows what the work feels like doesn't happen every day, Sisterhood of Trades was founded to build that connection. Through platforms like Discord, LinkedIn and TikTok, the community is creating a space where women in the industry can connect with peers, share opportunities, find mentorship and grow their careers. Recorded live from The...

Full automation and AI on the factory floor are great, but the line still doesn't run without people who can feel a part click into place wrong or hear a tool burn. That space between what technology can repeat and what only an operator can sense is the art of precision manufacturing. Recorded live from The Manufacturing Exchange at ARTISANworks in Rochester, NY for the Rochester stop on the Rust...

American manufacturing’s next chapter is being written one region at a time, and Northeast Ohio is one of the places setting the standard. In a region like theirs, the institutions and programs are moving in sync, and that builds into something bigger than any plant could pull off alone. That’s why we’re hitting the road on the Rust Belt Renaissance tour to find more places where modern technology...

General-purpose AI can answer almost anything, but that flexibility becomes a liability on the factory floor. In this bonus episode, Chris sits down with Angelo Stracquatanio, CEO of Apprentice, a purpose-built AI company for manufacturers and the creator of A1: The AI Agent for Manufacturing Teams. Angelo has spent 12 years building software for the people on the shop floor, starting in the pharm...

For years, reshoring was a fringe idea. Now, it’s one of the most talked-about topics in manufacturing. Even though the conversation is now in vogue, there’s still a challenge. Many companies are still making the same mistake when deciding where to manufacture. They’re looking at price, not total cost of ownership (TCO). In this episode, Chris sits down with Harry Moser – Founder of the Reshoring...

How do you know when your current setup has stopped working, and what to do with it when it does? In this bonus episode of Manufacturing Happy Hour, Chris sits down with Shane Dubbelman, Head of Partnerships at MRPeasy, and Sara Duff, Managing Director at Smart Manufacture, to talk about what happens at that point, when the lack of visibility into inventory, costs, and operations starts to hold a...

Kwadwo Som-Pimpong started making furniture in 2015 because he bought a house with no furniture and decided to build his own. A decade later, he runs Crafted Glory, a small-batch luxury furniture brand blending West African artistry with Scandinavian design, while working 10-hour shifts at Eaton as a fabrication supervisor. In this episode, Chris sits down with Kwadwo to trace the journey from tho...

Running out of warehouse space doesn’t always mean you need more of it. For Sumitomo Drive Technologies, it meant rethinking the whole operation from the ground up. In this episode of Manufacturing Happy Hour, Chris sits down remotely with Tony Barlett and Shawn Lambert from Sumitomo Drive Technologies for an inside look at a live warehouse automation project underway at their Chesapeake, Virginia...

AI-powered predictive maintenance has been on the radar for years, but for most facilities, it still hasn’t fully landed. Chris sits down remotely with Colin Morris, Senior Director of Solution Consulting at MaintainX, the AI-powered maintenance and asset management platform built for the industrial frontline. Colin has spent eight years working in this space, long enough to have watched maintenan...

Most regions have pockets of manufacturing strength. Very few have a manufacturing ecosystem. Matt Bogoshian has spent 15 years trying to change that. In this episode of Manufacturing Happy Hour, host Chris Luecke sits down remotely with Matt Bogoshian, Executive Director of the American Manufacturing Communities Collaborative (AMCC) – the nation’s only designated National Manufacturing Community...

What happens when a multimedia entrepreneur and a concert venue owner sit down for a live podcast? A good conversation – with a couple beers – about creativity, grit, and what it really takes to build something that lasts. In the first live episode of the year, recorded at The Argo in Milwaukee as part of Manufacturing Happy Hour’s 10-year anniversary, host Chris Luecke sits down with two longtime...

Most of the time, applications from candidates with a felony record end up in the garbage can. The problem is, by overlooking people from what are seen as ‘problematic’ talent pools, you could be denying yourself access to untapped talent. Second-chance hiring means giving people the chance to showcase their talent, hone their skills, and start again. When you do that, great things can happen for...

AI is reshaping what it means to be a modern manufacturing professional. When a 30-year veteran retires, decades of expertise used to leave as well. How they ran a machine, which feeds and speeds worked, and all the practical knowledge that separated good from great. Now, Mastercam’s AI co-pilots can capture that information and make it instantly accessible. The learning curve that used to take ye...

Fear is expensive. In 2025, manufacturers delayed billions in capital projects because anxiety, not data, drove business decisions. But 2026 is different. Tax incentives expire mid-year, borrowing costs are down, and the hard data shows CapEx accelerating at 3-4%. The companies acting on facts while others remain frozen are the ones positioned to gain market share, capture expiring tax benefits, a...

There’s a commonly held belief in manufacturing: big ideas need big money, fast growth, and outside control to survive. But that playbook doesn’t work for every business or every industry. Andrew Johnson, co-founder of HeavyTech and CEO of ShelfAware, joins the show from Everywhere Beer Co. in Anaheim, California, to talk through how he and his partners built HeavyTech, a hybrid and electric big m...

What do smartphones, batteries, defense systems, and solar panels all have in common? They all depend on critical minerals like lithium, graphite, gallium, and polysilicon. Access to these resources affects how people, businesses, and governments communicate, generate power, and operate. In this episode, Chris sits down with Representative Haley Stevens from Michigan’s 11th district to discuss her...

Loud, dusty and far removed from innovation. We often think of mining as separate from modern manufacturing, but our visit to Imerys West Hub in this episode challenges that idea. The conversation was recorded on site at the largest diatomaceous earth mine in the world, in Lompoc, California. During the recording, a sonic boom from a nearby SpaceX launch cuts across the background, a reminder of h...