In this episode, Matthew Chang and Colin Russ talk with Will Alverson (Managing Partner at Accurate Metal Products) about running a second generation steel plate business with no leverage through a demand boom he thinks is real, driven almost entirely by AI CapEx, and fragile enough to have a single point of failure.

If you care about manufacturing, capital, supply chain, workforce, policy, this one is for you.

What we cover

• Copper as a macro barometer
• CapEx without leverage
• Raw material prices up about 80 percent
• Why the bull run is fragile
• MIT's technologist role between technician and engineer

Chapters

00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro
 01:55 Will's Midwest Manufacturing Story
 04:14 Family Business Origins and Rite Hite
 06:52 Running Profitable Growth and CapEx
 17:28 Bull Run Signals and Market Risks
 30:37 MIT Workforce Program and Wrap-Up

Hosts: Matthew Chang and Colin Russ
 Guest: Will Alverson, Managing Partner at Accurate Metal Products

Find Will Alverson:
https://x.com/will_alverson | https://www.linkedin.com/in/william-alverson/ | https://ampflame.com/

Find Matthew Chang:
https://x.com/MatthewChang | https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewachang/

Find Colin Russ:
https://x.com/ThaaatColin | https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinruss/

Find Chang Robotics:
https://changrobotics.ai | https://www.linkedin.com/company/changrobotics/

Seven Steps to Reindustrialize America: https://www.thereforgepodcast.com/7steps

Follow ReForge

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-reforge-podcast/
X: https://x.com/thereforgepod
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thereforgepod/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thereforgepod
Website: https://thereforgepodcast.com/

Want to be a guest or partner?

If you're building, funding, operating, or shaping the future of U.S. manufacturing, we'd love to hear from you.
 Email: [email protected]

About ReForge

ReForge is a podcast featuring conversations with the leaders reindustrializing America.
 This show exists to prove American reindustrialization is possible, pivotal, and pressing.
 Hosted by Matthew Chang and Colin Russ.

Produced by Chang Robotics.

In this episode, Matthew Chang and Colin Russ talk with Cole Studer (CTO at Miltech Manufacturing and CEO at Mericron) about what it actually takes to modernize a rural American machine shop, and why the same person rebuilding that shop floor is also building Mericron, an American chipset meant to replace the Chinese one most of our automation quietly runs on. 

If you care about manufacturing, automation, workforce, supply chain, and reshoring, this one is for you. 

What we cover 

• Modernizing a job shop in rural western Kansas 
• Machinists as the real growth constraint 
• Paying city wages in a small town 
• ITAR compliance as an automation blocker 
• Building an American alternative to the ESP32 

Chapters 

00:00 Welcome and Episode Intro 
 01:08 Meet Cole and Miltech 
 06:00 Shop Capabilities and Big Machines 
 11:34 Scaling Up in Rural Kansas 
 20:28 Automation and ITAR Constraints 
 27:42 Mericron American ESP32 Mission 

Hosts: Matthew Chang and Colin Russ 
 Guest: Cole Studer, CTO at Miltech Manufacturing and CEO at Mericron 

Find Cole Studer:
 https://www.linkedin.com/in/cole-studer-3323a5104/ | https://www.miltechmanufacturing.com/ | https://www.mericron.com/ | https://x.com/photoncmndr 

Find Matthew Chang:
 https://x.com/MatthewChang | https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewachang/ 

Find Colin Russ:
 https://x.com/ThaaatColin | https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinruss/ 

Find Chang Robotics:
 https://changrobotics.ai | https://www.linkedin.com/company/changrobotics/ 

Seven Steps to Reindustrialize America: https://www.thereforgepodcast.com/7steps 

Follow ReForge 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-reforge-podcast/
X: https://x.com/thereforgepod
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thereforgepod/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thereforgepod
Website: https://thereforgepodcast.com/ 

Want to be a guest or partner? 

If you're building, funding, operating, or shaping the future of U.S. manufacturing, we'd love to hear from you.
 Email: [email protected] 

About ReForge 

ReForge is a podcast featuring conversations with the leaders reindustrializing America. 

This show exists to prove American reindustrialization is possible, pivotal, and pressing. 

Hosted by Matthew Chang and Colin Russ. 

Produced by Chang Robotics. 

In this episode, Matthew Chang and Colin Russ talk with Daniel Scott Mitchell (Co-Founder & CTO at Takton) about what he learned touring 150-plus American factories before building anything, and why the future of American industry depends on keeping small shops alive rather than waiting for them to fail.

If you care about manufacturing, machine monitoring, industrial IoT, small and midsize shops, family businesses, or reindustrialization, this one is for you.

What we cover

• Spending the first six months after launch touring factories instead of selling, and why that took investors who were actually aligned
• Going from Tesla Skunk Works and Rivian's van launch to tier two and tier three suppliers, and how different that world is
• Shops running thousands of SKUs on whiteboards and paper while still hitting 99 percent on-time delivery
• Getting tribal knowledge out of Frank's head, and the low-friction approach of handing him a pair of smart glasses instead of asking for an SOP manual
• Takton Sense: non-invasive power and vibration sensing, a 15-minute install, air gapped from the machine, checking every minute whether the machine is running and whether it is running well
• Why it is closer to an Oura Ring than a diagnostic, and what "symptom radar" means for a machine
• The 20 percent of advanced manufacturing technology that delivers 80 percent of the impact, and building the Kirkland brand version of the manufacturing tech stack
• Why MT Connect is great and still not enough when a shop's newest machine has telemetry and the other 28 have none
• A customer running a machine he thinks dates to the 1890s, originally belt driven off a water wheel, and the only two questions that matter before installing
• Why vendors built for Fortune 500 procurement make technology impossible to try, and what no minimum contract and a hardware buyback actually unlock
• 98 percent of US factories have fewer than 500 employees, and why that ecosystem does not exist anywhere else in the world
• Pushback on the idea that American industry needs the boomers to retire before it can recover
• Looking for duct tape as a product research method, and the a la carte versus prix fixe test for manufacturing software

Chapters

00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro
 01:36 150 Factories Road Trip
 05:11 Capturing Tribal Knowledge
 07:49 Takton Sense Explained
 17:17 Adoption Barriers and Trust
 31:38 What's Next and Wrap Up

Hosts: Matthew Chang and Colin Russ
 Guest: Daniel Scott Mitchell, Co-Founder & CTO at Takton

Find Daniel Scott Mitchell:
 https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielscottmitchell/ | https://x.com/danielmitchell

Find Matthew Chang:
 https://x.com/MatthewChang | https://www.instagram.com/the.matthewchang | https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewachang/ | https://www.tiktok.com/@the.matthewchang

Find Colin Russ:
 https://x.com/ThaaatColin | https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinruss/

Find Chang Robotics: https://changrobotics.ai

Resources mentioned

Seven Steps to Reindustrialize America: https://www.thereforgepodcast.com/7steps

Follow ReForge

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-reforge-podcast/
X: https://x.com/thereforgepod
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thereforgepod/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thereforgepod
Website: https://thereforgepodcast.com/

Want to be a guest or partner?

If you're building, funding, operating, or shaping the future of U.S. manufacturing, we'd love to hear from you.
 Email: [email protected]

About ReForge

ReForge is a podcast featuring conversations with the leaders reindustrializing America.
 This show exists to prove American reindustrialization is possible, pivotal, and pressing.
 Hosted by Matthew Chang and Colin Russ.

Produced by Chang Robotics.

In this episode, Matthew Chang and Colin Russ talk with Jack Watson (Business Development Manager at HFW Industries) about thermal spray coatings, the engineering knowledge that walked out of corporate America, and why the Rust Belt is a better bet than its reputation suggests.

If you care about manufacturing, thermal spray, industrial reliability, workforce training, the Rust Belt, or reindustrialization, this one is for you.

What we cover

• Four generations at HFW Industries, starting with his great-grandfather Harold in 1947, and what the name actually stands for
• What thermal spray coating does, and how it takes a rolling mill component from four months between teardowns to two years
• Matt's walkthrough of the Buffalo plant, the robotic thermal spray cell, and the HVOF systems a SpaceX engineer confirmed are essentially rocket engines
• Why corporate engineering teams went from hundreds of people to a handful, and how partners like HFW absorbed that materials and process knowledge
• The reliability and uptime case: why buying industry-standard equipment and partnering on coatings beats specifying exotic metallurgy up front
• Rust Belt advantages nobody markets: affordability, access to water and natural gas, proximity to most of North America's population, and a coworker who bought a house at 26
• Retaining university graduates, and what Columbus did that Buffalo, Erie, Cleveland, and Detroit can copy
• Why heavy industry has to show what is behind the walls if it expects anyone to apply
• Jack's blunt take that most industrial training in America is failing, what a real four-year apprenticeship looked like at HFW in the 1970s, and why not every hire pans out
• The three-quarter-million-dollar spray shop upgrade and technical ceramics as the next frontier for turbines, electronics, and semiconductor work

Chapters

00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro
 02:11 HFW Origins and Legacy
 05:32 Factory Tour and Thermal Spray
 09:37 Why OEMs Need Partners
 14:28 Rust Belt Revival Advantages
 27:16 Workforce Training and Wrap Up

Hosts: Matthew Chang and Colin Russ
 Guest: Jack Watson, Business Development Manager at HFW Industries

Find Jack Watson:
 https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackwatson22/

Find HFW Industries:
 https://hfwindustries.com/ | https://www.linkedin.com/company/hfw-industries-inc-/

Find Matthew Chang:
 https://x.com/MatthewChang | https://www.instagram.com/the.matthewchang | https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewachang/ | https://www.tiktok.com/@the.matthewchang

Find Colin Russ:
 https://x.com/ThaaatColin | https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinruss/

Find Chang Robotics: https://changrobotics.ai

Resources mentioned

Seven Steps to Reindustrialize America: https://www.thereforgepodcast.com/7steps

Follow ReForge

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-reforge-podcast/
X: https://x.com/thereforgepod
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thereforgepod/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thereforgepod
Website: https://thereforgepodcast.com/

Want to be a guest or partner?

If you're building, funding, operating, or shaping the future of U.S. manufacturing, we'd love to hear from you.
 Email: [email protected]

About ReForge

ReForge is a podcast featuring conversations with the leaders reindustrializing America.
 This show exists to prove American reindustrialization is possible, pivotal, and pressing.
 Hosted by Matthew Chang and Colin Russ.

Produced by Chang Robotics.

In this episode, Colin Russ runs the ReForge reindustrialization news rundown: what moved this week across defense contracting, semiconductors, aluminum, critical minerals, shipbuilding, and defense propulsion, and what it actually means for the shops and factories on the other end of those headlines.

If you care about manufacturing, defense contracting, semiconductors, industrial policy, tariffs, or reshoring, this one is for you.

What we cover

• The Department of War halting CMMC Phase 2 and launching a 60 day review, and what that does to the smaller shops that already paid for third party certification
• Why Phase 1 self assessments and NIST cybersecurity requirements are not a sunk cost, and how to position for Phase 2 coming back
• Apple's multibillion dollar commitment to US made chips with Broadcom, and why a long term demand signal matters more than another subsidized fab
• Targeted aluminum tariff relief tied to actual US smelting investment, and the multi year lag before that capacity comes online
• Tighter waiver rules on critical minerals from adversarial suppliers, the near term pain that creates, and why artificial scarcity can pull private capital into domestic mining and refining
• Saronic picking Brownsville for a $3.2 billion greenfield autonomous shipyard, and why Texas keeps winning these announcements
• TSMC adding to its Arizona buildout, and Arizona yields reportedly matching mature Taiwan operations
• Pratt & Whitney's Valox 1500 clearing a design milestone on a digital first approach, and why munitions and CCA timelines depend on that kind of speed

Chapters

00:00 Welcome and Rundown Setup
 00:46 Defense Cybersecurity Pause
 04:12 Made in USA Chips
 06:36 Aluminum and Minerals Policy
 13:41 Shipyard and Chip Megaprojects
 20:34 Defense Tech and Closing

Host: Colin Russ

Find Colin Russ:
 https://x.com/ThaaatColin | https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinruss/

Find Matthew Chang:
 https://x.com/MatthewChang | https://www.instagram.com/the.matthewchang | https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewachang/ | https://www.tiktok.com/@the.matthewchang

Find Chang Robotics: https://changrobotics.ai

Resources mentioned

Seven Steps to Reindustrialize America: https://www.thereforgepodcast.com/7steps

Follow ReForge

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-reforge-podcast/
X: https://x.com/thereforgepod
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thereforgepod/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thereforgepod
Website: https://thereforgepodcast.com/

Want to be a guest or partner?

If you're building, funding, operating, or shaping the future of U.S. manufacturing, we'd love to hear from you.
 Email: [email protected]

About ReForge

ReForge is a podcast featuring conversations with the leaders reindustrializing America.
 This show exists to prove American reindustrialization is possible, pivotal, and pressing.
 Hosted by Matthew Chang and Colin Russ.

Produced by Chang Robotics.

In this episode, Matthew Chang and Colin Russ talk with Const Ivanov (Founder & CEO at DigiFabster) about what American manufacturing actually looks like in 2036, and which shops make it there.

If you care about manufacturing, machine shops, automation, capital markets, workforce, or reindustrialization, this one is for you.

What we cover

• Running his own machine shop for six years, then building the quoting software he wished he had
• Why "make manufacturing cool again" stalls out if the paycheck does not support a family, and the "my dad's job is cool" test Matt and Colin use instead
• How much shop capacity is sitting idle, why shops turn down work they could technically take, and why the real US shop count is smaller than the number everyone repeats
• Tourist capital: why the VC wave into general manufacturing likely leaves around 2028 to 2030, and who is left standing on boring revenue
• The case for an SBA loan product built for manufacturers instead of chasing venture money
• The silver tsunami, roll-ups, and how to tell a good shop asset from one that should retire
• Why instant quoting is a cash flow strategy, not a website feature, when the alternative is net 90 and net 120

Chapters

00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro
 01:47 From Machine Shop to DigiFabster
 05:01 Operator to Technologist Lessons
 09:16 What Survives to 2036
 20:02 Capital Shifts and Silver Tsunami
 34:21 DigiFabster Impact and Wrap Up

Hosts: Matthew Chang and Colin Russ
Guest: Const Ivanov, Founder & CEO at DigiFabster

Find Const Ivanov:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/c0nst/ | https://x.com/c0nst | https://digifabster.com/ | https://x.com/digifabster

Find Matthew Chang:
https://x.com/MatthewChang | https://www.instagram.com/the.matthewchang | https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewachang/ | https://www.tiktok.com/@the.matthewchang

Find Colin Russ:
https://x.com/ThaaatColin | https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinruss/

Find Chang Robotics: https://changrobotics.ai

Resources mentioned

What survives to 2036, by Const Ivanov: https://x.com/c0nst/article/2077092078237135330
The Hopium, Const's Substack: https://constiv.substack.com/
DigiFabster: https://digifabster.com/

Follow ReForge

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-reforge-podcast/
X: https://x.com/thereforgepod
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thereforgepod/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thereforgepod
Website: https://thereforgepodcast.com/

Want to be a guest or partner?

If you're building, funding, operating, or shaping the future of U.S. manufacturing, we'd love to hear from you.
 Email: [email protected]

About ReForge

ReForge is a podcast featuring conversations with the leaders reindustrializing America.
 This show exists to prove American reindustrialization is possible, pivotal, and pressing.
 Hosted by Matthew Chang and Colin Russ.

Produced by Chang Robotics.

In this episode, Matthew Chang and Colin Russ talk with Brittain Ladd (Supply Chain, Logistics, and AI Strategic Consultant at Ladd Strategic Advisors) about why reindustrialization lives or dies on supply chain design, and why the trucking industry as we know it is about to disappear.

If you care about supply chain, logistics, automation, autonomous trucking, reshoring, or industrial AI, this one is for you.

What we cover

• Why the only purpose of a supply chain is to enable growth, and what it costs a company when the C-suite treats it as anything else
• The brutal reality of AI hype: trucks don't drive faster, warehouses don't fulfill faster, and most robots pick at the same speed they did five years ago
• What small and midsize manufacturers should do instead of hiring a large consulting firm
• The run of shocks from COVID to the longshoremen strike to tariffs, and how they exposed supply chains built for stability instead of unpredictability
• Why Brittain believes trucking companies and freight brokers go away entirely once autonomy arrives, and what replaces them
• The move from 15 distribution centers to 3,000 micro-fulfillment centers, and what that does to replenishment

Chapters

00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro
 02:02 Why Supply Chains Matter
 06:26 AI Hype vs Logistics Reality
 08:44 SMB Supply Chain Playbook
 15:29 2020 to Now Supply Chain Shocks
 21:01 Future of Freight and Autonomy

Hosts: Matthew Chang and Colin Russ
 Guest: Brittain Ladd, Supply Chain, Logistics, and AI Strategic Consultant at Ladd Strategic Advisors

Find Brittain Ladd:
 https://www.linkedin.com/in/brittainladd/ | https://laddstrategicadvisors.com/

Find Matthew Chang:
 https://x.com/MatthewChang | https://www.instagram.com/the.matthewchang | https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewachang/ | https://www.tiktok.com/@the.matthewchang

Find Colin Russ:
 https://x.com/ThaaatColin | https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinruss/

Find Chang Robotics: https://changrobotics.ai

Resources mentioned

Brittain's newsletter, No Retreat No Surrender
 Ladd Strategic Advisors: https://laddstrategicadvisors.com/
Seven Steps to Reindustrialize America: https://www.thereforgepodcast.com/7steps

Follow ReForge

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-reforge-podcast/
X: https://x.com/thereforgepod
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thereforgepod/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thereforgepod
Website: https://thereforgepodcast.com/

Want to be a guest or partner?

If you're building, funding, operating, or shaping the future of U.S. manufacturing, we'd love to hear from you.
 Email: [email protected]

About ReForge

ReForge is a podcast featuring conversations with the leaders reindustrializing America.
This show exists to prove American reindustrialization is possible, pivotal, and pressing.
Hosted by Matthew Chang and Colin Russ.

Produced by Chang Robotics.

In this episode, Matthew Chang and Colin Russ walk through what it actually takes to build a factory from scratch, from the debt that funds it to the steel that isn't available until December, and why a serious greenfield plant is a three year process no matter what the announcement says.

If you care about manufacturing, construction, permitting, supply chain, or capital access for industrial projects, this one is for you.

What we cover

• The gap between a factory announcement and the first production run, and why land development alone can run twelve months best case
• High interest rates, construction loan carry, and the valley of death between $10 million and $100 million where no suitable capital product exists
• Steel is out until December: fabricators still have capacity, the mills do not, and America needs roughly fifty percent more mill capacity
• Construction has doubled, from about $300 per square foot in the late twenty teens to a $600 starting point today
• Why the building makes no money, and the case for the smallest building possible with the maximum automation in it
• Brownfield first: twelve to fourteen months to new capacity versus three years minimum for greenfield
• Permitting strategy, from the DOT permit nobody expects to designing at FM Global standard so the site doesn't dictate the design

Chapters

00:00 Welcome and Episode 20
 01:05 Factory Build Reality Check
 02:40 Funding and Interest Rates
 05:36 Supply Chain Bottlenecks
 14:18 Permitting and Code Strategy
 26:15 Seven Steps and Wrap Up

Find Matthew Chang:
https://x.com/MatthewChang
https://www.instagram.com/the.matthewchang
https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewachang/
https://www.tiktok.com/@the.matthewchang

Find Colin Russ:
https://x.com/ThaaatColin
https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinruss/

Find Chang Robotics:
https://changrobotics.ai
https://www.linkedin.com/company/changrobotics/

Follow ReForge

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-reforge-podcast/
X: https://x.com/thereforgepod
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thereforgepod/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thereforgepod
Website: https://thereforgepodcast.com/

Want to be a guest or partner?

If you're building, funding, operating, or shaping the future of U.S. manufacturing, we'd love to hear from you.
 Email: [email protected]

About ReForge

ReForge is a podcast featuring conversations with the leaders reindustrializing America.
 This show exists to prove American reindustrialization is possible, pivotal, and pressing.
 Hosted by Matthew Chang and Colin Russ.

Produced by Chang Robotics.

In this episode, Matthew Chang and Colin Russ break down Matt's takeaways from the Reindustrialize Summit in Detroit, from the government's Pax Americana manufacturing strategy to why the RaaS model is a dealbreaker for serious manufacturers, and what's still missing in the funding stack for hardware founders.

If you care about manufacturing, robotics, venture capital, trade policy, or what the reindustrialization movement actually looks like in person, this one is for you.

What we cover

• Reindustrialize Summit recap: what Matt saw, who showed up, and why it scored a 10 out of 10
• The corporate creep problem and why too many sport coats could kill the magic
• Pax Americana and the Philippines industrial park model for allied manufacturing
• The government's message to trade partners: don't replicate the US tech stack, build the next thing on top of it
• RaaS versus CapEx and why no serious manufacturer wants a subscription robot that owns their data
• EBITDA positive founders versus the VC crowd, and why profitable companies scare off investors
• The SBA Supermax: why convicted hardware founders need $100 million debt instruments, not dilutive venture rounds
• Steel delays are already hitting Chang Robotics orders as mills get backed up from reshoring demand

Chapters

00:00 Welcome and Banter
 01:04 Reindustrialize Overview
 01:57 Conference Highlights and Vibe
 09:41 Policy and Global Strategy
 16:47 Robotics Models Debate
 26:02 Funding Gaps and Closing

Find Matthew Chang:
https://x.com/MatthewChang
https://www.instagram.com/the.matthewchang
https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewachang/
https://www.tiktok.com/@the.matthewchang

Find Colin Russ:
https://x.com/ThaaatColin
https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinruss/

Find Chang Robotics:
https://changrobotics.ai
https://www.linkedin.com/company/changrobotics/

Follow ReForge

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-reforge-podcast/
X: https://x.com/thereforgepod
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thereforgepod/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thereforgepod
Website: https://thereforgepodcast.com/

Want to be a guest or partner?

If you're building, funding, operating, or shaping the future of U.S. manufacturing, we'd love to hear from you.
 Email: [email protected]

About ReForge

ReForge is a podcast featuring conversations with the leaders reindustrializing America.
 This show exists to prove American reindustrialization is possible, pivotal, and pressing.
 

Hosted by Matthew Chang and Colin Russ.

Produced by Chang Robotics.

In this episode, Matthew Chang and Colin Russ dig into the part of the silver tsunami nobody is solving: the decades of irreplaceable technical knowledge walking out the door with every retirement, and why AI-driven knowledge capture might be the only shot we have at saving it.

If you care about manufacturing, engineering, workforce development, AI, or the future of American industry, this one is for you.

What we cover

• Why it takes 15 years to make a good engineer and the country is an estimated 500,000 short
• Infrastructure report cards across bridges, levees, airports, and air traffic control, and why none of the reindustrialization push works without fixing the foundation
• Chang Robotics pulling retired experts and former Soviet Bloc engineers out of retirement to rebuild the US metals industry because no one left in America knows how
• Kaia Rhodes and the textile collapse: 90% of global production down to 2%, and the only people who remember how are in their 70s
• Why AI's real opportunity is knowledge capture, not AGI
• AI integrators, data privacy firewalls, and why small manufacturers can't just buy ChatGPT
• Factory floor monitoring: vision cameras, spaghetti diagrams, and the truck dock timer that changed a beverage distributor's entire operation
• US ports operating at roughly 50% capacity because of crane staging bottlenecks

Chapters

00:00 Episode 18 Kickoff
 01:02 The Great Replacement
 17:42 AI for Knowledge Capture
 21:01 Hunting Lost Knowhow
 25:10 AI Integrators and Guardrails
 36:30 Factory Visibility Wins

Find Matthew Chang:
 https://x.com/MatthewChang
https://www.instagram.com/the.matthewchang
https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewachang/
https://www.tiktok.com/@the.matthewchang

Find Colin Russ:
 https://x.com/ThaaatColin
https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinruss/

Find Chang Robotics:
 https://changrobotics.ai
https://www.linkedin.com/company/changrobotics/

Follow ReForge

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-reforge-podcast/
X: https://x.com/thereforgepod
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thereforgepod/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thereforgepod
Website: https://thereforgepodcast.com/

Want to be a guest or partner?

If you're building, funding, operating, or shaping the future of U.S. manufacturing, we'd love to hear from you.
 Email: [email protected]

About ReForge

ReForge is a podcast featuring conversations with the leaders reindustrializing America.
 This show exists to prove American reindustrialization is possible, pivotal, and pressing.
 

Hosted by Matthew Chang and Colin Russ.

Produced by Chang Robotics.