In this episode, I welcomed John Kennedy, Senior Advisor at NJEDA and former CEO at NJMEP. He has had a tremendous impact on the state of manufacturing in NJ and on many other fantastic causes, such as the Team Eagle Foundation. We also take a moment at the end to discuss the book he recently authored. Tune in to listen to his current thoughts on manufacturing and automation.

Jordan Adelson, Director of Automation and Equipment Engineering at Wonder, shares his insights on automation's impact on the food and beverage industry. Our discussion covers various topics, such as automation's influence on market dynamics and the interplay between automation and human interaction.

Peter Gasparini, Business Development Sales Manager for Werma USA, explains the multitude of applications and benefits of signal technology including safer manufacturing facilities and increased efficiency and quality control in production lines. With cutting edge solutions like sensors and automated communication alerts, factories can work weekends and overnights with far fewer workers needed on site. Listen to Peter explain how he calculates the ROI estimates and what he sees trending in the next 3-5 years in the manufacturing sector.

Universal Robots are on their 5th generation of cobots. The company has been at the forefront of a paradigm shift in industrial automation. In our latest episode, we "talk shop" with Silas Neale, Channel Development Manager, Universal Robots A/S. He explains how he identifies automation opportunities during a site visit; the importance of repeatability for cobot applications; the growing ecosystem of peripheral technologies that integrate into UR cobots; and more. Be sure to hear his prediction for which applications cobots will be used for even more in coming years.

Ofer Nir, CEO of Inspekto, takes us to a new dimension – 3D autonomous machine vision! The technology has tremendous impact in the manufacturing space as it’s used for QA. Moreover, it is incredibly simple to set up and only 20-30 perfect parts need to be shown to the camera before it is capable of identifying an item with a defect. For manufacturers concerned about quality control, this S70 system is a game-changer. Tune in to learn more about the world’s first autonomous machine vision system.

Jerred Davis, Sales Director and Rod Karch, Safety Products Specialist from Leuze join us to discuss the history of sensor technology in manufacturing and its evolution from quality control solution to safety solution. Tune in to learn about the types of sensor products Leuze produces, the safety services they provide, how their products are used on AGVs, and the importance of selecting the right sensor technology for your facility.

John W. Kennedy, CEO of New Jersey Manufacturing Extension Program (NJMEP), covers a variety of topics related to the current day manufacturing community that encompasses 11,000 companies and 400,000 employees. NJMEP is addressing some of the biggest issues facing this sector such as workforce development and regulations and keeping the supply chain strong. He shares how many NJ manufacturers rose to the challenge as COVID arrived, retooling to make PPE and often donating their products. Tune in to hear him predict what 2021 will be like for manufacturing in our state.

In recent years, the County College of Morris heard from local manufacturers that they needed skilled labor and a way to provide higher-level training to existing employees as robotics and more automation. They set into motion a brand new Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering Center. Hear more about the journey from Anthony Iacono, President, and Patrick Enright, VP of Professional Studies & Applied Sciences.

This podcast episode was recorded in January 2020.

Joe Campbell of Universal Robots explains that “when challenged, that’s when most change occurs” and the pandemic “has helped people identify areas of change.” We have witnessed this with the pandemic exacerbating already challenging labor shortages, and with companies considering reshoring production. Joe walks us through some solutions he’s seen make a big difference.

Thank you to Todd Youngblood of Intentionally Vicarious for producing, editing and interviewing Joe for this podcast.

We talk with Dr. Vacuum himself on how vacuum technology is more recently being adopted in the automation space. People are finding it suitable even for more challenging pick and place applications, such as heavy objects, items with strange dimension, or objects with porous surfaces. We'll discuss how to determine if vacuum is right for your application, choosing a specific vacuum product and how just about every industry could leverage vacuum technology.