Manufacturing Matters

"Today, video AI agents exist that turn your existing cameras into AI teammates across a range of applications. If you can leverage this technology to make your assembly line operate 1% more efficiently, that can result in hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue in a year."

In this episode of the Manufacturing Matters podcast, Dunchadhn Lyons, Director of Engineering and Allison Lilly, Director Product Marketing at Spot AI joined TECH B2B Marketing’s Winn Hardin and Jimmy Carroll to talk about the concept of video AI agents, what this means and how it works, and the different industries and applications in which the technology can add value. While businesses like car washes and offices can benefit, global manufacturers that are looking to improve safety outcomes on manufacturing floors and warehouses and to improve operational efficiency can as well, according to Spot AI. Additionally, the episode covers real-life examples of productivity gains, reception of the Spot AI product from plant floor workers, the overall topic of AI in the industrial space today, and more. 

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Artificial intelligence has been around for many years, but the face of AI is continually changing. Today, by applying well-engineered AI to manufacturing toolsets, we can get closed-loop control and automation that has more humanlike characteristics than ever before. For this episode of Manufacturing Matters, TECH B2B Marketing’s Winn Hardin and Aaron Hand caught up with Kence Anderson, founder and CEO of Composabl, at Automate 2025. Anderson puts Composabl’s multi-agent AI systems into perspective, explaining how applying skill-based, expertise-based, practice-based methodology can turn AI into an expert operator in a tiny fraction of the time it takes humans to learn these jobs.

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"Manufacturers and businesses of all types must always be ready to pivot, whether it means dealing with tariffs and geopolitical strife, labor shortage, supply chain issues, or other disruptions, everyone must be ready to pivot. Indeed, it’s a dance."

When tariffs were first announced, many businesses, including systems integration company Creative Automation, already had containers full of parts and equipment on the water making their way to headquarters. While this presents significant challenges, businesses must react in stride while preparing themselves for a constantly evolving world landscape. In this episode of the Manufacturing Matters podcast, Gerd Walter, President and CEO of Creative Automation joined TECH B2B Marketing’s Jimmy Carroll and Aaron Hand at Automate 2025 to discuss a range of topics, including the immediate and long-term impact of tariffs. Additional topics include the latest in systems integration, ranging from machine tending and part handling to marking systems and machine vision, a new engineering services division, cybersecurity, and more. 

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Katana Cloud Inventory powers inventory and manufacturing workflows for 1500+ small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and routinely tracks over $300 million in monthly procurement data. That gives Katana a unique near-real-time window on the shifting interplay between unit costs, inventory and market demand in sectors like manufacturing. 

In this episode of “Manufacturing Matters,” TECH B2B Marketing’s Aaron Hand and Dan McCarthy invite Katana co-CEO Ben Hussey to share what trends Katana is currently watching, what those trends might tell for SMB leaders, and how brands are rethinking their sourcing strategies and cash flows to stay nimble in uncertain times. Join us for a special live session by registering at the link below.

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"We’re on a mission to build climate resilient homes for all…leveraging the latest robotics and automation technologies."
 
Construction costs have doubled in the last decade, and we have a shortage of skilled workers to build them anyway. In addition, climate events are getting more severe, so how can we start designing products that are climate-friendly, more resilient to changing weather patterns, and significantly less expensive? That’s Reframe Systems in a nutshell, explained Vikas Enti, CEO and Co-Founder of Reframe Systems. In this episode of the Manufacturing Matters podcast, Enti joined TECH B2B Marketing’s Jimmy Carroll to discuss the company’s mission, enabling technologies, and process. The discussion covered robotics, physical AI, 3D imaging, construction trends, and more. Check out this episode to learn how Reframe is leveraging industrial automation technologies to build sustainable homes. 



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"We must teach kids that they can be a manufacturer too – not just a doctor, lawyer, or fireperson. You get to work with cutting-edge machines and with your hands, but we haven’t really been able to create this feeling yet."

There’s a lot of work to be done when it comes to reaching down further into school systems to help them understand, and to help teachers and faculty understand that manufacturing is a viable career, said Suzy Teele, Chief Strategy Officer at the ARM Institute. In this episode of the Manufacturing Matters podcast, Teele dives into the work that the ARM Institute to grow manufacturing and increase national security, while also covering a wide range of other topics and technologies, including labor shortage and job resources available today, automation adoption in small and medium-sized businesses, and of course, AI. Additional topics include the use of VR in robotics, humanoid robots, some examples of recent companies that have spun out of the ARM Institute, and more.

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"When it comes to AI in the industrial world, it represents supply chain optimization with demand forecasting, predictive maintenance, machine vision for quality control, and much more. But it also represents the elimination of manual tasks."

Views on AI have changed drastically over the last five or so years, suggests Naresh Ram, Chief Science Officer at AAXIS. Today AI represents the elimination of manual and repetitive tasks that no one wants to do or should be doing in the first place. For example, today it is possible to convert emails to orders by extracting information from a message and placing it into an ERP system for about two cents. In this episode of Manufacturing Matters, Ram joined TECH B2B Marketing’s Jimmy Carroll to discuss the different ways companies are using AI today, the impact of AI on the environment, and generative AI and its use in the industrial space. Additional discussion points included data storage and cloud computing, the importance of digitization, and more.


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#manufacturing #automation #manufacturingmatters #techb2b

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“Whether its tariffs, COVID-19, the chip crisis, shipping issues, changes in EV direction, or beyond; every market disruption is a chance to adopt or adapt your strategies and methods of getting things done.”

In this special panel discussion episode of the Manufacturing Matters podcast, Jeff Stello (Metaphase Technologies), Jason Covar (The Imaging Source), Gerd Walter (Creative Automation), and Stu Shepherd (this year’s Engelberger Award recipient; Shepherd Solutions, Inc., joined TECH B2B Marketing’s Winn Hardin and Jimmy Carroll to discuss tariffs, supply chain, and the outlook for the industrial automation landscape. Topics included automation solution pricing, COVID vs. trade negotiation comparisons, regional impacts around the world, reshoring, retasking, and much more.

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The waveguides, modulators, microscopic lasers, photodetectors, and other optical components that form photonic integrated circuits (PICs) all need to be perfectly aligned to minimize signal loss on the chip. PICs simply cannot improve yields, lower costs, or efficiently scale without ever-faster alignment tools able to perform with nanometer precision. In this episode, TECH B2B’s Dan McCarthy chats with Physik Instrumente’s Scott Jordan about the advanced alignment tools and AI algorithms that are helping to streamline the fabrication and packaging of PICs today.

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When systems integrators hit roadblocks where they must design something brand new that’s never been done before, that’s what we’re good at.

There are a lot of great systems integrators out there that build industrial automation systems that can do exactly what you need, bringing together industrial robots, controllers, vision systems, control cabinets, PLCs, and so on, explains Doug Harriman, Vice President of Engineering at Simplexity Product Development. These integrators know the space, know the suppliers, and do a great job – but Simplexity isn’t trying to play there, instead, the company aims to find a niche in the market where there’s a new problem, where solutions don’t quite exist, and this is where we think we can add a lot of value, he explains. In this episode of Manufacturing Matters, Harriman joined TECH B2B Marketing’s Jimmy Carroll to discuss the company’s philosophy, recent projects, labor shortage issues, and more.

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