Augmented reveals the stories behind the new era of industrial operations, where technology will restore the agility of frontline workers. 

In episode 17 of the podcast (@AugmentedPod), the topic is: Smart Manufacturing for All. Our guest is John Dyck, CEO at CESMII, the Smart Manufacturing Institute.

After listening to this episode, check out CESMII as well as John Dyck's social profile:

• CESMII: (@CESMII_SM) https://www.cesmii.org/ 
• John Dyck: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnsdyck/ 

In this conversation, we talked about  democratizing smart manufacturing, the history and ambition of CESMII (2016-), bridging the skills gap in small and medium enterprises which constitute 98% of manufacturing. We discuss how the integration of advanced sensors, data, platforms and controls to radically impact manufacturing performance. We then have the hard discussion of why the US is (arguably) a laggard? John shares the 7 characteristics of future-proofing (interoperability, openness, sustainability, security, etc.). We hear about two coming initiatives: Smart Manufacturing Executive Council & Smart Manufacturing Innovation Platform. We then turn to the future outlook over the next decade.

Trond's takeaway: US manufacturing is a bit of a conundrum. How can it both be the driver of the international economy and a laggard in terms of productivity and innovation, all at the same time? Can it all be explained by scale--both scale in multinationals and scale in SMEs? Whatever the case may be, future proofing manufacturing, which CESMII is up to, seems like a great idea. The influx of smart manufacturing technologies will, over time, transform industry as a whole, but it will not happen automatically.

Thanks for listening. If you liked the show, subscribe at Augmentedpodcast.co or in your preferred podcast player, and rate us with five stars. If you liked this episode, you might also like episode 8 on Work of the Future, episode 5 Plug-and-play Industrial Tech, or episode 9 The Fourth Industrial Revolution post-COVID-19. Augmented--the industry 4.0 podcast.

Special Guest: John Dyck.