Manufacturing Happy Hour

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, and pull ahead. This episode comes to you live from the A3 Forum 2026, where the message is clear: 2026 isn't about waiting for certainty. It's about preparing for complexity with multiple strategies, acting on hard economic data, and recognizing that technology will solve the labor shortage. You'll hear why geopolitics can no longer be ignored and why every manufacturing company needs dedicated monitoring and scenario-based planning to navigate constant disruption. We dig into why America's $1+ trillion manufacturing investment boom is creating career opportunities that rival the tech industry and why the outdated narrative around manufacturing jobs is costing the industry the next generation of talent. Plus, we explore how automation and robotics are becoming the central solution for critical challenges and how theme park robotics taught the industry the power of asking “how” instead of “no”. In this episode, find out: Enjoying the show? Please leave us a review here. Even one sentence helps. It’s feedback from Manufacturing All-Stars like you that keeps us going! Tweetable Quotes: “We are in a manufacturing revolution, but most people don’t realize it yet. More importantly, America is starting to learn how to rebuild and manufacture its own goods. We are starting the process to build and AI is a tool that will help close that chasm.” – Bob Little“If 2025 was marked as a year of uncertainty, I think we are now far enough into the process to recognize that it's transitioning to a year of complexity in 2026. You have to be prepared for a variety of different scenarios. You have to treat it almost like war gaming, if you think about it.” – Alex Chausovsky, “92% of manufacturing CEOs interviewed by Deloitte said smart automation or smart manufacturing...

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 machinery manufacturer, on their own terms. He shares the long road behind developing technology for hybrid and electric heavy machinery, and why, when it came time to scale, they made a deliberate decision to crowdfund and not follow the traditional VC path. Along the way, we also get into why diversification within a single industry creates leverage most business owners miss, what it means to be fearless in business, and the struggles of connecting with other entrepreneurs at the same stage of growth. If you’ve ever questioned whether the “standard” approach to funding actually fits your business, this conversation will make you rethink the rules. In this episode, find out: Enjoying the show? Please leave us a review here. Even one sentence helps. It’s feedback from Manufacturing All-Stars like you that keeps us going! Tweetable Quotes: “I think the inclination today is that you need to go raise a bunch of money with private equity venture capital. I believe that’s wrong. Crowdfunding allowed us to raise a bunch of money from individuals. Normal people who believed in the future vision of our company and would eventually become our customers.”“I think that’s the beauty of diversification. Each business is in the same industrial space. The products are different, but they complement each other. Sometimes I go into a meeting trying to sell ShelfAware, and I end up selling O-rings or end up talking about HeavyTech and leave with a new investor.”“Timing is everything in business. You have to be at the right place at the right time. You can have a great idea, but if the market is not ready, it won’t work.” Links & mentions: HeavyTechShelfAware, Everywhere Beer Co Make sure to visit http://manufacturinghappyhour.com for detailed show notes and a full list of resources mentioned in this episode. Stay Innovative, Stay Thirsty. Mentioned in this episode: Industrial Marketing Summit 2026 The Industrial Marketing Summit is the go-to gathering for marketers working in the manufacturing,...

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 plans for lessening U.S. dependence on the production and refining of these resources from other countries. The conversation digs into the current state of the U.S. supply chain. We look at how innovation shaped the auto rescue during the 2008 recession and how it will continue to influence the success of the American auto industry over the next 25 years. We also unpack why Representative Stevens is passionate about the manufacturing industry, how it continues to shape her career, and the type of legislation changes you can expect from her 100-page proposal. In this episode, find out: Enjoying the show? Please leave us a review here. Even one sentence helps. It’s feedback from Manufacturing All-Stars like you that keeps us going! Tweetable Quotes: ”Somewhere between 85 and 95% of critical minerals are processed and refined in China. It’s a supply chain vulnerability.”“We need to lessen our dependence on China, invest in loan guarantees and tax credits that will grow this industry here in the United States of America.” “Who will continue to lead the free world in the next 25 years? Well, it's going to be American industry through free market principles that allow for equal opportunity and people to thrive.” Links & mentions: Kennedy’s Irish PubRepresentative Haley Stevens Make sure to visit http://manufacturinghappyhour.com for detailed show notes and a full list of resources mentioned in this episode. Stay Innovative, Stay Thirsty. Mentioned in this episode: Industrial Marketing Summit 2026 The Industrial Marketing Summit is the go-to gathering for marketers working in the manufacturing, engineering and industrial sectors. Built by Gorilla 76 and TREW Marketing, IMS delivers strategic insight, hands-on learning and true community. Whether you’re a team of one, or leading a scaled marketing department, you’ll walk away ready to market smarter, lead stronger and impact your...

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 how closely materials, regulation, and advanced manufacturing often overlap. Chris is joined by Ken Rasmussen, Operations Director at the site, who shares a practical perspective on what modern mining looks like when it’s done right. Ken walks us through how diatomaceous earth is mined, processed, and shipped as a finished product from a single site, and why that matters. The material is used in industries most people don’t associate with mining, including water filtration, food and beverage, pharmaceuticals, and vaccines. In this episode, we look at how mining fits directly into modern manufacturing, and what it takes to run an end-to-end operation on a global scale. In this episode, find out: Enjoying the show? Please leave us a review here. Even one sentence helps. It’s feedback from Manufacturing All-Stars like you that keeps us going! Tweetable Quotes: “If you can’t grow it, you have to mine it. It’s not magic. Everything we use has to come from somewhere.” “Mining absolutely has to be part of communities, or else everything would need to be imported. There’s no other way around it.”“The safety of our employees is first and foremost in everything we do. Every single person here has the authority to stop work if something doesn’t feel right.” Links & mentions: ImerysSpaceX

A lot of manufacturing companies can build insanely complex and intricate things, but far fewer are set up to handle what happens once customers start buying. So, what happens when those products start selling at scale, contracts get longer, and customers get bigger? In this episode, we’re joined by Chris Hale, CEO and Founder at Klear, to uncover a side of manufacturing that often gets overlooked: how money moves through industrial businesses. The conversation explores how money flows when deal cycles are long, customers are global, and planning starts to feel less like spreadsheets and more like a 3D chessboard. Trade finance sits underneath a lot of this activity, shaping how physical infrastructure gets built and how manufacturers grow. We also hear about Chris' experience touring in a band, and how this shaped the way he thinks about coordination, timing, and handoffs, ideas that show up repeatedly in how he approaches financial systems for manufacturers today. In this episode, find out: Enjoying the show? Please leave us a review here. Even one sentence helps. It’s feedback from Manufacturing All-Stars like you that keeps us going! Tweetable Quotes: “Trade finance as an asset class is fascinating because it’s how the world gets built through money. If you see a boat full of shipping containers, that boat is trade finance. If you see a data center being built, everything going into it is trade finance.”“The board keeps moving. You’ve got government customers, supply chain disruptions, strikes, geopolitics, and it becomes incredibly difficult to plan with confidence.”“Manufacturer are doing all this precision work, but when it comes to their money, they’re doing dead reckoning. They’re looking at the sun and guessing, and that’s where things fall apart.” Links & mentions: Klear Inc.,

Chips are the new oil. And that's not just a catchy line, it's the lens through which national security, supply chain strategy, and trillion-dollar investments are being made right now. With a hundred-plus fabs going up globally and the industry sprinting toward a trillion dollars by 2032, the semiconductor boom isn't coming. It's here. This episode comes to you from SEMICON West 2025 in Phoenix, with guests joining from HARTING Technology Group and Rockwell Automation. Jeffrey Miller and Danielle Collins kick things off with a semiconductor primer for folks who aren't living and breathing this space every day. Danielle's been in the industry since her first SEMICON in 1999, seen the shift from 200 to 300-millimeter wafers, and watched manufacturing go local while R&D went global. Anuj Mahendru joins Chris on the show floor to dig into the challenges facing legacy and digital fabs, from worker productivity and material movement challenges to why copy exact is finally loosening its grip on this industry. This is part one of a two-part semiconductor series, so stay tuned for the bonus episode dropping right after this one. In this episode, find out: Enjoying the show? Please leave us a review here. Even one sentence helps. It’s feedback from Manufacturing All-Stars like you that keeps us going! Tweetable Quotes: “Manufacturing is being localized, while R&D is being globalized. R&D has moved from being concentrated in Northern California and the Boston area to regions like India, Asia and Japan.” - Danielle Collins“The semiconductor industry is defined by data economics, and it’s the currency of conversations. Successful partners that will lead the way will be companies who can speak the language of operational data.” - Jeffrey Miller“Before semiconductor and chips, it was oil. Now chips have become the new oil. After and during COVID, the world came to the realization that there needs to be resiliency of the supply chain. From a geopolitical standpoint people see semiconductors at the front end of national security and self-sufficiency.” - Anuj Mahendru Links & mentions: HARTING Technology GroupRockwell AutomationSEMICON West

In this episode, Chris sits down with Troy Ellison of Cloacina to talk about what it takes to build infrastructure that works in the real world, not just on paper. Troy explains what membrane bioreactors (MBRs) are in a way that you and I can understand, then pulls back the curtain on why so many systems fail the people who have to run them. A big theme here is end-user experience. Troy makes the case that operators have been ignored for too long, and that designing systems around spreadsheets instead of humans is why so many projects struggle. We also get into scaling a manufacturing business, what it’s really like growing from a handful of people to well over a hundred, and the highs and lows of being in business with your family. If you’re building something meant to last, whether that’s equipment, a team, or a company, there’s a lot in here worth sitting with. In this episode, find out: Enjoying the show? Please leave us a review here. Even one sentence helps. It’s feedback from Manufacturing All-Stars like you that keeps us going! Tweetable Quotes: “The Cloacina difference is the end user experience. We're hyper focused on that. It's all we care about at the end of the day.”“We were essentially building the airplane as it was on fire and falling out of the sky for many, many years.”“We are on a relentless pursuit for the perfect MBR. But the reason it's relentless is we will never get there; we will never achieve perfection. Perfection is the process, it's not a destination.” Links & mentions: CloacinaCloacina RentalsJocko’s Make sure to visit http://manufacturinghappyhour.com for detailed show notes and a full list of resources mentioned in this episode. Stay Innovative, Stay Thirsty. Mentioned in this episode: Industrial Marketing Summit 2026

Industrial robots on a factory floor can be difficult, to say the least. Industrial robots on a concert stage, in front of 20,000 people, on a two-minute setup clock are a whole different challenge. In this episode, we talk with Andy Flesser - computer animator turned “robot animator,” whose work has helped bring robotics into live entertainment and film - about what that kind of pressure does to how you think about automation. Why preparation starts way earlier than most teams realize. And why some of the best lessons for manufacturing come from places that don’t look like factories at all. We also get into where Andy thinks robotics actually makes sense, where it probably doesn’t, and why the future of robots might be less about machines walking around and more about environments doing work around us. If you’ve ever operated an automated system and felt that knot in your stomach when something didn’t behave the way you expected, you’ll recognize a lot of what he’s talking about here. In this episode, find out: Enjoying the show? Please leave us a review here. Even one sentence helps. It’s feedback from Manufacturing All-Stars like you that keeps us going! Tweetable Quotes: “Every single show, every inch, every second of time is so expensive. When something goes wrong, it’s happening right in front of everybody.” “All the research and development in the world doesn’t exist unless you actually have sales.” “I think the future isn’t robots walking around your house. I think the house will be the robot and you’ll be inside of it.” Links & mentions: andyRobotRobot Animator

In true Manufacturing Happy Hour style, we head back to Pittsburgh, PA to drink the region's most iconic beer - Iron City - in an iconic Pittsburgh manufacturing facility. We sit down with Alex Gonzalez, Plant Manager at Pittsburgh Brewing Company. Part of our Made Here Series with the Industrial Solutions Network. Mentioned in this episode: Industrial Marketing Summit 2026 The Industrial Marketing Summit is the go-to gathering for marketers working in the manufacturing, engineering and industrial sectors. Built by Gorilla 76 and TREW Marketing, IMS delivers strategic insight, hands-on learning and true community. Whether you’re a team of one, or leading a scaled marketing department, you’ll walk away ready to market smarter, lead stronger and impact your business. Make sure to use the code "happy hour" at checkout for $100 off registration. Industrial Marketing Summit 2026

Reindustrialization isn’t going to be driven by a single mega factory or a headline-grabbing announcement on the coasts. It’s going to be built region by region, by places that already know how to make things and are willing to evolve how they do it. This episode was recorded live at +Venture North in Milwaukee, bringing together investors, founders, and operators to talk candidly about what it really takes to scale manufacturing in the heartland. The conversations cut through the buzzwords and focus on fundamentals: affordable power, experienced talent, corporate customers, and ecosystems that actually support manufacturers beyond the pitch deck. You’ll hear why innovation may start anywhere, but scale almost always moves to regions with space, infrastructure, and people who know how to run plants. We also dig into how legacy industries adopt new technology without putting uptime at risk, and why reindustrialization won’t happen if workforce strategies stop at new graduates instead of upskilling the people already on the floor. In this episode, find out: Enjoying the show? Please leave us a review here. Even one sentence helps. It’s feedback from Manufacturing All-Stars like you that keeps us going! Tweetable Quotes: “Once you start needing manufacturing facilities for making hundreds, thousands of products, that’s when companies really start looking elsewhere.” - Rosa Hathaway“If we only look at giving new manufacturing skills to 18- to 22-year-olds, we will never meet the workforce needs fast enough to reindustrialize the country.” - Bill Berrien“Fifty percent of all end energy use is for thermal management, heating things up or cooling things down, and we do it in very inefficient ways.” - David Tse Links & mentions: NVNG Investment Advisors

Manufacturing leadership is more than just charts, tools, and process maps. It requires people who understand the routines, pressures and drivers within a factory, and how to bring out the best in the people behind it. In this episode, keynote speaker, certified leadership coach and business transformation advisor, Kathy Miller returns to the show to share some ideas from her latest book, MORE is Better, a framework built from years of leading operations and studying what drives excellence in manufacturing. Rather than starting with strategy or systems, Kathy begins with the human elements: helping people find meaning in the work they do, creating a culture where problems feel solvable, and building the relationships that make teams stronger and more resilient. Her stories come straight from plant floors navigating Lean initiatives, new technology, talent turnover, and the day-to-day realities of production. For leaders trying to build long-term capability in their teams, Kathy reminds us that the factories that thrive are the ones that invest in both performance and people. In this episode, find out: Enjoying the show? Please leave us a review here. Even one sentence helps. It’s feedback from Manufacturing All-Stars like you that keeps us going! Tweetable Quotes: “A key aspect of lean manufacturing is eliminating waste. We don’t want people creating scrap. Who wants to work on something that’s going to end up being waste? Don’t you want to work on the product itself?”“Small choices really build our culture, our performance, and our leadership legacy, and that happens one little shift at a time.”“Optimism is really about that ability to look at when things go wrong and know that you can solve the problem. It's temporary, it's specific, and it's not going to be the end of the world.” Links & mentions: MORE is Better: Leading Operations with Meaning, Optimism, and Relationships for ExcellenceMore 4 LeadersEpisode 97 featuring Kathy Miller

A century ago, two cookware companies were born 12 miles apart in Wisconsin. One was bought right after World War II by a door-to-door salesman who converted it back to cookware after it had been repurposed for munitions. Today, those two companies have merged into SynergyOps, a 115-year-old legacy manufacturer with first through fourth generation employees still walking the factory floor. David Duecker, President of SynergyOps, joins the show from the factory floor in West Bend to discuss the company's evolution, their approach to automation, and what reshoring can look like for manufacturers. He explains how West Bend evolved with consumer demand over the decades, expanding into appliances like coffee makers and popcorn poppers, but when appliances started moving overseas in the 80s, they made a critical decision: divest and double down on their core strength, high-quality cookware. David's vision for the factory of the future isn't lights-out automation, it's highly automated with the people they have today, just doing different jobs. He also shares why manufacturing sustainability isn't just about solar panels and water recycling; it's about corrugated boxes coming from five miles down the road instead of across an ocean. In this episode, find out: Enjoying the show? Please leave us a review here. Even one sentence helps. It’s feedback from Manufacturing All-Stars like you that keeps us going! Tweetable Quotes: “As organizations, we’re always looking to expand or go to our adjacencies to try and grow our market. Sometimes it’s important to focus on your core and what you’re really good at. Go all in on that and penetrate the market that way.”“The factory of the future for us is highly automated with the people we have today, who are able to solve problems and make an impact every day, but they may just be doing a different job.” “We never talk about the sustainability of manufacturing in the US. People often think about it in terms of water, air and gas, but sustainability can also mean cutting down on air, freight or ocean travel time too.” Links & mentions: SynergyOpsMoxa Make sure to visit http://manufacturinghappyhour.com for detailed show notes and

1 more event in 2025. Dozens of events ahead in 2026. Stay Innovative, Stay Thirsty.

Forget the hyperscalers replacing tens of thousands of jobs. For manufacturers with 20 or 50 employees, AI isn’t about cutting headcount, it’s about finding ways to get ahead when you can’t necessarily afford to scale your team. As Dr Richard Barnhouse, President and CEO of Waukesha County Technical College (WCTC) puts it: figure out the things you hate to do and apply AI to that. This episode was recorded live at WCTC's Applied AI Lab, featuring a roundtable with Dr Barnhouse, Amanda Payne from the Waukesha County Business Alliance, Guido Mazza from ITER IDEA, and Caleb Bryant, a student pivoting into AI after 20 years in lending. The panel explores how small manufacturers are practically applying AI today, from eliminating scheduling headaches to streamlining quoting and contracts. Guido shares how one plastic manufacturer eliminated internal conflict by letting an algorithm handle shift scheduling across dozens of constraints, while Amanda reveals that 50% of Waukesha County businesses are already adopting or strategizing around AI; and over 90% of them have 50 or fewer employees. Caleb delivers one of the episode’s sharpest lines: AI doesn’t steal jobs, it steals tasks. In this episode, find out: Enjoying the show? Please leave us a review here. Even one sentence helps. It’s feedback from Manufacturing All-Stars like you that keeps us going! Tweetable Quotes: “Start with the basics. Think about your company’s most repetitive or boring tasks and see if there’s an AI solution that could be applicable. Then, you have to differentiate and decide what the benefits are between automation or an AI agent for those tasks.” - Guido Mazza“The easiest way to get started is identify a single pain point that everyone in the company can’t stand, something so far down that not even the boss understands how it contributes to the bottom line. If you can mitigate that pain point, your team will understand how AI can help them focus on more important tasks.” - Dr Richard Barnhouse“There are usually three reactions to AI. People either embrace it, underestimate it or are intimidated by it. What AI does is breed creativity. And once you understand it a little bit more, you start to see all the different things it can be used for both in industry and your personal life.” - Caleb Bryant Links & mentions: Waukesha County Technical CollegeWaukesha County Business Alliance

Two podcast hosts walk into a recording studio and explore what it actually takes to get real stories out of robotics pioneers, why humanoids might not need to do everything to be useful, and where the real optimism in automation lies. Brian Heater, Managing Editor at A3 and host of the Automated podcast, joins the show to share what he's learned from candid conversations with industry pioneers like Rodney Brooks and Brad Porter. We discuss why robots don't need to be fully general purpose to be useful, why timing matters when adopting new technology, and why stepping away to return with fresh eyes applies as much to workflows as it does to building anything. The conversation also explores the human side of automation: exoskeletons helping people become mobile again, prosthetics inspired by a childhood encounter in Pakistan, and wearables being developed for Parkinson's patients. These applications (along with aging in place and caregiver shortages) are what give Brian optimism about where robotics is headed. In this episode, find out: Enjoying the show? Please leave us a review here. Even one sentence helps. It’s feedback from Manufacturing All-Stars like you that keeps us going! Tweetable Quotes: “I’m hoping that as robotics and automation become a little bit more mainstream, the coverage itself will start to mature. As more journalists enter the field, they’ll hopefully be a little more familiar with the technology.”“I’ve written about what success means in scaling a few times. The jump from pilots and assembly onsite takes a lot, not to mention being able to do so reliably and safely. I’ve spoken to a lot of smart people, and it seems as though we may underestimate what it’s going to take to get there.”“It comes back to the human element. The end goal of a lot of manufacturing is to make people’s lives easier. People who are actively looking for solutions to problems, whether its climate change or aging in place, there are big problems we’re facing that have potentially good technological solutions.” Links & mentions: Automated with Brian HeaterNardwuar Make sure to visit http://manufacturinghappyhour.com for detailed show notes and a full list of resources mentioned in this episode. Stay Innovative, Stay Thirsty.

Robots are becoming more and more mainstream in manufacturing, but most organizations still think of them with sci-fi imagery rather than everyday tools. The gap isn't in the technology, it's in how we prepare people to work alongside it. Jason Gryszkowiec from St. Onge Company and Ben Perlson from ABB Robotics join us to discuss why successful automation deployments focus on making robotics more digestible for everyday workers. Jason emphasizes that the biggest challenge isn't the technology, it's ensuring supervisors understand both the capabilities and limitations of the systems they're managing, while Ben explores how future developments like AI and voice control could bridge the gap from fixed path programming to more dynamic, adaptive systems. The conversation covers why skipping change management creates bigger problems than the technology solves. Both Jason and Ben share practical approaches to starting with automation, from modular pilots that validate technology and training needs, to understanding how enterprise operations differ from Mom-and-Pop shops who need more hands-on partner support along their automation journey. In this episode, find out: Enjoying the show? Please leave us a review here. Even one sentence helps. It’s feedback from Manufacturing All-Stars like you that keeps us going! Tweetable Quotes: “The biggest hiccup or problem we typically see is a lack of successful change management. What very frequently happens is that shortcuts are taken during the implementation process which makes it less digestible for the people that end up using the system day in day out.” - Jason Gryszkowiec“When we talk about upskilling and reskilling, it’s about making people more comfortable to work alongside automation and to handle basic troubleshooting and fault correction. There’s still going to be different roles for different skillsets, but it’s about bringing people along the automation journey, rather than throwing them in the deep end.” - Ben Perlson“With experimental or new technology, do a pilot. Go out, confirm the concept, bring it in, test it out, and confirm it. This not only gives you a chance to confirm the economic feasibility and validate the technology, but as an organization, you can understand what training and SOPs need to look like before roll-out.” - Jason Gryszkowiec Links & mentions: The Robotics Group (TRG)ABB Robotics

Many manufacturers are taking the wrong approach to artificial intelligence, picking the wrong implementation partners, and in general, not preparing their data effectively. In this interview, Aaron Lober - VP of Marketing at CADDi - is going to share what AI can realistically do for a manufacturing company and how to properly prepare for an AI implementation.

It’s rare to find someone whose career spans 18 years in automotive manufacturing and venture capital, but Charly Mgwani, Partner at Eclipse Ventures, has done exactly that. His journey from the factory floor at Toyota, Nissan, Tesla and Rivian to backing hard tech companies gives him a perspective many VCs don’t have. We sit down with Charly to explore how first principles thinking (questioning assumptions and getting back to root causes) drives real innovation in manufacturing. He walks us through Tesla’s early days when they were asking questions nobody in the automotive industry had thought to ask, like whether robots could be programmed to work faster or if there was a better way to design for manufacturing. The conversation covers what Eclipse looks for in the founders they support, why being scrappy can lead to better manufacturing decisions, and why old manufacturing principles need rethinking as the industry flows in the opposite direction. In this episode, find out: Enjoying the show? Please leave us a review here. Even one sentence helps. It’s feedback from Manufacturing All-Stars like you that keeps us going! Tweetable Quotes: “I was ten years into my career when Elon was asking questions that had never been asked in automotive before. By forcing us to think about things from a first principle, we started identifying levers like part consolidation that are now commonplace in manufacturing today.”“Most folks design a factory as just what’s inside the shell, but then you end up with over-built systems that don’t speak to each other. If you design it as one product, like how a vehicle would be designed, there are more synergistic opportunities to simplify the utilities and make them complimentary.”“Manufacturing until recently has always flowed towards low labor costs and consolidation in pursuit of economies of scale. But now it’s flowing in the other direction, so that means you can’t depend on previous principles and how manufacturing has always been designed.” Links & mentions: Eclipse VenturesNexiforge Make sure to visit http://manufacturinghappyhour.com for detailed show notes and a full list of resources mentioned in this episode. Stay Innovative, Stay Thirsty.

Sustainability goals are everywhere in manufacturing; net-zero by 2030, carbon neutral by 2035. While many manufacturers have set ambitious targets, the gap between goals and execution remains a challenge, especially when sustainability projects compete with production priorities for capital. Eric Spink and Shiva Subramanya from Veregy join the show to talk about energy transition and what it looks like in practice. Energy used to be just another line item and the cost of doing business, now it's tied to resilience, sustainability, and a company's long-term strategy. One key insight from the conversation was how the equipment on the perimeter of your manufacturing floor (think compressed air systems, boilers, refrigeration, and HVAC) consumes 60-80% of your plant's total energy. But manufacturers typically don't have expertise in these support utilities, which is why they get overlooked for efficiency opportunities. We dive into real projects, including a five-plant dairy operation where AI can predict steam demand based on production data. Plus, how performance contracting allows manufacturers to fund these projects using energy savings rather than tying up capital. In this episode, find out: Enjoying the show? Please leave us a review here. Even one sentence helps. It’s feedback from Manufacturing All-Stars like you that keeps us going! Tweetable Quotes: “Traditionally, manufacturing companies have relied on their own capital to implement sustainability projects. But they always compete with productivity goals. With performance contractors, companies can now use the savings from energy reductions and put their capital elsewhere but still implement energy efficiency projects.” - Eric Spink“Upgrading control systems by putting in PLC-based controls, and adding instrumentation and metering really allows all these systems to consume a lot less energy. Historically these have yielded very high paybacks, between one and a half and two years in many cases.” - Eric Spink“Having a sustainability goal is important, but having a sustainability plan is key. The sustainability plan needs to include how the organization is going to implement it and how it’s going to be funded year-on-year.” - Shiva Subramanya Links & mentions: VeregySkillworkFortinet

What's better than a live podcast? I live podcast AND a factory tour. For today's episode, we dove into Fathom Digital Manufacturing's Hartland, WI facility before a discussion with industry experts.