The Manufacturers Network

What happens when a manufacturer nearly quadruples its revenue without quadrupling its workforce? And how can manufacturing leaders introduce robotics and artificial intelligence while actually improving employee engagement, quality, and morale? In this episode of The Manufacturers Network Podcast , host Lisa Ryan welcomes Tim Beatty, President of Bullen Ultrasonics , a third-generation, family-ow...

TL;DR Manufacturers struggling to hire frontline workers may not have an applicant problem. They may have a recruiting process problem. Sam Beiler, co-founder and CEO of Boostpoint, joins Lisa Ryan to break down how manufacturers can reach machine operators, welders, CNC machinists, maintenance technicians, warehouse employees, and other frontline workers who aren't actively searching job boards....

Your company bought the equipment. Paid for the program. Made the benefit available. So why aren’t employees using it? That question shows up everywhere in manufacturing, from PPE and safety programs to training, technology, employee benefits, and tools. And sometimes the problem isn’t the employee. It’s the way the program was designed, introduced, communicated, or reinforced. In this episode of...

What happens when your digital record says one thing, but the experienced operator standing on the plant floor says something else? Who do you trust? As manufacturers invest in AI, automation, digital twins, sensors, and increasingly sophisticated data systems, that question will matter a lot more. Technology can capture an extraordinary amount of information about a manufacturing facility. But da...

How can manufacturers adopt AI, automation, and Industry 4.0 technology without leaving their people behind or investing in technology that doesn’t solve the right problems? In this episode of The Manufacturers Network Podcast, Lisa Ryan talks with Mike Ungar , CEO of the Industry 4.0 Club and a FocalPoint Master Business and Executive Coach, about smart manufacturing, Lean, AI adoption, workforce...

What should manufacturers prepare for as tariffs, labor shortages, AI, supply chain risks, and economic uncertainty reshape the industry? Economist Dr. Bill Conerly joins Lisa Ryan on The Manufacturers Network Podcast to break down the manufacturing economic outlook and the practical decisions manufacturing leaders should be making now. Bill does not currently see a recession ahead under his base-...

What if every manufactured part could be identified and traced using nothing more than a photograph? In this episode of The Manufacturers Network Podcast, Lisa Ryan talks with Roei Ganzarski, CEO of Alitheon , about manufacturing traceability, counterfeit parts, quality control, AI, automation, and technology that gives physical objects something similar to their own unique fingerprint. Roei's bac...

Your manufacturing business has insurance. But will it actually cover the risks your operation has today? In this episode of The Manufacturers Network Podcast, Lisa Ryan talks with Michael Senderovich , President of Six Thirteen Business Insurance Services, about insurance gaps small and mid-sized manufacturers may not discover until there's a claim. They discuss equipment coverage, workers' compe...

What happens when a manufacturing leader’s experience becomes the very thing keeping the operation from improving? In this episode of The Manufacturers Network Podcast, Lisa Ryan talks with Jared Scott , National Training Manager at SEW-EURODRIVE and author of Edge Over Ego: Why Being Right Isn’t Enough and What Actually Makes Leaders Effective , about manufacturing leadership, workforce developme...

What happens on the manufacturing floor when pressure goes up, communication shuts down, and your best employees stop speaking up? In this episode of The Manufacturers Network Podcast, Lisa Ryan talks with leadership consultant, speaker, and applied neuroscience practitioner Kabrina Ashley about how stress and burnout affect communication, decision-making, safety, employee retention, and human jud...

Manufacturers are investing millions in AI, Microsoft 365, automation, and digital transformation. Yet many organizations are still struggling with the same challenge: getting employees to actually use the technology while keeping operations secure. In this episode of The Manufacturers Network Podcast , I sit down with Denis O'Shea , Founder and CEO of Mobile Mentor, to discuss what manufacturers...

Artificial intelligence is everywhere. Unfortunately, so is AI hype. Manufacturers are hearing promises about smarter factories, automated planning, and AI-powered decision making. But what actually works inside a real manufacturing operation where data is messy, production schedules change hourly, and experienced employees solve problems machines never see coming? In this episode of The Manufactu...

How can manufacturers solve workforce shortages while embracing artificial intelligence, automation, and digital transformation? In this episode of The Manufacturers Network Podcast , Lisa Ryan sits down with Bryce Carpenter , Executive Vice President and Chief Operations & Strategy Officer at Conexus Indiana , to discuss how one of America's strongest manufacturing states is preparing its wor...

What happens after your product leaves the factory may determine your profitability just as much as what happens inside it. In this episode of The Manufacturers Network Podcast , Lisa Ryan talks with Phil Rees , founder of ShipMax and a supply chain strategist with more than 20 years of experience helping manufacturers, retailers, and global brands improve fulfillment, warehousing, customs complia...

Why do so many manufacturers struggle to attract younger workers while companies with strong apprenticeship programs have candidates lining up? In this episode of The Manufacturers Network Podcast , Lisa Ryan sits down with Sarah Morgan , Toolmaking Apprentice at R&D Leverage (an Adler Company) and the 2026 Apprentice of the Year recognized by the Mold Technologies Division. Sarah shares how a...

AI pilots look great in a controlled environment. Then they hit the real shop floor and quietly fall apart. In this episode, Lisa Ryan talks with Russell Halper, founder and managing director of Insight Kitchen, about why so many manufacturing AI initiatives stall after deployment and what leaders can do differently before they ever write the first prompt. Russell's path here is unusual. He starte...

Lisa Ryan sits down with Michelle Kozin, an organizational strategist who uses behavioral science to help manufacturers connect people strategy with business strategy. Michelle's background in change management started with large-scale ERP implementations, where she learned that the technology was never the hard part. The people were. In this conversation, Michelle and Lisa unpack why the same rec...

Brian Kaufman is co-founder and chief product officer at Strudel, an AI startup that gives technical support teams real-time context when issues hit and detects error patterns before they become customer-facing problems. His background is in software product development and healthcare technology, but the problems he solves map directly onto what manufacturing companies face every day: institutiona...

Samantha Kaye Harris spent 27+ years in structural maintenance leadership at JFK Airport, managing teams of 100+ people in one of the most male-dominated environments in the trades. She started as a general maintainer, learned paving, roofing, sheet rock, and concrete work from the ground up, and earned her way into leadership one job at a time. Today she helps women in manufacturing, the trades,...

If your sales team keeps losing deals on price, the problem might not be your pricing. It might be your story. Lauren Kwedar Cockerell, founder and president of Kwedar & Co., a strategic communications firm based in Fort Worth, joins Lisa to talk about why so many manufacturers struggle to articulate what makes them genuinely different, and what to do about it. Lauren has spent 23 years in pub...

In this episode of the Manufacturers Network Podcast, Lisa Ryan sits down with JC Carr, Territory Account Manager at World Emblem and founder of Whips Miami, to talk about the future of manufacturing leadership, supply chain resilience, automation, and workforce culture. JC shares his unconventional path from launching an exotic car brokerage during COVID to becoming a rising voice in manufacturin...

Leadership development is not about creating people who can follow instructions. It’s about creating people who can think. In this episode of the Manufacturers Network Podcast, Lisa Ryan talks with Scott Burgmeyer about leadership growth, succession planning, emotional intelligence, and why so many organizations struggle to develop future leaders before it’s too late. With more than 30 years of ex...

Manufacturing companies don’t usually fail because of bad products. They fail because growth exposes leadership gaps nobody wanted to deal with. In this episode of the Manufacturers Network Podcast, Lisa Ryan talks with leadership advisor and Trajectify founder Mike Krupit about what really happens when organizations grow faster than their people, systems, and communication. Mike shares lessons fr...

E-commerce looks easy… right up until it isn’t. More orders. More customers. More growth. And then everything starts to crack. In this episode of The Manufacturers Network Podcast , I sit down with Ethan Giffin to talk about what really happens when e-commerce businesses try to scale. Not the highlight reel. The operational reality behind it. We get into fulfillment pressure, inventory accuracy, c...

Here’s what nobody says out loud. You can automate a facility, install the dashboards, optimize the flow… and still lose the people who make it all work. In this episode of The Manufacturers Network Podcast , I sit down with Rylan Pyciak to talk about what’s really happening inside modern supply chains. Not the polished version. The real one. We get into the tension between automation and human ju...