More often than not, great leaders don't have all the answers. And in fact, a big part of what makes them great is their willingness to embrace that simple fact.

Tom Brown is a manufacturing leader who was never the resident expert in his organization. But owning that is exactly what helped him drive the company's success. In this conversation, he'll tell you how he did it, though the lens of what he calls The Three Pillars of Impact for manufacturing leaders.

There's nothing worst than making a big investment in technology, just to learn that you're not sufficiently equipped to deploy it.

From the many conversations I've had with leaders in the robotics space, this is one of the fears that seems to hold back manufacturers from getting started with automation.

What if the robot crashes? What if the system gets stuck? Once my integrator walks out the door, will my people have the skills and documentation to run it?

In this conversation, Malachi Greb, Founder and CEO of Elite Automation, will talk about what you need to look for in an integrator so that you'll hit the ground running, with the support your need and without the in-house robotics expert that frankly, most manufacturers simply don't have.

It's no secret that the Boomer generation is pouring out of the manufacturing workforce. And as they go, we're not only losing their hands, but also the years of knowledge tied up in their brains.

Pair that with an increasingly transient younger generation of workers and what you have is an institutional knowledge problem.

In this episode, Yushiro Kato, Founder & CEO of CADDi, talks about the role of digitizing our data inside of manufacturing facilities – for accessibility, for security, and to protect that invaluable tribal knowledge.

The past decade or so in the manufacturing sector has brought lots of hype about robotics along with it. But sometimes the flexible systems that many small and medium-sized business leaders were promised have been too complex to effectively deliver on the jobs to be done on the plant floor.

Colin Riggs and Diane Abruzzini Riggs, Co-Founders of Rigorous, have set out to change that. They're passionate about local economies and helping smaller manufacturers access the robotics technologies that will let them stay competitive. And one niche manufacturing application at a time, they're working to make that happen.

Lots of business like to talk about things like "work culture" and "core values". But for many of those businesses, these are just aspirational concepts. My guest today, Doug Eisenhart, is the President of a manufacturing organization that truly lives and breathes its core values, and has built a work culture second to none.

Doug will talk about how creating this kind of strong organization health internally translates into customer success. Because when your people are all rowing in the same direction, and they're owning and embracing their roles, amazing thing start to happen for your customers too.

To quote Dave Chrysler, Founder and Principal Consultant at The Crysler Club, "In the fast-paced world of operations, leaders are often looking for the silver bullet that can solve all their challenges."

He'll tell you that although there may not be a one-size-fits-all solution, there are some fundamental tools that any manufacturing leader should consider putting in his or her tool belt.

From SOPs to Kaizen Events to Strategic Planning, he'll break down some of these tools that together can put your organization on a path to operational excellence.

Large amounts of data are only helpful if you can make it all actionable.

In today's conversation, Founder and CEO at IndustrialML, Arjun Chandar, will tell you that as IIoT technology continues to advance, so much of the data being pulled off manufacturing floors is being holed up in the back offices of factories.

Arjun will share his perspective about how to harness this data and put to use in ways that address some of the biggest challenges facing manufacturers today – especially for workforce training and retention.

Customer research. Customer interviews. Voice of customer. Whatever you choose to call it, this is something that many companies THINK they're doing.

But in reality, most are just trying to create a setting for hearing what they want to hear from their customers, for collecting testimonials and ultimately, for selling them more stuff.

In this episode, I talk with author and President of Loomis Marketing, Dave Loomis. A deep expert in voice of customer with well over 10,000 hours of customer interviews under his belt, Dave will tell you what voice of customer work REALLY is, how to do it right and how to put what he calls "customer outsights" to work in a way that benefits both you AND your customers.

Imagine not having a home owner's insurance policy when you live in tornado alley. This is the analogy today's guest makes to a manufacturer without a strategic inventory plan.

Harrison Wells, VP of Professional Services at LeanDNA, will tell you that in today's "Disruption Economy", supply chain management and specifically, inventory optimization, are more important than ever before.

And in this conversation, he breaks it all down.

More than half of all revenue from goods produced in the US come from factories with 500 people or less. But so many small factories operate without a digital backbone to manage all of their data.

In this conversation, Co-Founder and CEO of Pico MES, Ryan Kuhlenbeck, talks about the impact of creating a digital through line of data – from suppliers and manufacturers along the supply chain, all the way up to the OEMs.