Manufacturing Matters

In this episode of Manufacturing Matters, podcast host Winn Hardin speaks with Debra Phillips from NEMA and Tom Lawton of TESCO Metering about the impacts of tariffs on American markets. Winn’s guests share how both large and small enterprises are dealing with new complexities and supply chain management issues that started during the pandemic and continue during new tariff negotiations between global markets. They also discuss a number of efforts, including NEMA’s new Make It American program, for helping companies quantify and certify the percentage of each product that is actually manufactured in the United states, an important criterion for regulators and for U.S. government–funded projects.

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The National Association of Manufacturers reports that there were more than 400,000 manufacturing jobs open in June 2025. The labor shortage has been an ongoing challenge, but like many other challenges manufacturers face, some of the best minds are tackling the issue, with industry leaders like ABB leading the way. In this episode of Manufacturing Matters, co-hosts Jimmy Carroll and Amanda Del Buono Lilley talk to ABB Robotics’ Christelle Keefer, Global Segment Manager for Education, to learn how to fill these openings and build a pipeline for the future. They discuss the roles industry, education, and communities play in manufacturing workforce development, and how manufacturers large and small can contribute. 

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If you’re a first-time climber trying to tackle Mount Everest, the only way you’ll make it to the top and come back alive is if you’ve got a great set of Sherpas to carry your stuff and show you the way. That’s how Ted Larson, CEO and co-founder of OLogic, views his company’s role as it helps startup companies navigate their way from lab to volume production. 

Building a good working prototype in an academic setting can be a far cry from building tens of thousands of production-grade products. But it’s not just startups that need help and guidance along the way. In this episode of Manufacturing Matters, Larson sits down with TECH B2B Marketing’s Aaron Hand and Dan McCarthy to share stories of opportunity and challenge from two decades in the trenches helping electronics and robotics manufacturers develop successful products. 

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When manufacturers miss deadlines for capital project startup, that can have a huge impact on product and business success. Operational readiness is not just about production hitting set goals — ultimately, it’s about getting product to consumers faster. For its latest Horizons report, Operational Readiness, project delivery experts at CRB surveyed almost 400 consumer packaged goods (CPG) manufacturers to tackle questions from planning to commissioning — what works and what doesn’t. In this episode of Manufacturing Matters, Ken VonderHaar, director of client engagement at CRB, shares his insights with TECH B2B’s Aaron Hand and Dan McCarthy, discussing key takeaways and lessons learned.    VonderHaar points to the four Ms: Minds, Machines, Materials, and Methods. Manufacturers tend to focus on the machines without paying enough attention to workforce training, material and ingredient availability, or operation and maintenance plans. Strong operational readiness strategies address all four elements.  

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"Businesses in manufacturing and beyond face significant challenges today, whether their reshoring operations, skill shortages, labor shortages, or political strain, but today’s automation technologies can help solve these problems."

In this episode of the Manufacturing Matters podcast, Darcy Bachert, CEO of Prolucid Technologies and Chairperson of the A3 Board of Directors joins TECH B2B Marketing’s Winn Hardin and Jimmy Carroll to take a high-level look at some of the biggest challenges in manufacturing today and how automation fits in. Bachert also dives into some of the pain points that companies in the nuclear and medtech fields are experiencing today, and how his company has made their jobs easier through automation. In addition, the conversation touches on the role of AI in manufacturing today, working with integrators and engineering design service companies as a software development company, and why young people should start gravitating toward manufacturing jobs. 

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“While many applications within the food manufacturing space have been successfully automated, some gaps exist when it comes to high-mix automation, including the handling of prepared sandwiches, salads, and other meals. By augmenting robots with advanced AI, automation can be scaled to all parts of the food supply chain, starting with manufacturing.”

In the automation of food manufacturing, certain challenges are inherent to the industry, particularly when it comes to handling a highly variable mix of organic and delicate items. Rajat Bhageria, president of the AI-enabled robotics company Chef Robotics, sought to tackle this challenge head-on when he founded the company in 2019. In this episode of the Manufacturing Matters podcast, Bhageria joins TECH B2B Marketing’s Jimmy Carroll to discuss Chef’s solutions for the food industry and how they can be used for difficult applications, whether it’s handling leafy greens and chicken breasts for fresh prepared meals or dealing with sticky foods like mac and cheese or peanut butter. Additional topics include the role of AI in paving the way for new automated tasks, conquering food industry automation challenges, and real-word examples of how Chef Robotics is automating food manufacturing.

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"As much as we feel like the change is never ending right now, that's going to be the constant for the next couple of decades. We're going to have more options for how we increase productivity, how we collaborate with robots and each other, and how we build value. "

Right now, we are at such an incredible moment in history in terms of AI and robotics, and we’re just at the beginning of this journey, suggests Anthony Jules, Founder and CEO of Robust AI. The hard part, he says, is going to be selecting from the incredible abundance that's available, not, "Is there a way to get X, Y, or Z done. In this episode of the Manufacturing Matters podcast, Jules joined TECH B2B Marketing’s Jimmy Carroll to discuss the current state of AI, and more specifically, physical AI and how it is applied to robots to enable dynamic navigation and perception, which helps businesses today improve processes and become more efficient. The discussion also touches on machine vision advances, humanoid vs. wheeled robots, human-robot collaboration, and much more.

#ArtificialIntelligence #AI #Robotics #Robots #MachineVision #HumanoidRobots #Humanoids #TECHB2BMarketing 

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“From a fab perspective, you’re not only looking at submicron structures, but then some of these fiber interfaces may be centimeters. You have to be able to inspect and fabricate structures which vary in orders of magnitude.” 

Photonic integrated circuits (PICs), which use light instead of electricity to transmit and process data, will enable faster, more efficient communication critical for applications like data centers, telecom, and advanced sensing. GlobalFoundries, a major semiconductor foundry based in Malta, N.Y., is at the forefront of the industry’s PIC work. In this episode of Manufacturing Matters, TECH B2B’s Dan McCarthy and Aaron Hand talk with Vikas Gupta, senior director of product management for silicon photonics, about the GF technology that combines photonics with a 45 nm RF CMOS technology — all on a single piece of silicon. Gupta details the challenges faced in manufacturing electronics and photonics on the same chip, the trickiness of optical interfaces, packaging complexity, thermal mismatch, and more.

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#PhotonicsIntegratedCircuit #SiliconPhotonics #Photonics #PIC #ManufacturingMatters #Semiconductors #ElectronicsManufacturing #Manufacturing #DataCenters #Sensing #techb2b

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"How can lessons learned as an Apache pilot in the military translate into aerospace engineering and the general world of manufacturing?"

Lead like a pilot means placing an importance on structure, guidance, and community, says Operation Lead’s Craig Coyle. A former Apache pilot, Coyle joined TECH B2B Marketing’s Jimmy Carroll on this episode of Manufacturing Matters to discuss this concept and its applicability to manufacturing today. The discussion covered workforce challenges, leadership during tariff disruptions, and dealing with the employee disengagement problem. In addition, the episode touches on manufacturing trends and technologies, AI adoption strategies, and a first timer’s impression of the Automate show.

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"With AI technology, anyone can be a programmer. If you have an idea, whether you can code or not, AI can write the RealSense code, and you can deploy an AI-enabled 3D camera for less than $100."

Walk any robotics show floor and chances are you will see RealSense cameras in many of the robots and autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) on display, which made it surprising years ago when erroneous reports said that Intel was winding down the RealSense division. Things have changed drastically since then: RealSense just recently spun out of Intel as a standalone business, with no plans of slowing down.

In this episode of the Manufacturing Matters podcast, Chris Matthieu, chief developer evangelist, and Fred Angelopoulos, vice president of global sales, join TECH B2B Marketing’s Winn Hardin and Jimmy Carroll to discuss the future of RealSense, along with topics including the state of 3D imaging, the convergence of AI and 3D technology, and recent innovative applications that leverage RealSense technology. Additionally, the discussion covers humanoid developments, advice for startup companies, digital twins, and more.

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