The Manufacturing Executive

When people talk about you years down the road, what will they say? "Oh yeah, he (or she) was a good manager or employee?" Or will there be something more? In this conversation, manufacturing leader and author, Mosongo Moukwa, talks about how to leave a meaningful and lasting mark on your organization. Or in his words, how become "a leader of significance."

From skills to work ethic to understanding chain of command, veterans bring so much potential to the manufacturing workforce. In this episode, Lt Col Kathy Lowrey Gallowitz will talk about how manufacturing leaders can go from unaware how to tap into the veteran community to being veteran-friendly to being veteran-READY.

Automation can be intimidating. What if the sizable CapEx investment we make doesn't generate the return we expected? What if our people struggle with operating the robots? And how will they deal with this kind of operational change in general? All fair questions and real concerns for manufacturing leaders today. In this episode, Saman Farid, CEO of automation provider Formic, will talk about how...

In this conversation, Gorilla 76 Content Director James Boeckmann and Gorilla 76 Senior Writer Rose Hansen go deep on content marketing for manufacturers. Collectively, these two journalists have interviewed hundreds of subject matter experts in the manufacturing sector – from owners to engineers to technical experts on the shop floor. Both have extracted vast amounts of knowledge from the brains...

When ChatGPT took the world by storm in 2022, terminology like "generative AI" became a regular part of our vocabulary overnight. Just a little more than a year later, it's hard to open your favorite news source without seeing headlines about generative AI, machine learning, deep learning and so on. But what does all of this terminology really mean? And for the manufacturing leaders listening righ...

It's hard enough to get a business of the ground and sustain it across one generation. But it's another to grow and evolve a business across three generations. Market needs change. Technology changes. The people inside of your organization (and your customers's organizations) change. There's so much to balance between staying true to what got you where you are today and being willing to evolve and...

In this episode, CEO of Encube, Hugo Nordell, will tell you that it's a labor of love to go from design intent to what the actual manufactured outcome will be, without breaking the bank. And one of the things standing in the way today is the decades-old technology that much of the design engineering community is still running on. As he'll tell you, especially in light of the labor crisis, a rapidl...

I've consulted well over 200 B2B manufacturing organizations throughout my career on marketing strategy. And without question, one of the biggest problems I've observed time and time again is a lack of alignment between sales and marketing. In today's conversation, Founder of Brjr.io John Joyce will talk about why these silos emerge, what dangers and missed opportunities they create, and the role...

In a post-COVID world, a few forces have been converging to set the stage for what Elias Stahl envisions as an on-demand supply chain, rooted in America's urban core. In this conversation, Elias, CEO & Co-Founder of HILOS, will talk about: - A new wave of advanced additive manufacturing technology - The struggling urban centers of America's big cites - The desire to create more control over the su...

More often than not, great leaders don't have all the answers. And in fact, a big part of what makes them great is their willingness to embrace that simple fact. Tom Brown is a manufacturing leader who was never the resident expert in his organization. But owning that is exactly what helped him drive the company's success. In this conversation, he'll tell you how he did it, though the lens of what...

There's nothing worst than making a big investment in technology, just to learn that you're not sufficiently equipped to deploy it. From the many conversations I've had with leaders in the robotics space, this is one of the fears that seems to hold back manufacturers from getting started with automation. What if the robot crashes? What if the system gets stuck? Once my integrator walks out the doo...

It's no secret that the Boomer generation is pouring out of the manufacturing workforce. And as they go, we're not only losing their hands, but also the years of knowledge tied up in their brains. Pair that with an increasingly transient younger generation of workers and what you have is an institutional knowledge problem. In this episode, Yushiro Kato, Founder & CEO of CADDi, talks about the role...

The past decade or so in the manufacturing sector has brought lots of hype about robotics along with it. But sometimes the flexible systems that many small and medium-sized business leaders were promised have been too complex to effectively deliver on the jobs to be done on the plant floor. Colin Riggs and Diane Abruzzini Riggs, Co-Founders of Rigorous, have set out to change that. They're passion...

Lots of business like to talk about things like "work culture" and "core values". But for many of those businesses, these are just aspirational concepts. My guest today, Doug Eisenhart, is the President of a manufacturing organization that truly lives and breathes its core values, and has built a work culture second to none. Doug will talk about how creating this kind of strong organization health...

To quote Dave Chrysler, Founder and Principal Consultant at The Crysler Club, "In the fast-paced world of operations, leaders are often looking for the silver bullet that can solve all their challenges." He'll tell you that although there may not be a one-size-fits-all solution, there are some fundamental tools that any manufacturing leader should consider putting in his or her tool belt. From SOP...

Large amounts of data are only helpful if you can make it all actionable. In today's conversation, Founder and CEO at IndustrialML, Arjun Chandar, will tell you that as IIoT technology continues to advance, so much of the data being pulled off manufacturing floors is being holed up in the back offices of factories. Arjun will share his perspective about how to harness this data and put to use in w...

Customer research. Customer interviews. Voice of customer. Whatever you choose to call it, this is something that many companies THINK they're doing. But in reality, most are just trying to create a setting for hearing what they want to hear from their customers, for collecting testimonials and ultimately, for selling them more stuff. In this episode, I talk with author and President of Loomis Mar...

Imagine not having a home owner's insurance policy when you live in tornado alley. This is the analogy today's guest makes to a manufacturer without a strategic inventory plan. Harrison Wells, VP of Professional Services at LeanDNA, will tell you that in today's "Disruption Economy", supply chain management and specifically, inventory optimization, are more important than ever before. And in this...

More than half of all revenue from goods produced in the US come from factories with 500 people or less. But so many small factories operate without a digital backbone to manage all of their data. In this conversation, Co-Founder and CEO of Pico MES, Ryan Kuhlenbeck, talks about the impact of creating a digital through line of data – from suppliers and manufacturers along the supply chain, all the...

Over the past few decades, we've seen two of the five human senses digitized: With sound, we've witnessed music go from analog to digital, and technologies like Siri and Alexa infiltrate our personal and professional lives. With vision, we've watched facial recognition software emerge on our phones, video surveillance and super advanced vision inspection systems on manufacturing production lines....

Change. How. American. Manufacturing's. Perceived. In. Our. Nation. Put the first letters of those eight words together and you have the word "CHAMPION". Terry Iverson is the founder of the nonprofit organization CHAMPION Now. And he's on a mission to change the image of manufacturing from the stereotypical “dark and dirty” industry to one filled with advanced technology and innovation, and promis...

Advancing sustainability. Reducing downtime risk. Creating a more profitable future through energy efficiency. These are positive side effects of implementing a modernized energy system. And in the manufacturing sector, where incredible amounts of energy are consumed every minute from a century-old power grid, it's time to start looking toward to the future. In this episode, Gareth Evans, CEO and...

There are a number of talent pools – from veterans to disabled to ex-felon that not only present opportunities for finding talent, but can also come along with meaningful incentives and tax credits. These incentives can also extend into investments in buildings, machinery, equipment and upskilling your employees. Leslie Boyd, CPA and Managing Principal – Manufacturing at CLA, has spent her career...

Imagine an engineering design environment where AI does 60 to 70% of the work, and humans finish the rest. Tasks get automated. Things happen faster. Productivity increases. As Milan Kocic, Founder and Head of Sixth Sense at Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence will tell you, in some places, we're already there. But looking into the future, Milan doesn't see an environment void of humans. Instead, h...

How does a small mechanical contractor grow into one the top industrial oven manufacturers in the country – all while maintaining a partnership over nearly four decades and continuing to innovate all along the way? There's no simple recipe. From putting their customers at the center of every project through custom-engineered solutions.... To keeping their manufacturing operations in house to build...