In episode 27 of the podcast (@AugmentedPod), the topic is: Industry 4.0 Tools and Analytics. Our guest is Carl B. March, Director, Industry 4.0 at Stanley Black & Decker.

In this conversation, we talk about what industry 4.0 means, the importance of upskilling the entire manufacturing industry, and the lessons from Stanley Black & Decker's digital transformation journey.

After listening to this episode, check out Stanley Black & Decker (@StanleyBlkDeckr): https://www.stanleyblackanddecker.com/ as well as Carl B. March's profile on social media: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlbmarch/ 

You may want to also be aware of the 'Israel meets New England' smart manufacturing event on June 9 and its organizers, the Israeli Trade Mission and Amhub New England:

• The New England Advanced Manufacturing Hub (AMHUB NE): https://mfg.works/amhub/amhub-new-england/
• The Government of Israel’s Economic Mission to North America: https://embassies.gov.il/washington/AboutTheEmbassy/Pages/Economic-Mission.aspx#:
• ISRAEL meets NEW ENGLAND: Advanced Manufacturing in Factories and Workplace: https://mfg.works/israel-meets-new-england/

Trond's takeaway: Industry 4.0 requires a mindset shift, not just technology adoption. It's not just about you--whether you in this case is a big company or a top leader--rather, it is about bringing people, partners, SMEs, and the entire ecosystem along. To do so openness to learn, having a strategic roadmap so not chase all shiny objects, and investing in lighthouse factories that can illuminate the possibilities are each important ingredients.

Thanks for listening. If you liked the show, subscribe at Augmentedpodcast.co or in your preferred podcast player, and rate us with five stars. If you liked this episode, you might also like episode 20, The Digitalization of Körber, episode 14, Bottom up and Deep Digitization of Operations, and episode 9, The Fourth Industrial Revolution post-COVID-19. 

Augmented--upskilling the workforce for industry 4.0 frontline operations.

Transcript:

TROND: Augmented reveals the stories behind a new era of industrial operations, where technology will restore the agility of frontline workers.

In Episode 27 of the podcast, the topic is Industry 4.0 Tools and Analytics. Our guest is Carl B. March, Director Industry 4.0 at Stanley Black & Decker.

In this conversation, we talk about what industry 4.0 means, the importance of upskilling the entire manufacturing industry, and the lessons from Stanley Black & Decker's digital transformation journey.

Augmented is a podcast for leaders hosted by futurist Trond Arne Undheim, presented by Tulip.co, the frontline operations platform, and associated with MFG.works, the manufacturing upskilling community launched at the World Economic Forum. Each episode dives deep into a contemporary topic of concern across the industry and airs at 9:00 a.m. U.S. Eastern Time, every Wednesday.

Augmented — the industry 4.0 podcast.

Carl, how are you today?

CARL: I'm doing great, Trond. Good to see you.

TROND: Yeah, this is fantastic. We've spent a lot of time together, Carl. We've gotten to know each other. This industry 4.0 is bringing us together.

CARL: Quite a bit. And there's so much going on in this space, especially here in New England. So it's an exciting time.

TROND: Yeah, for sure. Carl, I wanted to talk a little bit about you and your background. You're an engineer. And now you're deeply steeped in industry 4.0. Maybe I'll just ask that question, why did you become an engineer? And how did you end up where you are right now? Was it an obvious path for you? Or did you always want to go into manufacturing?

CARL: I guess from the beginning, I was always a tinkerer, so just growing up and hanging around mechanical equipment, my desire was always to break and fix. [laughs] So eventually, I got wind of a teacher who, in fact, was my music teacher. And he asked me what did I want to do? I said I wanted to break and fix equipment and all of these things. And he said, "Well, you want to be a mechanical engineer." [laughs] So I kept that with me from maybe nine years old, and that's the path I went. Eventually, I did my first degree in mechanical engineering. And then eventually, I did an automotive systems engineering graduate degree.

TROND: Wow. And so then, in the beginning, you were headed for the automotive industry.

CARL: Yeah, yeah. It was always a desire around cars. So my father had all the cars that needed to be fixed. And where I'm from, we're in the Caribbean. I'm from Jamaica originally. It was one of those luxuries that you had where you just dispose of your vehicles once they start giving some problems. So we fixed the cars. [laughs] That's what we had to do.

TROND: [laughs] So you ended up with a bunch of cars then, not just fixing them, but you ended up with a bunch that are not used.

CARL: [laughs] Exactly. And taking parts from one and putting on the other. [laughs]

TROND: That's funny. That's funny. Well, so you did that for a while. And you were in automotive, which is an exciting field in and of itself. And then you went into consulting for a bit as well. So you've done a little bit of that.

CARL: And so the interesting thing is once I did my first degree, which was mechanical engineering, I had the opportunity to start working in the manufacturing environment. And I actually started off in mining and refining. So I was in alumina refining for a while, and then I went back and did the automotive degree. And then, coming out of that, it was the wonderful time in Detroit where everything was a bit uncertain. So though I started off in automotive there, after that degree, I went back to my roots of reliability engineering, which is more along the lines of operational excellence in the manufacturing environment.

TROND: You know, it's kind of fascinating today because automotive has gone full circle.

CARL: Yes, it really has.

TROND: It's like, nobody...who would have guessed [laughs] that automotive was going to go from glory days to, like, it's all over to a renaissance of mobility?

CARL: I've gotten the opportunity to observe that, especially as a consultant, as I eventually went into consulting. More than half of my 20-plus years in manufacturing has been in the consulting space. So, while consulting, that's where I really started to see many sectors, from the very advanced sectors in aerospace and automotive down to what we call base materials, which is going back to the dirt, the mining and refining pieces. And just seeing the range of technology adoption across all fields as it relates to operational excellence was an eye opener for me.

And when I think about this topic of industry 4.0 which really it's not an old topic. It really came about in 2011 or so, which was the mid of my consulting career. And that's when I made a pivot in my consulting, where I started to focus a lot more on the technology enablement within these respective spaces.

TROND: Well, let's dig deeper into it. Because you're indeed, you know, you're with Stanley Black & Decker. You run a lot of their industry 4.0 activities, especially on the analytics and the value stream side. But let's get into the topic more because, as you said, 2011 is not a long time ago. And I hear industry 4.0, by the way, seems to be more of a European term than an American term. Here it’s like smart manufacturing because manufacturing is the main thing. But at Stanley, you guys somehow chose the international term industry 4.0. Why don't you, for the benefit of all of us, just tell us how you define it? What is --

CARL: So industry 4.0 is this terminology referring to the fourth industrial revolution. So it stems back to the first industrial revolution having to do with mass production and steam being used as a driver. Then eventually, it went into the second, where we started to get some computers in the space and started to be able to take advantage of some of those things. The third having to do more with automation. So we started to put a lot more robots and robotics within the manufacturing space.

And interestingly, then we started to do a little bit more sensorization. But in the 2011 or 2010 period of time, that's when we started to make a lot of advances in big data, cyber-physical systems. So that's where those applications started to come into the manufacturing environment, AI, artificial intelligence, anything related to analytics in the manufacturing environment. That's where we're starting to consider the industry 4.0.

And one other thing, there are probably three main elements that differentiate the fourth industrial revolution from its predecessors; one is vertical integration. Vertical integration is what we call from the top floor to the shop floor. You're able to pass data back and forth and get information on what's happening at any given time, at whatever level it is in your production process.

The second is horizontal integration. And that's where you start to look across your value chain. So you're looking at data coming from your supplier, and data coming from your customer, and data within your own manufacturing environment.

And then the third one is integrated product lifecycle. So this is one of the most interesting pieces of industry 4.0 in that you're actually getting feedback, even though the customer doesn't even know you're getting that feedback. And you're getting feedback into your product lifecycle and your product design. And you're designing it to manufacture well, and you're designing it to basically fulfill the purpose of the end consumer, so all of that feedback loop that's taking place there. And what enables it is a part of what we refer to as industry 4.0.

TROND: That's super interesting. And can you comment a little bit on how that translates then into Stanley Black & Decker's digital transformation journey? Because, arguably, and I meant to have it here, I have, you know, I have a bunch of tools in my arsenal. [laughs] I might actually run and go get that. But they weren't always digital; mine happens to be battery operated. And hopefully, I can run and get it in a second; I really wanted it in this tape.

But it has been a journey for you as well, and I guess it's a continuing journey because sensors and all that stuff take quite a bit to transform an entire kind of suite of products into a set of connected arguably industry 4.0 tools. So I'm curious, where would you say you guys are in that transformation process?

And how ready is the world for a fully sensorized reality where everything is connected? I guess the maximal vision of industry 4.0, which is this idea of industrial Internet of Things where everything is starting to connect and yield analytics. Because you took the...these are also difficult things to do, right? The vertical integration, all of these things are difficult. But this full vision, we are a step away from that so far, this full sensorization.

CARL: Yeah, it has not all become a reality as yet. And as you can imagine, the maturity is going to be different depending on the sector, the industry that you're dealing with. But if I was to look back for a second on the journey that we've had at Stanley Black & Decker, I joined the company maybe about three years ago when we made a very interesting pivot in the way that we were approaching industry 4.0. I'll speak on that in a second.

But prior to that point in time, Stanley Black & Decker has always been an innovator in this space. We do make tools, and we're the number one tools company in the world. But we also serve a lot of our other businesses, automotive and aerospace, in particular, in providing fasteners, et cetera. And as a result of this diversity, it made sense for a company like ours with 100-plus sites to be able to start working in smart manufacturing.

And the process was that there were a couple of chosen sites that were given a bit more license to integrate industry 4.0 elements within their four walls, and they were referred to as lighthouse factories. So it was very decentralized, not very organized from the standpoint of having certain standards that would scale well. And this is where we started to see a lot of productivity gains, efficiencies within those sites.

Then in 2017, we did a study internally and determined that let's go after this in the right way, which is to organize ourselves to have a program. And as a result of organizing this program, that's where I came in as one of the first few hires within the program to centralize what we're doing. And then, I ended up leading our analytics value stream. We also had value streams related to connected factory, automation, et cetera. And that's where we started to go after it in the right way.

And I think as a result of that, the gains that we've had and the learnings that we've had over the past three years have been tremendous. And if you compare this to the typical approach, especially that I've seen in my consulting years, is that there's a term that was coined by either McKinsey or the World Economic Forum, I can't remember now, called the pilot's purgatory.

A lot of companies I observed they'll start something. They'll start one use case here, another use case there, nothing linked. And they'll do some form of pilot, but it never scales. It would fizzle out in some way. Somebody would move on from one role to the next. The interest isn't there. So, as a result of that, they will continuously stay in the same place, and there will be no roadmap for movement.

TROND: And how do you avoid that destiny of the pilot purgatory? There are many theories on how to do that. And I would say probably every manager of some seniority would say, "Yeah, yeah, I know about that issue, and we don't have that issue here." [laughter]

CARL: But if we're honest with ourselves, it's very easy to fall into pilot purgatory because, first of all, it is very easy to move after the first shiny object or the next shiny object that catches our eye. That's just the way human nature is. One of the things that we've learned is the value of having a strategic roadmap and especially related to industry 4.0. So one of the things that I'm currently working on with our small to medium size enterprises, small to medium-sized manufacturers is we're trying to enable them with two things, one is to assess yourselves.

And we are currently using a framework from Singapore called SIRI, which is Smart Industry Readiness Index. We're making that available to our small to medium-sized enterprises for us to work with them on assessing where are you with respect to these 16 dimensions of industry 4.0? And you don't need to be at the very top band for any one of these, really. You need to look at where you are with respect to peers, with respect to the best practices, and with respect to where you need to be to meet your business objectives. So once we do the assessment, we are able to filter that out in terms of what should be prioritized on the strategic roadmap.

The second thing that we're offering is given what we've done so far; we have a wealth of experience in this space as well as what we've gathered in terms of partners who have been giving us use cases that can apply to these 16 dimensions. We're then able to work with the manufacturer to specify this is what your roadmap should look over the next three to five years if that's your planning horizon.

You focus on these elements first, these dimensions first, but more specifically, these specific use cases. And these use cases are foundational. These use cases will provide you with some return that will help to fund the rest of your program, et cetera. So I think those two things between the assessment and having a strategic roadmap are critical enablers to avoiding this pilot purgatory.

TROND: That's fantastic. We'll talk a little more about SIRI hopefully later because it relates to the work you and I are doing with the World Economic Forum and our AMHUB network. And we are hoping to bring it in really to play in New England, you know, across the sector. But before we get to that, I wanted to ask you a couple of questions about this physical manufacturing 4.0 facility where I believe you actually work out of sometimes in Hartford, this, I guess, 23,000 square foot center.

So it's a physical kind of advanced manufacturing center like its own little kind of demo factory and training center also, I guess, for your smart factory initiatives. How did that get started? Well, it's the middle of a pandemic. But what do you intend to use it for? And what were you using it for before the pandemic? Because I'm assuming you've had a quiet period like all of us.

CARL: Yes, we have. We've had quite a quiet period over the past year and some. But in 2019, we opened the space, and what we actually did...I'm referring back to when we started to go about this in a different way in 2017. We had one of our...well, our key leader Sudhi Bangalore was, brought in from the outside to lead this program. And he was named the VP of our industry 4.0. Since then, he's been also named as CTO for global operations.

But this was one of Sudhi's visions in that we would not only have the team to do this industry 4.0 enablement in a standardized and centralized way, but we would also have an innovation space that you can physically touch, feel, experience the elements of industry 4.0 all the way from automation. So you'll see the robotics. You'll see the automated mobile robots. You will see the automated conveyors, the machine centers all of these things, as well as data flowing back and forth and analytics being displayed.

All these things were intended to be experienced because within our own factory and network; the expectation was that some of what we'll be trying to get to our sights would be new. And we wanted to make sure that individuals, especially plant leaders, would be able to come in and really feel and experience what good looks like.

At the same time, it was also a vision of our CEO as well as our CFO to use the space within Hartford, and Hartford was chosen as a location for a specific reason because we wanted to work with the city. We wanted to work with the state around making Hartford some central innovation hub for New England and hopefully the nation. So that's where this space came into being. And we had a grand opening in April of 2019. So it was always intended for us internally, but it was always intended for the public in a measured way to be able to come in and experience it.

And then finally, I'd probably say that in terms of what we're thinking going forward, we hope to get back into the space sometime soon. We hope to obviously reopen to manufacturers in the region. But then we also want to be able to utilize more of our partners as well, our technology partners, so that they too can show some of their solutions in the space as well.

TROND: It's so important, I think, to emphasize that technology...well, because of the danger in the shiny objects that you just addressed before that, it is precisely for that reason because when you have this experiential sense of what the technology can accomplish, and on the shop floor, there is so much of that right? Robots. It's very visual and tactile. You can clearly much more easily see how you could adopt it. So it sounds quite important to have a demo factory like that.

CARL: Absolutely

TROND: What do you think is the path forward? So you said you guys are engaging with a bunch of different actors that are not your obvious partners. You're engaging with SMEs in a deeper way than before. You have startup engagements but at a very early stage with the STANLEY+Techstars Accelerator. So you're engaging with organizations that are very different than the mothership. Why do you have such a distributed strategy?

CARL: So, I think a lot of this comes from the innovative culture that we live in. We recognize that innovation comes from many places, disparate sources. And we recognize that we won't know everything. We don't know everything. And especially when we're trying to break new ground, we need to be able to tap into all the resources that we can in order to do so and in a relatively efficient but also agile and quick way.

So a couple of years, probably also coinciding with the 2017 time period, we started working with a group called Techstars. And as some might know, Techstars is an international organization that basically incubates relatively new startups and helps them along the way. And there's some partial investment, generally, with the program. But our first round of investments in Techstars was companies that were focused on additive manufacturing.

The current round, which was just completed maybe a few weeks ago, a couple of weeks ago, had cohorts that were related to artificial intelligence, analytics mostly. And we had a couple of robotics ones in there as well, local robots, which all of this is really to ensure that we're able to keep our pulse on everything that's going on.

So to your earlier question about the shiny object, noticing the shiny object is not a bad thing because you have to keep your pulse on what's going on. And as people innovate and as more and more people enter the space and as more things are democratized and commoditized, you want to make sure that you're able to pull in what's needed at any given time.

So that's what we've been trying to do in different ways within our industry 4.0 program, specifically within our Techstars program. And then, we also have another group called Stanley Ventures, which also directly invests in some startups as well. So we're doing it on multiple fronts.

TROND: That's interesting. I wanted to get into the learning aspect. And maybe the humbling part here is both for you and I, and I'll speak for myself, but we're expected to both be experts on industry developments and then simultaneously be evangelists for the same, which is sort of to intermix roles in industry always. But it's complicated. How do you feel like you are able to stay on top of all these things?

Because it's one thing as a company, as Stanley, to have all these investments to have all these things available, theoretically, that you could pull from. But then, now as an individual, I just wanted to address how you, just to take that as an example, how do you engage? Because you and I are both engaged, and we're supposed to be those leaders. And we are building networks that we'll get into in a second that are helping us do that.

But how do you reflect around your own ability to cut this balance between looking at all the shiny objects, making sure you don't miss any of them, and then advising not only your company and implementing stuff but then also being an advisor to the general ecosystem about what is worth looking at and where are things in the maturity scale to keep everything kind of calibrated?

CARL: Yeah, and it can be difficult. And that's where we have to strike a balance. When we started off our program, we recognized that we couldn't build everything internally. So we had to rely on a robust partner ecosystem, probably having somewhere close to 30-plus different partners doing any one given thing at any one time. And then the learning that we got from that was that as a result of that, we were able to get further quicker. We were able to understand a little bit more about the space and what's truly revolutionary and what isn't.

And then we've recognized over time that we still have to have some portion of our time still spent evaluating what's new and coming out. We're able to do that because we are organized in a way to do that, and we have processes around that. And we have individuals who are more focused on innovation versus deployment. And we're probably able to do that because we're a larger company. And this is just how we're set up. Now, the concern that we have for manufacturing, in general, is that the majority of the space is made up of small to medium size enterprises, which don't have this luxury. They have very few individuals.

TROND: I mean, it's just not possible.

CARL: It's not possible for them to do it, which is why we've made the pivot and said to ourselves if we're trying to uplift the entire system, and as they say, a rising tide lifts all boats, right? If we're to uplift the entire manufacturing sector and manufacturing ecosystem, we need to focus on those who make up the majority of it, which is 95%-plus small to medium-sized enterprise.

And we can filter through some of the noise for them. And how we do that is provide a consolidated technology map against a framework so that they don't have to go through the filtering and figuring out what's good, what's not, how much is this going to be worth to me, et cetera. Because we've actually done some of that on our own. And then we just provide to them that based on where you are and your dimensions that you need to focus on, these are the four or five use cases for that specific dimension.

Now, let's talk through and filter. Let's cut to the chase here; how much will this be worth to you? What will be the return on your investment based on what this costs and based on what it will give back to you in terms of impact value? And I think being able to assist in that way I think is critical to getting everyone else a bit more involved in industry 4.0.

TROND: Yeah, and to that point, you and I are both engaged in...so one of those 30 partners, I'm assuming you would count the World Economic Forum as part of those. And you and I are both engaged in the advanced manufacturing platform there and a bunch of initiatives.

CARL: Absolutely.

TROND: We're not going to cover all of those, but there's one in particular that you and I are responsible for here in New England, which is the Advanced Manufacturing Hub, which is a global network of organizations which were the forum itself, which also started out with a centralized organization of the largest firms. So the likes of Stanley Black & Decker in all fields have realized a version of the same thing that you were saying that if the entire world of industry is going to really take up industry 4.0, they also need to work in a distributed way.

And these networks that we have joined in with...well, maybe you could just give your version. What do you think AMHUB New England is and should be doing? And what are some of the things you are excited about that we are starting to launch here? Because it's very new. It got picked up last year, launched under the worst [laughs] possible conditions during a pandemic. I mean, launch a social network during a pandemic, and you will realize what a tricky task is. But anyway, we're in year two. We're into it. There's still a pandemic, and we're doing some virtual events. What are you excited about? AMHUB New England, what is it to you?

CARL: I think the wonderful thing about the network is that we're not the first ones going at this. This is an ever-expanding network within the World Economic Forum. And everyone knows the World Economic Forum like you said, is a collection of all the leaders of the top companies. And then we're focused on the manufacturing space. So we're talking about the top manufacturers in the world coming together and trying to figure this out.

And the Advanced Manufacturing Hubs, I think we're probably close to 13 or so now in the network. It changes numbers every now and again, but we're not the first, and we've definitely had the opportunity to learn from some of our predecessors. We've had others in the U.S. that have been at this for a couple of years before we have that we're learning how they've integrated with public organizations, so integrated with the county and the state and non-profit institutions in the region to be able to go after their objectives. So that's one of the things that we're obviously trying to do: bring public organizations and get them involved along with the private.

We've also recognized, and I think we've had a passion within our own group here around upskilling. We recognize that this is a critical factor for enabling manufacturing in our region. We need to not only deploy and get new technologies, but we also need to upskill our workforce to meet the demands of these new technologies in our environment. So from my perspective, Trond, we have a lot of work to do.

We, fortunately, have a lot of manufacturers, most of them small, within the region who are interested who are enthusiastic about what the path ahead of us looks like. And I think within the next couple of months, or next few months, as we continue to engage that community, we will be able to provide them with more opportunities to upskill and get to where they need to be with respect to their workforce.

TROND: Yeah, and it's fascinating. I mean, you said the World Economic Forum has a bunch of related activities. But it's also true, and I just interviewed someone (That's a podcast episode that's actually coming out this morning.) who's on the panel that you are on, Michael Tamasi, as well so about manufacturing in New England. Because clearly, there's an established network and ecosystem here already we're building on. And this happens, I think, in all of the New England states and Connecticut, for sure. You and I have been engaging with some of the actors there. There are trade associations. There are state and federally-funded organizations like the MEP system and various other kinds of manufacturing networks.

So from my point of view, it's not substituting for all of this. It's just partnering with all of them and just trying to join the efforts that they're already doing but from the perspective of a global picture. So it's getting, hopefully, if we succeed, the best of breed essentially making sure that all of the activities that we are putting on make local sense here in New England, showcase New England, so there's a showcasing aspect of this, and we have a lot I think to be proud of.

I mean, there's Stanley Black & Decker, clearly a behemoth really in industrial tech and in the manufacturing sector worldwide, but there are a lot of other companies also startups contributing and making headway, and then we have a lot to learn.

I wanted to maybe just discuss for a second this event that we're putting on in June here on Israel meets New England. What do you think is the attraction of having two regions meet? So, in this case, it's Israeli startups. But in other events, we might bring in, like you said, the SIRI folks from Singapore who you're working with to measure progress and benchmark in the field, or we could collaborate with even with Michigan, which is another major, major U.S. manufacturing hub. Or it could be Italy or Spain and many of the other networks that exist worldwide. What do you think the attraction is to gain that kind of regional cohesion?

CARL: I think over time, we've recognized that gone are the days when we think innovation is restricted to a particular country or a region or anything like that. I think we're very much aligned on the fact that technology and innovation in the industry 4.0 space is not restricted. So it makes sense that when we think about sharing of best practices that, we go all over the world, and that's part of the reason why if you think about the World Economic Forum, it has a global network of advanced manufacturing hubs.

Each hub may focus a little bit differently on slightly different topics. Some will overlap, but they are also tapping into the expertise and the ideas from their local regions with the intent that we will go across regions and share with each other.

So this upcoming event, I think, is a wonderful one sponsored by the Advanced Manufacturing Hub here in that it's allowing us to see a couple of...or have a conversation with a couple of innovators from another region, and in this situation, it's Israel. But in the future, we will use other regions as well to bring them in, hear a little bit more about what they've been working on, what has been important in their region, which might be slightly different from us, and then have a bit of discourse between us around what the future holds for technology and innovation in general.

TROND: Well, let me profit from that segue into the future. What is next for you in the digital factory? And what does the next decade look like for you in terms of, I guess, your own business-connected industrial tools, perhaps? You're very, very engaged with the networks and the maker movement. And broadly, your thoughts in industrial tech and where that's heading, and maybe even some comment on this upskilling challenge that you mentioned, I mean, what will happen to all of these things?

It's a mixed bag of challenges that they're all somewhat related. You can't have progress in technology without the skilled labor force and all that stuff, and somewhat dependent on technology development. But what do you see happening here? Are we entering at least at the very least a decade where manufacturing will leap forward somewhat faster than it has done before? Will it start to change this impression that manufacturing is hard and difficult and we're dealing with a slow-moving kind of system? Or do you see that that's going to still be the case?

CARL: I'm quite optimistic. I think based on what I've seen at least in the past three years, I think, the way that manufacturing has moved, it gives me optimism that there will be a significant leap in what we're doing going forward. It took a little bit of time, as I said, from 2011 till about maybe 2016-2017, for people to start to really gain a certain amount of interest and get past a bit of skepticism.

At this point, there are enough proven use cases across the board that individual companies and individuals recognize that this is not just a shiny new object or fly-by-night use case. These are things that are here to stay and will be critical to business going forward. So I think as a result of that, first of all, there will be quite a bit of acceleration of efforts.

The second thing is we decry the pandemic and its effects and everything else. But I have to say that there are certain mindsets that have been shifted as a result of the experience. There's more of a need and interest around being able to monitor your remote operations. So now people are more interested in connectivity than there were before. They're more interested in insights and analytics than they were before. Because now they can't necessarily be by the machine, by the production process, by the production line 24/7 or 24 hours a day. But instead, they can benefit from all of these technologies that will allow them to get the most out of their equipment.

They also recognize how important the workforce is. We always decry automation has taken away jobs, but I'll say no; in fact, the studies that have been done show that those who lead in innovation actually also have an uptick in workforce of some 50% instead of the opposite, which is what the myth would typically tell you. So all of these things coming together, I think, will help us move forward quicker going forward.

And then the third piece that I will mention finally is around upskilling going forward. It's absolutely critical that we upskill our workforce. In the U.S. for many years, and we've seen the charts and the data around the amount of retiring workers in the manufacturing sector, so we have a lot of skills and knowledge that will be leaving manufacturing and have already left.

So to replace those individuals, we need individuals of the younger demographic who will, one, come in with knowledge of processes. But the ones that are coming in they're not interested in our grandfather's factory. They're more interested in what can I do differently in this space with the use of technology and innovation to do twice as much work in half as much time? Which is a good thing. We want them to come in with that mindset. And I think with the advancements in technologies; we will be able to do that.

But what would be critical is to be able to upskill them, give them the right skill sets around these technologies, around the production processes as well as there's going to be a tremendous amount of marketing and PR to get folks interested in manufacturing. Because manufacturing is a very exciting sector. It's buzzing, and it actually has quite a lot of open jobs, frankly, that need to be filled, but we need to upskill individuals to fill those jobs.

TROND: You have just listened to Episode 27 of the Augmented Podcast with host Trond Arne Undheim. The topic was Industry 4.0 Tools and Analytics. Our guest is Carl B. March, Director of Industry 4.0 at Stanley Black & Decker. In this conversation, we talked about what industry 4.0 means, the importance of upskilling the entire manufacturing industry, and the lessons from Stanley Black & Decker's digital transformation journey.

My takeaway is that industry 4.0 requires a mindset shift, not just technology adoption. It's not just about you, whether you, in this case, is a big company or a top leader; rather, it is about bringing people, partners, SMEs, and the entire ecosystem along. To do so, openness to learn, having a strategic roadmap so not chase all shiny objects and investing in lighthouse factories that can illuminate the possibilities are each important ingredients.

Thanks for listening. If you liked the show, subscribe at augmentedpodcast.co or in your preferred podcast player, and rate us with five stars. If you liked this episode, you might also like Episode 20: The Digitalization of Körber, Episode 14: Bottom-up and Deep Digitization of Operations, and Episode 9: The Fourth Industrial Revolution post-COVID-19.

Augmented — upskilling the workforce for industry 4.0 frontline operations.

Special Guest: Carl B. March.

•  Sarah Boisvert https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-boisvert-3a965031/ 
• The New Collar Network (@NewCollarNetwrk): http://newcollarnetwork.com/
• Fab Lab Hub (@FabLabHub): http://fablabhub.org/

Augmented is a podcast for leaders in the manufacturing industry hosted by futurist Trond Arne Undheim, presented by Tulip.co, the manufacturing app platform, and associated with MFG.works, the open learning community launched at the World Economic Forum. Our intro and outro music is The Arrival by Evgeny Bardyuzha (@evgenybardyuzha), licensed by @Art_list_io.

Thanks for listening. If you liked the show, subscribe at Augmentedpodcast.co or in your preferred podcast player, and rate us with five stars on Apple Podcasts. To nominate guests, to suggest exciting episode topics or give feedback, follow us on LinkedIn, looking out for live episodes, message us on Twitter @augmentedpod or our website's contact form. If you liked this episode, you might also like episode 3: How to Train Augmented Workers. Augmented--the industry 4.0 podcast.

Transcript:

TROND: Augmented reveals the stories behind the new era of industrial operations, where technology will restore the agility of frontline workers. Technology is changing rapidly. What's next in the digital factory? Who's leading the change, and what are the key skills to learn? How to stay up to date on manufacturing and industry 4.0.

Augmented is a podcast for leaders in the manufacturing industry, hosted by futurist Trond Arne Undheim, presented by Tulip.co, the manufacturing app platform, and associated with MFG.works, that is M-F-G.works, the open learning community launched at the World Economic Forum. Each episode dives deep into a contemporary topic of concern across the industry and airs at 9:00 a.m. U.S. Eastern, every Wednesday. Augmented — the industry 4.0 podcast.

In episode 3 of the podcast, the topic is Reimagining Workforce Training. Our guest is Sarah Boisvert, Founder and CEO of Fab Lab Hub and the non-profit New Collar Network. In this conversation, we talk about reimagining workforce training, industry 4.0, and what do you mean by new collar jobs? Fab Labs, what skills are needed? How can they be taught? How can the credentials be recognized? What has the impact been, and where do we go from here?

Sarah, how are you doing today?

SARAH: I'm doing well. How are you?

TROND: I'm doing fine. I'm excited to talk about reimagining workforce training, which seems to be an issue on your mind, Sarah. You are a founder yourself. You have been actively involved in advanced manufacturing. I understand part of your story is that your company manufactured and sold the Lasik eye surgery back in 1999. So you've been involved in manufacturing for a while. We're here to talk about something very exciting. You say new-collar jobs is the big focus. I know you didn't invent the term. Can you give me a sense of what new-collar jobs refers to, first of all?

SARAH: Sure. It is a term that was coined by Ginni Rometty, who was then the CEO of IBM. She's now the executive chair. And it refers to blue-collar jobs that have now become digital. And so many of our jobs...if you just think about your UPS man who now everything's not on paper, it's all in a handheld tool that he takes around on his deliveries. And all jobs are becoming digital. And so I thought that Ginny's term encapsulated exactly what's happening, and the technologies that we used to use just in manufacturing are now ubiquitous across industries.

TROND: You have also been instrumental in the MIT spinout project called Fab Labs. Just give us a quick sense, Sarah; what are Fab Labs? Not everybody is aware of this.

SARAH: Fab Labs are workshops and studios that incorporate many different kinds of digital fabrication. So we are taking the ones and zeros, the bits of CAD designs, and turning them into things that you can hold in your hand. And it covers topics like 3D printing, and laser cutting, and CNC machining. But Neil Gershenfeld, who founded the international Fab Lab Network, likes to say the power of digital fabrication is social, not technical.

TROND: You know, this brings me to my next question, what skills are needed? So when we talk about new-collar jobs and the skills and the workforce training, what exact skills is it that we need to now be more aware of? So you talked about some of them. I guess digital fabrication, broadly, is another. Can you go a little bit more into what kind of skills you have been involved in training people for?

SARAH: Well, when I first started this project, I had always been interested in workforce training, obviously, because I had a manufacturing company, and I needed to hire people. And we had worked with the community college near our factory to develop a two-year curriculum for digital manufacturing. But I had in mind exactly what I needed for my own company and the kinds of skills that I was looking for.

And so a lot of Fab Labs, because we have about 2,000 Fab Labs around the world, heard about this program and started asking me, "Could you make a curriculum for us?" And there were so many of them that I thought I needed to come up with something that is going to fit most of the Fab Labs.

And so I interviewed 200 manufacturers in all kinds of industries and from startups to Fortune 10 and so companies like GE, and Boeing, and Apple, and Ford, as well as companies in the medical device space. What they all told me they wanted was...the number one skill they were looking for was problem-solving. And that's even more important today because we're getting all these new technologies, and you haven't got some guy in the back of the machine shop who has done this before. And we're getting machines that are being built that have never been built before. And it's a whole new space.

And the second thing they were looking for was hands-on skills. And I was particularly looking at operators and technicians. They were also looking for technical skills like CAD design, AI. Predictive analytics was probably the number one skill that the international manufacturers' CEOs were looking for. And I got done, and I thought, well, this is all the stuff we do in Fab Labs. This is exactly what we do. We teach people how to solve problems.

And so many of our labs, particularly in places like Asia or Africa where there was tremendous need and not enough resources, necessity is the mother of invention. And so many of our Fab Labs invent amazing things to help their communities. And I thought, well, we don't need a two-year curriculum because the need for the employers was so extreme. I thought we need something more like what we do in Fab Labs.

TROND: And how can these skills be taught? What are the methodologies that you're using to teach these skills that aren't necessarily, you know, you don't need to go to university, as you pointed out, for them? But they have to be taught somehow. What are the methods you're using?

SARAH: Well, I did a lot of research trying to nail that down when I got done figuring out what it was people needed in the factories. And it seemed like digital badges were the fastest, easiest, most affordable way to certify the ability of a badge earner to work with a particular skill set. And they were developed by IBM and Mozilla probably decades ago now and are used by many organizations to verify skills.

And it's a credential that is portable and that you can put on your digital resume and verify. There is an underlying standard that you have to adhere to; an international standards body monitors it. And there's a certain level of certainty that the person who says they have the skill actually has it.

TROND: That's a good point because, in this modern day and age, a lot of people can say that they have gone through some sort of training, and it's hard to verify. So these things are also called micro certifications. How recent is this idea to certify a skill in that digital way?

SARAH: I think that these particular badges have been around for decades, and people like Cisco, and IBM, and Autodesk have been using them for quite a long time, as well as many colleges, including Michigan State, is one that comes to mind that has a big program. And they can be stacked into a credential or into a higher-level course. So we stack our badges, for example, into a master badge.

And that combines a number of skills into something that allows someone to have a job description kind of certification. So, for example, our badges will combine into a master badge for an operator. And so it's not just someone who knows CAD. They know CAD. They know how to run a machine. They know how to troubleshoot a machine.

TROND: So we touched a little bit on how these things can be taught. But is this a very practical type of teaching that you are engaged in? I mean, Fab Labs, so they are physically present, or was that kind of in the old, pre-COVID era?

SARAH: Well, yes, we were typically physically present with COVID. This past summer, I spent a lot of time piloting more online programs. And so, for our design classes, we can still have people online. And our interns 3D-print their designs, and then they can look at them via photography or video, if it's a functional design, and see how the design needs to be iterated to the next step. Because, as you know, it never comes out right the first time; it takes a number of iterations before it works.

And we just recently, this week, actually completed an agreement with MatterHackers, who are a distributor of tabletop 3D printers, to bundle their 3D printers with our badges. And so someone can then have a printer at home. And so, if you have a family and you're trying to educate a number of children, it's actually a pretty economical proposition.

And they offer two printers that are under $1,000 for people who are, for example, wanting to upskill and change careers. They also offer the Ultimaker 3D printer that we use pretty heavily in our lab. And it's a higher level with added expense. But if you're looking at a career change, it's certainly cheaper than going back to college [laughs] instead.

TROND: So I'm curious about the impact. I know that you started out this endeavor interviewing some 200 U.S. manufacturers to see that there was...I think you told me there was like a paradigm shift needed really to bring back well-paying, engaging manufacturing careers back to middle-class Americans. And that's again, I guess, pointing to this new-collar workforce. What has the impact been?

I mean, I'm sitting here, and I see you have the book, too, but you generously gave me this. So I've been browsing some of the impacts and some of the description of what you have been achieving over the past few years. What has the impact been? How many people have you been able to train? And what happened to the people who were trained?

SARAH: We've only been doing it a couple of years. And in our pilot, we probably have trained 2,3,400 people, something on that. And it's been a mix of people who come to us. Because we teach project-based learning, we can have classes that have varying levels of experience. So we have people who are PhDs from the Los Alamos National Lab who drive the 45 minutes over to us, and they're typically upskilling. They're typically engineers who went to school before 3D printing was in the curriculum. And they are adding that to their existing work.

But we get such a wide range of people from artists. We're an artist colony here. And we get jewelers, and sculptors, and a wide range of people who have never done anything technical but are looking to automate their processes. And so my necklace is the Taos Pueblo. And it was designed by a woman...and her story is in the book.

So I should add that the book you're referring to has augmented reality links to the stories of people. And she just was determined. She, I think, has never graduated from high school and is an immigrant to the United States. And she just was determined to learn this. And she worked with us, and now she designs in CAD, and we 3D-print the molds. And her husband has a casting company, and then he has it cast in sterling.

TROND: I find that fascinating, Sarah because you said...so it goes from people who haven't completed high school to kind of not so recent PhDs. That is a fascinating range. And it brings, I guess, this idea of the difficulty level of contemporary technologies isn't necessarily what it was years ago. It's not like these technologies take years to learn, necessarily at the level where you can actually apply them in your hobbies or in the workplace.

Why is that, do you think? Have we gotten better at developing technologies? Or have companies gotten better to tweak them, or have we gotten faster at learning them? Or is the discrepancy...like, this could be surprising for a lot of people that it's not that hard to take a course and apply it right afterwards.

SARAH: Learning anything comes down to are you interested? It comes down to your level of motivation and determination. A couple of things, I think the programs, the technical programs, and the machines have become much easier. When I started in the laser business, every time that I wanted to make a hole, I would have to redesign the optical train. And so I'd have to do all the math, so I'd have to do all the advanced math. I would have to put it together on my bench, and hopefully, it worked, and tweak it until I got the size hole I needed in the material I needed.

Today, there's autofocus. It's just like your camera. You press a button; you dial in the size hole you want, and away you go. And it's interesting because many of the newer employees at our company Potomac Photonics really don't have the technical understanding that I developed because they just press the button. But it moves much faster, and we have more throughput; we have a greater consistency. So the machines have definitely improved tremendously in recent years.

But I also think that people are more used to dealing with technology. It's very rare to run into somebody who doesn't have email or somebody who isn't surfing the web to find information. And for the young people, they're digital natives. So they don't even know what it's like not to have a digital option. I think that a number of things have come together to make that feasible.

TROND: Sarah, let me ask you then this hard question. I mean, it's a big promise to say that you can save the middle class essentially. Is it that easy? Is it just taking one or two courses with this kind of Fab Lab-type approach, and you're all set? Can you literally take someone who feels...or maybe are laid off or feels at least not skilled really for the jobs they had, the jobs they want, and you can really turn them into highly employable in a matter of one course? Has that really happened?

SARAH: In one course or one digital badge, it is possible to get some jobs, but it probably takes a combination of courses in order to have the right skill set because it's typically not one skill you need. It's typically a combination of skills. So to run the 3D printers, for example, you need CAD design. You need to understand design for 3D printing. And then you have to understand how to run the machines and fix them when they break.

So it's probably still a more focused and condensed process. So you could do our master badge, which comprises five or six badges, and get a job in six months for about $2,000. With one class, you could get a job part-time and continue the other badges and be paying for school while you're working in a field that is paying a substantial increase over working at McDonald's.

TROND: So give me a sense. So this is happening, in your case, in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Where do we go from here? Is this going on anywhere else? What are the numbers? How many people are being trained this way? How many people could be trained this way? How easy is the approach you're taking to integrate and scale up? And is it happening anywhere else?

SARAH: Our non-profit, which is the organization that issues the badges, has, right now, I think, 12 or 13 members, and they were part of our pilot, and they are all over the country. So in my team, Lemelson, the Fab Lab in El Paso, the Fab Lab in Tulsa, MakerspaceCT in Hartford, Connecticut.

And so we have a group that just started this year was when I started the scaling after, I was really pretty confident that it was going to work. If it worked in Santa Fe, which is a small town and in a very rural, very poor state, I really thought if I could make it work here, we could make it work anywhere because there are a lot of challenges in our state.

So we started scaling this year, and each of our pilot sites is probably putting through their first cohort of 4, 5, or 6 badges, and they each have about 10 in that first cohort. We have a lot of requests for people to join our group and start issuing the badges. I've really come to see the success of our online program. And so, our online program is instructor-led at this point. And I'm working to create a self-directed program that people could do online with a tabletop printer at home. But we will still continue to scale the New Collar Network that actually disseminates the badges.

And I really see enormous interest. As you know, college enrollment has been declining for the last ten years. There has been an 11% decline in college enrollment. And people are looking for alternatives. And I think that I've had requests from school systems. I had a request from a school system back East that has 45,000 students that they want to get badges. We have had a request from a school system in the Midwest where they get a lot of teachers who are getting 3D printers, and they don't know what to do with them. And they'd like for us to train the teachers.

So I really see a huge opportunity. And these tools that we're using are not just being used in manufacturing. One of the people that we worked with on the HR side in research was Walmart. And their big worry is now they're putting in these janitorial robots. And their big dilemma is who's going to program them, and who is going to fix the robots when they're not working? And it's everywhere. It's not just am I going to get a job at that manufacturing company? It's also your local retail store.

TROND: Fantastic. This is very inspiring. I thank you so much for sharing this with us. And I hope that others are listening to this and either join a course like that or get engaged in the Fab Lab type Network and start training others. So thanks again for sharing this.

SARAH: Oh, it's a pleasure. It's a real mission, I think. [laughs]

TROND: Sounds like it. Have a wonderful rest of your day.

SARAH: Thank you.

TROND: You have just listened to Episode 3 of the Augmented Podcast with host Trond Arne Undheim. The topic was Reimagining Workforce Training. Our guest was Sarah Boisvert, Founder, and CEO of Fab Lab Hub and the non-profit New Collar Network.

In this conversation, we talked about reimagining workforce training, industry 4.0, and what you mean by new-collar jobs and Fab Labs; what skills are needed? How can they be taught, and how can the credentials be recognized? What has the impact been, and where do we go from here?

My takeaway is that reimagining workforce training is more needed than ever before. The good news is that training new generations of workers might be simpler than it seems. Practical skills in robotics, 3D scanning, digital fabrication, even AR and VR can be taught through experiential learning in weeks and months, not in years. Micro certifications can be given out electronically, and the impact on workers' lives can be profound. Thanks for listening.

If you liked the show, subscribe at augmentedpodcast.co or in your preferred podcast player, and rate us with five stars. Augmented — the industry 4.0 podcast.

Special Guest: Sarah Boisvert.

Augmented reveals the stories behind the new era of industrial operations, where technology will restore the agility of frontline workers. Technology is changing rapidly. What’s next in the digital factory? Who is leading the change? What are the key skills to learn and how to stay up to date on manufacturing and industry 4.0? Augmented is a podcast for industrial leaders, process engineers, and shop floor operators, hosted by futurist Trond Arne Undheim, and presented by Tulip, the frontline operations platform.

Trond's takeaway: It has long been the thinking that government-sponsored workforce development is the only way to stimulate, learning, and training at scale. However, that may in fact not be the case and may at times have the adverse consequence that businesses don't invest themselves. But focused funding and initiatives do help and the CT innovation corridor seems well thought out and will presumably revitalize an important area around Hartford, which is much needed.

Thanks for listening. If you like the show, subscribe at Augmented podcast.com or your preferred podcast, and rate us with five stars. If you liked this episode, you might also like Episode #62: Manufacturing Excellence in Michigan. Hopefully, you'll find something awesome in this show or in other episodes. Please, if you do let us know by messaging us. We would love to share your thoughts with other listeners.

The Augmented podcast is created in association with Tulip, the connected frontline operations platform that connects the people, machines, devices, and the systems used in a production or logistics process in a physical location. Tulip is democratizing technology and empowering those closest to operations to solve problems. Tulip is also hiring. You can find Tulip at Tulip.co. Please share this show with colleagues who care about where industrial tech is heading.

To find us on social media is easy, we are Augmented Pod on LinkedIn and Twitter, and Augmented Podcast on Facebook and YouTube:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/augmentedpod
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AugmentedPodcast/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AugmentedPod
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5Y1gz66LxYvjJAMnN_f6PQ

See you next time. Augmented--industrial conversations that matter.

Special Guest: Marty Guay.

Augmented reveals the stories behind the new era of industrial operations, where technology will restore the agility of frontline workers. Technology is changing rapidly. What’s next in the digital factory? Who is leading the change? What are the key skills to learn and how to stay up to date on manufacturing and industry 4.0? Augmented is a podcast for industrial leaders, process engineers, and shop floor operators, hosted by futurist Trond Arne Undheim (@trondau), and presented by Tulip, the frontline operations platform.

Trond's takeaway: Life sciences are challenging: the traditional paradigm of industrial techniques. Bio-manufacturing in particular poses challenges to many existing systems. As such, the industry's work with ISP's pharma 4.0 initiative is bearing fruit. However, the dialogue with regulatory authorities still seems to be one the industry is trying to educate governments on. Nevertheless, once governments get it and are willing to adapt regulations, we might see even more rapid advances given the importance and scope of the new manufacturing techniques that are opening up and await regulatory approval.

Thanks for listening. If you liked the show, subscribe at Augmented podcast.co or in your preferred podcast app and rate us with five stars. If you liked this episode, you might also like episode 31 Pharma 4.0 with Michelle Vuolo, who is a quality practice leader.

The Augmented podcast is created in association with Tulip, the connected frontline operations platform that connects the people, machines, devices, and the systems used in a production or logistics process in a physical location. Tulip is democratizing technology and empowering those closest to operations to solve problems. Tulip is also hiring. You can find Tulip at Tulip.co. Please share this show with colleagues who care about where industrial tech is heading.

To find us on social media is easy, we are Augmented Pod on LinkedIn and Twitter, and Augmented Podcast on Facebook and YouTube:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/augmentedpod
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AugmentedPodcast/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AugmentedPod
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5Y1gz66LxYvjJAMnN_f6PQ

See you next time. Augmented--industrial conversations that matter.

Special Guest: Dr. Gilad Langer.

Augmented reveals the stories behind the new era of industrial operations, where technology will restore the agility of frontline workers. Technology is changing rapidly. What’s next in the digital factory? Who is leading the change? What are the key skills to learn? How to stay up to date on manufacturing and industry 4.0? Augmented is a podcast for industrial leaders, process engineers, and shop floor operators, hosted by futurist Trond Arne Undheim (@trondau), and presented by Tulip, the frontline operations platform (@tulipinterfaces).

Trond's takeaway: Business process intelligence is the "why" of technology. Because smoother operations are where the value of technology is realized. The future outlook for low code in industrial operations is bright because it has the potential to streamline workflows in manufacturing and logistics. However, it is important to keep in mind that to leverage automation to do better decisions, and not just to squeeze out more with less--that starts with keeping in mind what the real problem is and steering with that in mind. If you don't know, figure out the problem and then invest in the process and if technology gets you there, invest.

Thanks for listening. If you liked the show, subscribe at Augmented podcast.co or in your preferred podcast player and rate us with five stars. And if you liked this episode, you might also like episode 73 The Challenge of Front Line Operations. Hopefully, you'll find something awesome in these or in other episodes.

And if so, do let us know by messaging us because we would love to share your thoughts with other listeners. The Augmented podcast is created in association with Tulip, the connected frontline operations platform that connects the people, machines, devices, and the systems used in a production or logistics process in a physical location. Tulip is democratizing technology and empowering those closest to operations to solve problems. Tulip is also hiring. You can find Tulip at Tulip.co. Please share this show with colleagues who care about where industrial tech is heading.

To find us on social media is easy, we are Augmented Pod on LinkedIn and Twitter, and Augmented Podcast on Facebook and YouTube:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/augmentedpod
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AugmentedPodcast/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AugmentedPod
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5Y1gz66LxYvjJAMnN_f6PQ

See you next time. Augmented--industrial conversations that matter.

Special Guest: Prabhjot Singh.

Augmented reveals the stories behind the new era of industrial operations, where technology will restore the agility of frontline workers. Technology is changing rapidly. What’s next in the digital factory? Who is leading the change? What are the key skills to learn and how to stay up to date on manufacturing and industry 4.0? Augmented is a podcast for industrial leaders, process engineers, and shop floor operators, hosted by futurist Trond Arne Undheim (@trondau), and presented by Tulip, the frontline operations platform.

Trond's takeaway: Training is crucial to contemporary manufacturing, though not in the way we usually think. Employees must train people all the time, which brings us to question, what if the technologies and the user interfaces were simplified.

The Augmented podcast is created in association with Tulip, the frontline operations platform that connects the people, machines, devices, and systems used in a production or logistics process in a physical location. Tulip is democratizing technology and empowering those closest to operations to solve problems. Tulip is also hiring. You can find Tulip at Tulip.co
If you liked this episode, you might also like episode 3 Reimagine Training, episode 46 Manufacturing Training in Massachusetts, or episode 2 How to Train Augmented Workers.

Please share this show with colleagues who care about where industrial tech is heading.

To find us on social media is easy, we are Augmented Pod on LinkedIn and Twitter, and Augmented Podcast on Facebook and YouTube:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/augmentedpod
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AugmentedPodcast/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AugmentedPod
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5Y1gz66LxYvjJAMnN_f6PQ

See you next time. Augmented--industrial conversations that matter.

Special Guest: Dr. John Klaess.

Augmented reveals the stories behind the new era of industrial operations, where technology will restore the agility of frontline workers. Technology is changing rapidly. What’s next in the digital factory? Who is leading the change? What are the key skills to learn and how to stay up to date on manufacturing and industry 4.0? Augmented is a podcast for industrial leaders, process engineers, and shop floor operators, hosted by futurist Trond Arne Undheim (@trondau), presented by Tulip Interfaces (@tulipinterfaces), the frontline operations platform.

Trond's takeaway: The manufacturing software market is rapidly evolving. Is there hope that we can get the industry weaned off legacy technology with poor interoperability, horrible user interfaces? Which as a result, requires hours and hours of training only not to work very well at all.

The Augmented podcast is created in association with Tulip, the frontline operations platform that connects the people, machines, devices, and the systems used in a production or logistics process in a physical location. Tulip is democratizing technology and empowering those closest to operations to solve problems. Tulip is also hiring. You can find Tulip at Tulip.co.

Please share this show with colleagues who care about where industrial tech is heading.

To find us on social media is easy, we are Augmented Pod on LinkedIn and Twitter, and Augmented Podcast on Facebook and YouTube:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/augmentedpod
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AugmentedPodcast/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AugmentedPod
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5Y1gz66LxYvjJAMnN_f6PQ

See you next time. Augmented--industrial conversations that matter.

Special Guest: Ralph Verrilli.

The Augmented podcast is created in association with Tulip, the connected frontline operations platform that connects the people, machines, devices, and the systems used in a production or logistics process in a physical location. Tulip is democratizing technology and empowering those closest to operations to solve problems. Tulip is also hiring. You can find Tulip at Tulip.co.

Please share this show with colleagues who care about where industrial tech is heading. 

To find us on social media is easy, we are Augmented Pod on LinkedIn and Twitter, and Augmented Podcast on Facebook and YouTube:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/augmentedpod
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AugmentedPodcast/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/AugmentedPod

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5Y1gz66LxYvjJAMnN_f6PQ

See you next time. Augmented--industrial conversations that matter. 

Special Guest: Laila Partridge.

In this conversation, we talk about the following: What is frontline operations? What are the specific needs industrial companies have when they want to digitize their operations? What are some key Tulip use cases? What will industrial operations look like over the next decade?

Trond's takeaway: Frontline operations is an increasingly crucial business function whereby a function that previously was considered back office or lower priority, that of the industrial worker, receives increased attention. When the frontline gets digitally augmented and managerially supported, workers feel empowered just like white collar knowledge workers with desks. Connecting machines to serve people, simplifying technology implementation, operators can carry the key task of uniting industrial production with consumption needs. Over time, this might eradicate inefficiencies in the supply chain. This development will not only shape industrial operations over the next decade, in some companies, it is already in place.

Thanks for listening. If you liked the show, subscribe at Augmentedpodcast.co or in your preferred podcast player, and rate us with five stars. If you liked this episode, you might also like episode 50, The Last Mile of Productivity, episode 49, Lean manufacturing in the USA, and episode 41, Scaling Software Movements. Hopefully, you'll find something awesome in these or other episodes. If so, do let us know by messaging us, we would love to share your thoughts with other listeners.

The Augmented podcast is created in association with Tulip, connected frontline operations platform that connects the people, machines, devices, and the systems used in a production or logistics process in a physical location. Tulip is democratizing technology and empowering those closest to operations to solve problems. Tulip is also hiring. You can find Tulip at Tulip.co.

Please share this show with colleagues who care about where industry and especially industrial tech is heading. To find us on social media is easy, we are Augmented Pod on LinkedIn and Twitter, and Augmented Podcast on Facebook and YouTube:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/augmentedpod
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AugmentedPodcast/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AugmentedPod
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5Y1gz66LxYvjJAMnN_f6PQ

Augmented--industrial conversations that matter. See you next time.

Special Guest: Jason Dietrich.

Augmented reveals the stories behind the new era of industrial operations, where technology will restore the agility of frontline workers. Technology is changing rapidly. What’s next in the digital factory? Who is leading the change? What are the key skills to learn? How to stay up to date on manufacturing and industry 4.0? Augmented is a podcast for industrial leaders, process engineers and shop floor operators, hosted by futurist Trond Arne Undheim (@trondau), presented by Tulip (@tulipinterfaces), the frontline operations platform.

Trond's takeaway: The challenge of developing a credible yet effective marketing mindset is not unique to manufacturing, but it may be unusually underutilized in this sector. Industrial products and services are notoriously lagging behind the consumer market in terms of the sophistication of its communication, messaging, and use of social media. As industry seeks increasing relevance in people's life, or even seeks to recruit new talent from younger generations, that needs to change. Luckily, there are tools and practices to learn from and they are not rocket science, but take a willingness to commit.

Thanks for listening. If you liked the show, subscribe at Augmentedpodcast.co or in your preferred podcast player, and rate us with five stars. If you liked this episode, you might also like episode 18, Transforming Foundational Industries, episode 46, Manufacturing Training in Massachusetts, or episode 53, Manufacturing Millennials . Hopefully, you'll find something awesome in these or other episodes. If so, do let us know by messaging us, we would love to share your thoughts with other listeners.

The Augmented podcast is created in association with Tulip, connected frontline operations platform that connects the people, machines, devices, and the systems used in a production or logistics process in a physical location. Tulip is democratizing technology and empowering those closest to operations to solve problems. Tulip is also hiring. You can find Tulip at Tulip.co.

Please share this show with colleagues who care about where industry and especially industrial tech is heading. To find us on social media is easy, we are Augmented Pod on LinkedIn and Twitter, and Augmented Podcast on Facebook and YouTube:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/augmentedpod

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AugmentedPodcast/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AugmentedPod

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5Y1gz66LxYvjJAMnN_f6PQ

Augmented--industrial conversations that matter. See you next time.

Special Guest: Joe Sullivan.

Please share this show with colleagues who care about where industry and especially industrial tech is heading. To find us on social media is easy, we are Augmented Pod on LinkedIn and Twitter, and Augmented Podcast on Facebook and YouTube:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/augmentedpod
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AugmentedPodcast/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/AugmentedPod
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5Y1gz66LxYvjJAMnN_f6PQ

Augmented--industrial conversations that matter. See you next time. 

Special Guest: Andy Burton.

Trond's takeaway:

The Medical Device Industry is not the easiest industry to innovate within. Regulatory constraints, the complexity of managing software and hardware together, and staying on top of the logistical intricacies of the health care market, all of that complicates things. No Digital Lean journey is easy, but the fact that Outset Medical managed to build a greenfield factory in Tijuana, Mexico, with a bottom-up approach to process improvement through no-code apps that empower their workers, is an inspiring story.

Thanks for listening. If you liked the show, subscribe at Augmentedpodcast.co or in your preferred podcast player, and rate us with five stars. If you liked this episode, you might also like episode 50, The Last Mile of Productivity, episode 33, Sustainable Manufacturing at Scale, or episode 63, Digitizing Medical Device Operations. Hopefully, you'll find something awesome in these or other episodes. If so, do let us know by messaging us, we would love to share your thoughts with other listeners. 

The Augmented podcast is created in association with Tulip, connected frontline operations platform that connects the people, machines, devices, and the systems used in a production or logistics process in a physical location. Tulip is democratizing technology and empowering those closest to operations to solve problems. Tulip is also hiring. You can find Tulip at Tulip.co. 

Please share this show with colleagues who care about where industry and especially industrial tech is heading. To find us on social media is easy, we are Augmented Pod on LinkedIn and Twitter, and Augmented Podcast on Facebook and YouTube:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/augmentedpod
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AugmentedPodcast/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/AugmentedPod
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5Y1gz66LxYvjJAMnN_f6PQ

Augmented--industrial conversations that matter. See you next time. 

Special Guest: Marc Nash.

Trond's takeaway: So much of what determines success with the rollout of technology in manufacturing has to do with simplification. You aim to simplify, you make the process simple, and you choose simple apps to start with. The end result is a simpler work process which makes you more efficient. If any of those steps are complex, you risk adding further complexity to an already messy reality of complicated supply chains, work processes, and workforce challenges. That's why customization of industry 4.0 approaches heavily depends on people who lead with clarity.

Thanks for listening. If you liked the show, subscribe at Augmentedpodcast.co or in your preferred podcast player, and rate us with five stars. If you liked this episode, you might also like episode 36, Digital Lean, episode 29, The Automated Microfactory or episode 8, Productizing Quality. Hopefully, you'll find something awesome in these or other episodes. If so, do let us know by messaging us, we would love to share your thoughts with other listeners. 

The Augmented podcast is created in association with Tulip, connected frontline operations platform that connects the people, machines, devices, and the systems used in a production or logistics process i n a physical location. Tulip is democratizing technology and empowering those closest to operations to solve problems. Tulip is also hiring. You can find Tulip at Tulip.co. 

Please share this show with colleagues who care about where industry and especially industrial tech is heading. To find us on social media is easy, we are Augmented Pod on LinkedIn and Twitter, and Augmented Podcast on Facebook and YouTube:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/augmentedpod
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AugmentedPodcast/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/AugmentedPod
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5Y1gz66LxYvjJAMnN_f6PQ

See you next time. 

Special Guest: Dan Ron.

In this conversation, we talk about a new Ericsson report on how 5G Enables Manufacturing (Ericsson Industry Lab). We explore some surprising findings, discuss industry trends, as well as the current and future use cases as wireless networks take another step towards being trusted on the shop floor and they muse on the ultimate impact of 5G.  

Augmented is a podcast for industrial leaders, process engineers and shop floor operators, hosted by futurist Trond Arne Undheim (@trondau), presented by Tulip (@tulipinterfaces), the frontline operations platform.

Trond's takeaway:

5G isn't just another generation wireless networks, it is a game changer for trust, reliability, and industrial performance at the edge, that last mile which fixed broadband has struggled with. What remains to be seen is how widespread the rollout will be and, of course, how innovative industry will be in making use of the new network.

Thanks for listening. If you liked the show, subscribe at Augmentedpodcast.co or in your preferred podcast player, and rate us with five stars. If you liked this episode, you might also like episode 44, No-code for IoT in the Cloud, episode 21, The Future of Digital in Manufacturing or episode 25, Industrial Tracking: Drones, Warehouses and Theme Parks. Hopefully, you'll find something awesome in these or other episodes. If so, do let us know by messaging us, we would love to share your thoughts with other listeners. 

The Augmented podcast is created in association with Tulip, connected frontline operations platform that connects the people, machines, devices, and the systems used in a production or logistics process in a physical location. Tulip is democratizing technology and empowering those closest to operations to solve problems. Tulip is also hiring. You can find Tulip at Tulip.co. 

Please share this show with colleagues who care about where industry and especially industrial tech is heading. To find us on social media is easy, we are Augmented Pod on LinkedIn and Twitter, and Augmented Podcast on Facebook and YouTube:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/augmentedpod
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AugmentedPodcast/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/AugmentedPod
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5Y1gz66LxYvjJAMnN_f6PQ

Augmented--industrial conversations that matter. See you next time. 

Special Guests: Jeff Travers and Rowan Högman.

In this conversation, we talk about what the Internet of Things (IoT) means for industrial business models. We discuss the impact of connected devices and the subscription based economy on industries as distant from the initial IT waves as agriculture.

Augmented is a podcast for industrial leaders, process engineers and shop floor operators, hosted by futurist Trond Arne Undheim (@trondau), presented by Tulip, the frontline operations platform, and associated with MFG.works, the industrial upskilling community launched at the World Economic Forum. Augmented--the industry 4.0 podcast.

Trond's takeaway: The Internet of Things (IoT) is about to complete its hype cycle. We might finally see the smart cities we were promised in the nineties. With IoT, digital benefits comes to infrastructure, the last mile of sunk assets, long timelines, and nearly forgotten, but hard-earned public goods.

Thanks for listening. If you liked the show, subscribe at Augmentedpodcast.co or in your preferred podcast player, and rate us with five stars. If you liked this episode, you might also like episode 29, The Automated Microfactory, episode 33, Sustainable Manufacturing at Scale, or episode 23, Digital Manufacturing in the Cloud. Hopefully, you'll find something awesome in these or other episodes. If so, do let us know by messaging us, we would love to share your thoughts with other listeners. 

The Augmented podcast is created in association with Tulip, connected frontline operations platform that connects the people, machines, devices, and the systems used in a production or logistics process in a physical location. Tulip is democratizing technology and empowering those closest to operations to solve problems. Tulip is also hiring. You can find Tulip at Tulip.co. 

Please share this show with colleagues who care about where industry and especially industrial tech is heading. To find us on social media is easy, we are Augmented Pod on LinkedIn and Twitter, and Augmented Podcast on Facebook and YouTube:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/augmentedpod
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AugmentedPodcast/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/AugmentedPod
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5Y1gz66LxYvjJAMnN_f6PQ

See you next time. Augmented--industrial conversations that matter. 

Special Guest: Rob Rastovich.

In episode 53 of the podcast (@AugmentedPod), the topic is: Manufacturing Millennials. Our guest is Jake Hall, podcaster, The Manufacturing Millennial and Business Development Manager at Feyen Zylstra, a Grand Rapids, Michigan, US-based systems integrator.

In this conversation, we talk about The future generation in manufacturing, how we convince young people as well as how companies can make themselves attractive to this generation, and even more importantly, empowering the existing workforce.

Augmented is a podcast for industry leaders and operators, hosted by futurist Trond Arne Undheim, presented by Tulip.co, the frontline operations platform, and associated with MFG.works, the industrial upskilling community launched at the World Economic Forum. Each episode dives deep into a contemporary topic of concern across the industry and airs at 9 am US Eastern Time every Wednesday. Augmented--the industry 4.0 podcast--industrial conversations that matter.

After listening to this episode, check out:

• The Manufacturing Millennial: https://www.themanufacturingmillennial.com/ 
• Feyen-Zylstre (@feyenzylstra): https://www.feyenzylstra.com/
• Jake Hall: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacobrhall/ 

Trond's takeaway: Millennials are the key to the future of manufacturing, not just because they are a talent pool needed in the workforce but because they have the right mindset for change which is so beneficial to a manufacturing industry faced with the challenges and opportunities of industry 4.0 or smart manufacturing using digital solutions. 

Thanks for listening. If you liked the show, subscribe at Augmentedpodcast.co or in your preferred podcast player, and rate us with five stars. If you liked this episode, you might also like episode 11, Empowering Workers to Innovate, episode 3, Reimagine Training, or episode 12, Enterprise Wide Quality of Manufacturing. 

Augmented--upskilling the workforce for industry 4.0 frontline operations.

Special Guest: Jake Hall.

In this conversation, we talk about the digital transformation journey for the manufacturing industry, as seen through the lens of Schneider Electric. From the early days where those that did not digitize got lost, to being able to track, capture and monitor, to today's reality which is all about change management and being able to achieve scale and into the future of agile, lean and digital which entails scaling and squeezing the value out of hardware implementation as well as drastically improving the customer experience. 

Augmented is a podcast for industrial leaders, process engineers and shop floor operators, hosted by futurist Trond Arne Undheim (@trondau), presented by Tulip, the frontline operations platform, and associated with MFG.works, the industrial upskilling community launched at the World Economic Forum. 

Trond's takeaway: Benefiting from the industry luminaries I talk to every week, I'm eyeing a day when hardware, meaning physical objects of technological origin can scale at the speed and magnitude of software. This will create a whole new world, one where the sky's not the limit, in fact. We need it, because it might arrive just in time for us to avoid the complete destruction of our ecosystem--or at least to adapt to it--a set of issues we will tackle in forthcoming episodes about sustainability. For now, let's just work on the last mile, turning analytical improvements into intelligently preparing for unprecedented scale change in industrial manufacturing and innovation, all of which will be sorely needed soon enough.

Thanks for listening. If you liked the show, subscribe at Augmentedpodcast.co or in your preferred podcast player, and rate us with five stars. If you liked this episode, you might also like episode 33, Sustainable Manufacturing at Scale, episode 42, Business Beyond Buzzwords, or episode 23, Digital Manufacturing in the Cloud. Hopefully, you'll find something awesome in these or other episodes. If so, do let us know by messaging us, we would love to share your thoughts with other listeners. 

The Augmented podcast is created in association with Tulip, connected frontline operations platform that connects the people, machines, devices, and the systems used in a production or logistics process in a physical location. Tulip is democratizing technology and empowering those closest to operations to solve problems. Tulip is also hiring. You can find Tulip at Tulip.co. 

Please share this show with colleagues who care about where industry and especially industrial tech is heading. To find us on social media is easy, we are Augmented Pod on LinkedIn and Twitter, and Augmented Podcast on Facebook and YouTube:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/augmentedpod
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AugmentedPodcast/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/AugmentedPod
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5Y1gz66LxYvjJAMnN_f6PQ

See you next time. Augmented--industrial conversations that matter. 

Special Guest: Laurent Vernerey.

After listening to this episode, check out:

• Formlabs: https://formlabs.com/ 
• Marcelo Coelho: https://cmarcelo.com/

Augmented is a podcast for industrial leaders, process engineers and shop floor operators, hosted by futurist Trond Arne Undheim (@trondau), presented by Tulip, the frontline operations platform, and associated with MFG.works, the industrial upskilling community launched at the World Economic Forum. Augmented--the industry 4.0 podcast.

In this conversation, we talked about the emerging practices of industrial design in additive manufacturing. 

Trond's takeaway: Making products accessible is hard work. Industrial design is not an afterthought. The best companies are getting good at it. Why? Because they are bringing customers closer to them, to learn and explore. In fact, people are potentially getting closer to the making process than ever before. We have the opportunity to literally shape our future, our surroundings, and the things we touch, use, work with and enjoy in our leisure. That's a whole other level of customization. Forget personalization, this is way more than being able to adapt to your personality, it is attuning to your very purpose and context as a situated human being with everchanging resources, needs and interests.

Thanks for listening. If you liked the show, subscribe at Augmentedpodcast.co or in your preferred podcast player, and rate us with five stars. If you liked this episode, you might also like episode 36, Digital Lean, episode 29, The Automated Microfactory or episode 33, Sustainable Manufacturing at Scale. Hopefully, you'll find something awesome in these or other episodes. If so, do let us know by messaging us, we would love to share your thoughts with other listeners. 

The Augmented podcast is created in association with Tulip, connected frontline operations platform that connects the people, machines, devices, and the systems used in a production or logistics process in a physical location. Tulip is democratizing technology and empowering those closest to operations to solve problems. Tulip is also hiring. You can find Tulip at Tulip.co. 

Please share this show with colleagues who care about where industry and especially industrial tech is heading. To find us on social media is easy, we are Augmented Pod on LinkedIn and Twitter, and Augmented Podcast on Facebook and YouTube:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/augmentedpod
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AugmentedPodcast/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/AugmentedPod
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5Y1gz66LxYvjJAMnN_f6PQ

See you next time. Augmented--industrial conversations that matter. 

Special Guest: Marcelo Coelho.

In this conversation, we talk about Scott's personal journey from humble beginnings as a lathing contractor prepping houses for plastering and certified lineman climbing utility towers going to night school MBA to industrial marketer and educator and eventually becoming the leading independent industry podcast. We discuss his unique approach to industrial marketing and networking, focused on conversations to make introductions that turn into business. We chart the road ahead for industrial leaders, industrial tech, and marketing.

Augmented is a podcast for industrial leaders, process engineers and shop floor operators, hosted by futurist Trond Arne Undheim (@trondau), and presented by Tulip, the frontline operations platform, and associated with MFG.works, the industrial upskilling community launched at the World Economic Forum. Augmented--the industry 4.0 podcast.

Trond's takeaway: Building relationships is the foundation of business and should be the mainstay of marketing, even in the digital era. Podcasts have emerged as a powerful way to structure industrial conversations, and the Industrial Talk podcast is a masterful example of combining content marketing with authenticity, voice and a strong mission.

Thanks for listening. If you liked the show, subscribe at Augmentedpodcast.co or in your preferred podcast player, and rate us with five stars. If you liked this episode, you might also like episode 39, Covering Industrial Innovation, episode 26, Manufacturing in Massachusetts, or episode 4, A Renaissance in Manufacturing. Hopefully, you'll find something awesome in these or other episodes. If so, do let us know by messaging us, we would love to share your thoughts with other listeners. 

The Augmented podcast is created in association with Tulip, connected frontline operations platform that connects the people, machines, devices, and the systems used in a production or logistics process in a physical location. Tulip is democratizing technology and empowering those closest to operations to solve problems. Tulip is also hiring. You can find Tulip at Tulip.co. 

Please share this show with colleagues who care about where industry and especially industrial tech is heading. To find us on social media is easy, we are Augmented Pod on LinkedIn and Twitter, and Augmented Podcast on Facebook and YouTube:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/augmentedpod
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AugmentedPodcast/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/AugmentedPod
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5Y1gz66LxYvjJAMnN_f6PQ

Augmented--industrial conversations that matter. 

Special Guest: Scott MacKenzie.

In episode 47 of the podcast (@AugmentedPod), the topic is: Industrial Machine Learning. Our guest is Roy Shilkrot, Lead Scientist, Tulip (@tulipinterfaces).

In this conversation, we talk about Machine Learning in Manufacturing. Emerging applications using Tulip and beyond, we discuss emerging use cases, the impact of a future with MES ML, that is, machine learning built into the manufacturing execution system.

Augmented is a podcast for industry leaders and operators, hosted by futurist Trond Arne Undheim (@trondau), presented by Tulip.co, the frontline operations platform, and associated with MFG.works, the industrial upskilling community launched at the World Economic Forum. Each episode dives deep into a contemporary topic of concern across the industry and airs at 9 am US Eastern Time every Wednesday. Augmented--the industry 4.0 podcast--industrial conversations that matter.

After listening to this episode, check out:

• Tulip: https://tulip.co/
• Roy Shilkrot: https://www.linkedin.com/in/royshilkrot/

**Trond's takeaway**: Industrial tech is not what it used to be and will never again be a bulky, legacy, inflexible instrument. Rather, we are entering an age with immediate feedback, rapid adjustments and a combination of human and machine monitoring.

Thanks for listening. If you liked the show, subscribe at Augmentedpodcast.co or in your preferred podcast player, and rate us with five stars. If you liked this episode, you might also like episode 29, The Automated Microfactory, episode 22, Freedman's Factory: What is nocode?, or episode 19, Machine Learning in Manufacturing. 

Augmented--industrial conversations that matter.

Special Guest: Roy Shilkrot.

In episode 46 of the podcast (@AugmentedPod), the topic is: Manufacturing Training in Massachusetts. Our guest is John Killam, President, MassMEP.

In this conversation, we talk about the important role of manufacturing in Massachusetts, fostering the next generation manufacturers, manufacturing workforce trends and actions, including how to recruit talent to the region and to our manufacturing firms.

Augmented is a podcast for leaders, hosted by futurist Trond Arne Undheim (@trondau), presented by Tulip.co (@tulipinterfaces), the frontline operations platform, and associated with MFG.works, the manufacturing upskilling community launched at the World Economic Forum. Each episode dives deep into a contemporary topic of concern across the industry and airs at 9 am US Eastern Time every Wednesday. Augmented--the industry 4.0 podcast.

After listening to this episode, check out MassMEP as well as John Killam's social profile.

• MassMEP (@MassMEP): https://massmep.org/ 
• John Killam (@JKillamMEP): https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnkillammassmep/

**Trond's takeaway**: Manufacturing is surprisingly important in Massachusetts, which most people don't necessarily see as a manufacturing state because it is a high cost state that competes mostly in high-end, technology infused manufacturing of specialty parts. However, with industry 4.0 that kind of manufacturing is on the rise, so the issue will only become more and more key--and the workforce will need to grow to keep up with the demand. In that, there is opportunity for young people. And new manufacturing jobs can be exciting jobs, too. In fact, most of them are.

Thanks for listening. If you liked the show, subscribe at Augmentedpodcast.co or in your preferred podcast player, and rate us with five stars. If you liked this episode, you might also like episode 27, Industry 4.0 Tools, episode 17, Smart Manufacturing for All, or episode 11, Empowering Workers to Innovate. 

Augmented--upskilling the workforce for industry 4.0 frontline operations.

Special Guest: John Killam .

In episode 30 of the podcast (@AugmentedPod), the topic is: Rethinking Workforce Learning. Our guest is George Westerman, Senior Lecturer, MIT Sloan School of Management and Principal Research Scientist for workforce learning at the MIT Jameel World Education Lab.

In this conversation, we talk about how the industrial workforce learning system is broken. We touch on the history of "Pre-K to gray" workforce training. We discuss transforming the way workers get the skills they need to thrive in the context of the evolution of digital transformation. The trick is balancing work with learning, and changing the way learning happens.  But what to learn?  Westerman’s work has yielded the Human Skills Matrix.  And how to learn?  His research identified a new model of corporate learning and development called The Transformer CLO.

Augmented is a podcast for industry leaders and operators, hosted by futurist Trond Arne Undheim (@trondau), presented by Tulip.co, the frontline operations platform, and associated with MFG.works, the industrial upskilling community launched at the World Economic Forum. Each episode dives deep into a contemporary topic of concern across the industry and airs at 9 am US Eastern Time every Wednesday. 

After listening to this episode, check out J-WEL as well as George Westerman's profile on social media:

• J-WEL (@MIT_jwel): https://jwel.mit.edu/
• George Westerman (@gwesterman): https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgewesterman/

**Trond's takeaway**: Rethinking workforce learning is necessary, important, and wide-ranging. It will be a massive effort with digital transformation at the heart but with the need for educational institutions, employers and the workforce all on board. Do we all agree what skills to teach or be taught? This is unlikely but developing a skills matrix is a start.

Thanks for listening. If you liked the show, subscribe at Augmentedpodcast.co or in your preferred podcast player, and rate us with five stars. If you liked this episode, you might also like episode 17, Smart Manufacturing for All, episode 2, How to Train Augmented Workers, or episode 3, Reimagine Training. 

Augmented--upskilling the workforce for industry 4.0 frontline operations.

Special Guest: Dr. George Westerman.

In this conversation, which is the first episode of the new segment we have called Freedman's factory, which takes us deep into the shop floor philosophy of Kaizen. We introduced this new segment a month ago. In this episode of Freedman's Factory, we talked about Nocode in manufacturing. What is it? What existed before? What’s the difference it makes?

After listening to this episode, check out Tulip's and Mark Freedman's profile on social media:

• Tulip (@tulipinterfaces): https://tulip.co/ 
• Mark Freedman: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markjfreedman/

Trond's takeaway: Nocode for industrial applications is something truly special. Building on what we have come to know from contemporary software applications that don't have a learning curve, industrial nocode attempts the same thing, but with software written for the physical world, which is immeasurably harder to do because production cannot go down and you don't get second chances. I learned from Mark Freedman, that Tulip's deeply humanistic approach to nocode is rooted in the shopfloor experience, in trying to reflect, but also question factory floor behavior. I am on a learning journey. I still want to understand more the discrete tasks and functions that digital nocode apps make flow so naturally--work instructions, machine monitoring and other things. As always, the depth in Freedman's message lies, it seems to me, in his insistence on experience before tools, understanding before action, and understanding people, and the reasons behind their current process, way before introducing any kind of technology as a tool to simplify their life.

Thanks for listening. If you liked the show, subscribe at Augmentedpodcast.co or in your preferred podcast player, and rate us with five stars. If you liked this episode, you might also like episode 10, A Brief History of Manufacturing Software, episode 6, Human-Robot Interaction challenges, or episode 1, Automation to Augmentation - the podcast's vision to build a movement. Also, if you missed the introduction to Freedman's Factory, listen to episode 15: Freedman's Factory: Introduction. Augmented-upskilling the workforce for industry 4.0 frontline operations.

Special Guest: Mark Freedman.

In episode 23 of the podcast (@AugmentedPod), the topic is: Digital Manufacturing in the Cloud. Our guest is Jon Hirschtick, Head of SaaS, Onshape and Atlas Platform, PTC.

In this conversation, we talk about the story of SolidWorks, using agile methods, listening to the market, charting the evolution of CAD into SaaS, and its emerging and future iterations in the open source cloud and beyond.

Augmented is a podcast for industry leaders and operators, hosted by futurist Trond Arne Undheim (@trondau), presented by Tulip.co, the frontline operations platform, and associated with MFG.works, the industrial upskilling community launched at the World Economic Forum. Each episode dives deep into a contemporary topic of concern across the industry and airs at 9 am US Eastern Time every Wednesday. Augmented--the industry 4.0 podcast--industrial conversations that matter.

After listening to this episode, check out PTC, Solidworks, as well as Jon Hirschtick's social media profiles:

• PTC (@ptc): https://www.ptc.com/en
• Solidworks (@solidworks): https://www.solidworks.com/ 
• Jon Hirschtick (@jhirschtick): https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonhirschtick/

Trond's takeaway: Digital manufacturing is moving to the cloud and that means a whole lot more than office software moving to the cloud. In fact, establishing a real-time digital thread, through next generation low-code and no-code systems, will reshape industry. The notion of factory production, distributed teams, product development, will all evolve significantly, and will enable personalization across industry and across any and eventually all of manufactured goods. The ramifications will be huge, but they won't automatically happen tomorrow, and the benefits will spread unevenly depending on who--be it corporations, nations, startups, or small- and medium enterprises--grabs the gauntlet first.

Thanks for listening. If you liked the show, subscribe at Augmentedpodcast.co or in your preferred podcast player, and rate us with five stars. If you liked this episode, you might also like episode 43, Digitized Supply Chain, episode 24, Emerging Interfaces for Human Augmentation, or episode 21, The Future of Digital in Manufacturing.

Augmented--industrial conversations that matter to everyone.

Special Guest: Jon Hirschtick.

In episode 27 of the podcast (@AugmentedPod), the topic is: Industry 4.0 Tools and Analytics. Our guest is Carl B. March, Director, Industry 4.0 at Stanley Black & Decker.

In this conversation, we talk about what industry 4.0 means, the importance of upskilling the entire manufacturing industry, and the lessons from Stanley Black & Decker's digital transformation journey.

After listening to this episode, check out Stanley Black & Decker (@StanleyBlkDeckr): https://www.stanleyblackanddecker.com/ as well as Carl B. March's profile on social media: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlbmarch/ 

You may want to also be aware of the 'Israel meets New England' smart manufacturing event on June 9 and its organizers, the Israeli Trade Mission and Amhub New England:

• The New England Advanced Manufacturing Hub (AMHUB NE): https://mfg.works/amhub/amhub-new-england/
• The Government of Israel’s Economic Mission to North America: https://embassies.gov.il/washington/AboutTheEmbassy/Pages/Economic-Mission.aspx#:
• ISRAEL meets NEW ENGLAND: Advanced Manufacturing in Factories and Workplace: https://mfg.works/israel-meets-new-england/

Trond's takeaway: Industry 4.0 requires a mindset shift, not just technology adoption. It's not just about you--whether you in this case is a big company or a top leader--rather, it is about bringing people, partners, SMEs, and the entire ecosystem along. To do so openness to learn, having a strategic roadmap so not chase all shiny objects, and investing in lighthouse factories that can illuminate the possibilities are each important ingredients.

Thanks for listening. If you liked the show, subscribe at Augmentedpodcast.co or in your preferred podcast player, and rate us with five stars. If you liked this episode, you might also like episode 20, The Digitalization of Körber, episode 14, Bottom up and Deep Digitization of Operations, and episode 9, The Fourth Industrial Revolution post-COVID-19. 

Augmented--upskilling the workforce for industry 4.0 frontline operations.

Special Guest: Carl B. March.

In episode 15 of the podcast (@AugmentedPod), the topic is: Freedman's Factory: Introduction. Our guest is Mark Freedman, Lean Practice Leader at Tulip for our new segment, Freedman's Factory, which you will recognize because of our new segment specific music, with a cool, shopfloor vibe.

In this conversation, we talk about Freedman's Factory. What is it? What do we hope to accomplish? We learn that Mark Freedman, whose job title is all about Lean--which has to do with eliminating waste and increasing productivity, is, in fact, all about Kaizen, which is somewhat more ambitiously Japanese and means change for the better, or in better English--continuous improvement, from Kai meaning change and Zen meaning peaceful, relaxed, and aware. We are aiming for all those things. In fact, we hope to probe deep into the manufacturing experience, learning from people who live it and breathe it. We also want to investigate what it means to explore Kaizen and Lean together with digitalization--and with the nocode approach. And, as Freedman says, with all change we have to respect the current state. In other words, before we start to change something, we have to take in what is and recognize why it is that way. If all of these things sound slightly philosophical, it is because they are. This is down-to-earth philosophy with a small p.

After listening to this episode, check out Tulip's and Mark Freedman's profile on social media:

• Tulip (@tulipinterfaces): https://tulip.co/ 
• Mark Freedman: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markjfreedman/

Augmented is a podcast for leaders, hosted by futurist Trond Arne Undheim, presented by Tulip.co, the manufacturing app platform, and associated with MFG.works, the manufacturing upskilling community launched at the World Economic Forum. Each episode dives deep into a contemporary topic of concern across the industry and airs at 9 am US Eastern Time every Wednesday. Augmented--the industry 4.0 podcast.

Thanks for listening. If you liked the show, subscribe at Augmentedpodcast.co or in your preferred podcast player, and rate us with five stars. If you liked this episode, you might also like episode 10 A Brief History of Manufacturing Software, episode 6 Human-Robot Interaction challenges, or episode 1 Automation to Augmentation - the podcast's vision to build a movement. Augmented--the industry 4.0 podcast.

Special Guest: Mark Freedman.

In episode 11 of the podcast (@AugmentedPod), the topic is: Empowering Workers to Innovate. Our guest is  Robin Dechant, Founder, Future of Manufacturing Community.

In this conversation, we talk about Why Robin is so deeply interested in Manufacturing Innovation at such a ripe, young age? Also, how do you define manufacturing innovation? Why is it relevant now? Why should young people be excited about manufacturing? Why is upskilling so fundamental? What should people know about his new 'The Future of Manufacturing' community? How to scale upskilling? What’s next in the digital factory in the next 20 years.

After listening to this episode, check out the  as well as Robin Dechant's social profile.

• Future of Manufacturing Community: https://www.futureofmanufacturing.io/
• Robin Dechant (@robindchnt): https://www.linkedin.com/in/robindechant/

Trond's takeaway: Robin Dechant represents the future of manufacturing. He is young, he is deeply engaged in innovation, he tracks startups, talks to the whole community and wants to improve the ecosystem and is passionate about upskilling. Robin is an i4.0 native, one of many we will follow on this podcast.

Thanks for listening. If you liked the show, subscribe at Augmentedpodcast.co or in your preferred podcast player, and rate us with five stars. If you liked this episode, you might also like episode 2: How to Train Augmented Workers or episode 3: Reimagine Training. Augmented--the industry 4.0 podcast.

Special Guest: Robin Dechant.

•  Sarah Boisvert https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-boisvert-3a965031/ 
• The New Collar Network (@NewCollarNetwrk): http://newcollarnetwork.com/
• Fab Lab Hub (@FabLabHub): http://fablabhub.org/

Augmented is a podcast for leaders in the manufacturing industry hosted by futurist Trond Arne Undheim, presented by Tulip.co, the manufacturing app platform, and associated with MFG.works, the open learning community launched at the World Economic Forum. Our intro and outro music is The Arrival by Evgeny Bardyuzha (@evgenybardyuzha), licensed by @Art_list_io.

Thanks for listening. If you liked the show, subscribe at Augmentedpodcast.co or in your preferred podcast player, and rate us with five stars on Apple Podcasts. To nominate guests, to suggest exciting episode topics or give feedback, follow us on LinkedIn, looking out for live episodes, message us on Twitter @augmentedpod or our website's contact form. If you liked this episode, you might also like episode 3: How to Train Augmented Workers. Augmented--the industry 4.0 podcast.

Special Guest: Sarah Boisvert.

• The Institute for Manufacturing at the University of Cambridge in the UK: https://www.ifm.eng.cam.ac.uk/
• The Global Shaper Community by the World Economic Forum: https://www.globalshapers.org/
• Elisa Roth: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elisa-roth/

Augmented is a podcast for leaders in the manufacturing industry hosted by futurist Trond Arne Undheim, presented by Tulip.co, the manufacturing app platform, and associated with MFG.works, the open learning community launched at the World Economic Forum. Our intro and outro music is The Arrival by Evgeny Bardyuzha (@evgenybardyuzha), licensed by @Art_list_io. The show can be found at http://www.augmentedpodcast.co/

Thanks for listening. If you liked the show, subscribe at Augmentedpodcast.co or in your preferred podcast player, and rate us with five stars on Apple Podcasts. To nominate guests,  to suggest exciting episode topics or give feedback, follow us on LinkedIn, looking out for live episodes, message us on Twitter @augmentedpod or our website's contact form. If you liked this episode, you might also like episode 3 on Reimagine Training, which will be live on Wednesday 17 Feb 2021. Augmented--the industry 4.0 podcast.

Special Guest: Elisa Roth.

Special Guests: Elisa Roth, Etienne Lacroix, Kel Guerin, and Natan Linder.