Practitioners Unplugged

Key Takeaways When a company has known about the skills gap long enough without acting, the problem has shifted from a talent pipeline issue to a leadership accountability issue. Change management is not a project phase with a defined start and finish. It is the continuous operating mode every manufacturer navigating digital transformation needs to internalize now. Most companies being pushed for...

Executive Key Points Why manufacturers cannot skip the three smart manufacturing imperatives on the path to AI readiness How graph relationships, not hierarchies, connect equipment failures to real business impact Why generative AI cannot compensate for semantic inconsistency in your manufacturing data How i3X eliminates API chaos across mixed-vendor environments with a free, open-source specifica...

Executive Key Points How one manufacturer solved interoperability for $4K instead of $100K Why traditional plant integration approaches create unnecessary cost What manufacturing leaders should evaluate before investing in connectivity A simpler path to IT/OT alignment and scalability Get future Practitioners Unplugged episodes Join manufacturing executives getting new conversations and key insigh...

For years, the automation industry talked about decoupling hardware and software. IT/OT convergence became a buzzword that everyone nodded at but few truly believed would arrive. Episode 17 of Practitioners Unplugged, recorded live at Schneider Electric’s Innovation Summit in Las Vegas, proves the skeptics wrong. Greg Boucaud, Chief Marketing Officer of UniversalAutomation.org, and Renato Si...

As 2025 drew to a close, Episode 16 of Practitioners Unplugged took a reflective look back at the conversations that shaped our understanding of digital transformation throughout the year. Cohosts Dante Vaccaro and Sree Hameed unpacked the common threads, surprising insights, and memorable moments from a year of conversations with practitioners driving real change. What started as a podcast focuse...

From Run-to-Failure to Predictive Operations: Transforming Water Infrastructure with Nick Valdez Most people take for granted that clean water flows when they turn on the faucet. Wastewater disappears when they flush. Episode 15 of Practitioners Unplugged pulls back the curtain on this critical infrastructure with Nick Valdez, Automation & Controls Business Development Manager at Vessco Water....

If you’ve invested in AI, machine learning, and digital twins only to see disappointing returns, Episode 14 of Practitioners Unplugged diagnoses the problem. Craig Henry, Global Account Director for Amazon at Murrelektronik and author of Super Connected: The Future of Industrial Nervous System , cuts through the AI hype with a sobering truth: your factory’s expanding “brain&#8221...

If you’ve wondered why some manufacturing organizations consistently outperform their peers while others struggle to scale operational improvements, Episode 13 of Practitioners Unplugged provides the blueprint. Manufacturing excellence principles, not technology purchases, form the foundation of sustainable success. Ed Koch, operations veteran with over 20 years across Unilever, SAB Miller,...

If you’ve been tracking the hype around AI in manufacturing, you’ve heard it all—pilot purgatory, proof-of-concepts that don’t scale, shiny tools that don’t move the P&L. Episode 12 of Practitioners Unplugged cuts through that fog with Jonathan Alexander, Global Manufacturing AI and Advanced Analytics Manager at Albemarle. His philosophy is refreshingly clear: start wit...

In this episode of Practitioners Unplugged , we dive into the future of secondary packaging automation with Jason Head , Controls Development Engineer at Fallas Automation . Broadcasting from the floor of the Automate Show in Detroit, hosts Dante and Sree sit down with Jason to uncover how Fallas is addressing shifting demands in speed, flexibility, and data-driven design. Fallas Automation builds...

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Manufacturing data is complex but crucial. In the podcast “Practitioners Unplugged,” Dante Vaccaro and Sree Hameed discuss the challenges and importance of manufacturing data in the digital transformation journey. They highlight how manufacturing data is often the last frontier for digital transformation due to its high rate of failure. The complexity of manufacturing processes, the in...