Great Question: A Manufacturing Podcast

AI in industry – How plants are using the new technology to overcome obstacles

Kevin Clark is the VP of Marketing and Customer Success at Falkonry. A veteran of asset management, experienced as a practitioner and educated as an engineer, Kevin brings over 30 years of experience to the fields of engineering, maintenance, and predictive analytics. As a veteran and advocate in the industrial space, Kevin plays a key role in advancing manufacturing and encouraging new technologies as a thought leader, keynote speaker, and M&R expert. He has served through decades of leadership in the Society of Maintenance & Reliability Professionals (SMRP), International Society of Automation (ISA) and as a long-standing board member of Purdue University’s Polytechnic Industry Advisory Board (IAB). Kevin recently spoke with Plant Services editor in chief Thomas Wilk about artificial intelligence's impact on the worlds of operations, maintenance, and reliability. 

What good is generative AI to manufacturing?

ChatGPT is going to change everything! Generative AI is going to make every job in America obsolete by the end of Labor Day Weekend! Even fast food workers are worried that a teenager working in a parent's basement will be able to flip 500 hamburgers an hour using generative artificial intelligence tools. 
OK, maybe the hype hasn't gotten that extreme, but as is typical when a technology is hot, many tech people are trying to ride the wave, adding the word "chat" to long-standing features or promoting their integration of large-language-model tools into their software. So, manufacturing technology editors are getting inundated with pitches about how software that lets people create iambic pentameter sonnets about poodle grooming will soon change how factories make things. 
For this session of our Production Pulse live video series, Bob Vavra from Machine Design and Mike Bacidore from Control Design joined us to discuss how generative systems really could impact factory floors. Some conclusions:
Manufacturers are pretty savvy to what AI can do as they've been using it for more than a decade for quality control, predictive maintenance and to manage production settings on machines
Generative AI systems have more potential to revolutionize design and management but fewer obvious benefits for the shop floor
There are some solid applications hidden amidst the hype

2 software companies combine to help asset-heavy industries improve production and manufacturing

Nikunj Mehta is the founder and CEO of Falkonry, whose time series AI solutions are used by companies to power their digital transformation and achieve significant improvements in production uptime, quality, yield, and safety. He is the co-founder of the Industry 4.0 Club, an egalitarian effort among user advocates, technologists, and manufacturing leaders to advance industrial transformation through Industry 4.0 methods and technologies. Nikunj recently spoke with Plant Services editor in chief Thomas Wilk about the future of Falkonry, the relationship between asset management and artificial intelligence, and how detecting anomalies can improve sustainability.

Yellow’s bankruptcy, beating the heat and US Steel’s future

In this editors roundtable, staff members from IndustryWeek, FleetOwner and EHS Today discuss some of the major manufacturing news stories of the past few weeks including:
FleetOwner Managing Editor Scott Achelpohl discussed: 100-year-old Yellow shuts down, heads to bankruptcy.
EHS Today Editor-in-Chief Dave Blanchard discussed: OSHA Announces Heat Hazard Alert.
IndustryWeek News Editor Anna Smith shared finding from her recent story: More than Half of Women Leaders Believe Company Promotions Are Biased by Gender, Survey Shows.
IndustryWeek Senior Editor Laura Putre shared highlights from her recent interview with U.S. Steel's Richard Fruehauf: US Steel Bets on Mini-Mills, EV Motors for Near-Term Sustainability.

The spectrum of broken — Should you replace outdated parts if they are still functional?

Sean Phillips is a senior project manager with Hargrove Controls and Automation. In May, Sean was awarded the prestigious 2023 Rising Star Award at the Control System Integrator Association Executive Conference in New Orleans. The Rising Star Award is given to an individual who is relatively new to the industry yet has shown attributes of a leader. Sean graduated from Auburn University and began his career in control systems engineering in 2014. Sean recently spoke with Plant Services editor in chief Thomas Wilk about his career, how automation and advanced technologies are changing the industry, and how the tight equipment can prevent downtime and impact the bottom line.
On the record
"That being said, there's still a lot of those old bus protocols out in the plant and a lot of people think “if it's not broke, don't fix it.” Broke sometimes can be on a spectrum, you know? Just how broke is it? At what point is that costing you more money than it would cost to install a more robust, let's say, device level ring with EtherNet/IP. Just speaking generally, that's what I'm seeing, it's a matter of weighing the cost of the new install versus getting rid of the old stuff, which sounds like an obvious conclusion to come to, but intermingled with that is the education of the return that you would get from installing these more robust networks."
-Sean Phillips
Learn more
CSIAHargrove Controls and Automation

Leadership lessons from Toyota

IndustryWeek columnist, leadership coach and author Katie Anderson recently won the Shingo Prize for publications for her book, "Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn," a collection of stories and lessons from Isao Yoshino, a longtime Toyota executive who played big roles in the development of that automaker's business culture.
Anderson discusses key leadership lessons from Yoshino, offering a glimpse into Toyota's evolution from a company that only made vehicles in Japan into the global powerhouse it is today.

Kickstarting your plant’s reliability journey — Where are you now, and where do you want to be?

Joe Kuhn, CMRP, former plant manager, engineer, and global reliability consultant, is now president of Lean Driven Reliability LLC. He is the author of the book “Zero to Hero: How to Jumpstart Your Reliability Journey Given Today’s Business Challenges” and the creator of the Joe Kuhn YouTube Channel, which offers content on starting your reliability journey and achieving financial independence. Plant Services managing editor Anna Townshend recently spoke with Joe about the importance of leadership and how to establish a successful reliability culture at your plant.
Key takeaways
In this episode, you'll learn:
Why leadership is critical in maintenance and reliability
How to establish a reliability culture at your plant
Why reliability is a continuous process and why you need to sell reliability to your organization
On the record
"Operations owns reliability. The simplest example is, Anna, who owns the reliability of your car? You’re the one that drives it. You're the one that listens to it. You take your car into the maintenance shop for the 100,000-mile check. And they say, yeah, man, this belt looks bad. Your tires are bald, and your transmission is making noises. And then you say, I don't want to fix that. And then you drive on down the road. You're going out to Yellowstone National Park on vacation, and your car breaks down. Do you blame the mechanic?"
-Joe Kuhn
Learn more
Read Joe's column, Leadership in Action
Buy Joe's book, Zero to Hero: How to Jumpstart Your Reliability Journey Given Today's Business Challenges
Watch Joe's YouTube videos

Rapid shift to Tesla’s charging standards challenges manufacturers

Ford, GM, Mercedes, Volvo and Rivian have all agreed to adopt Tesla's plug standards for their electric vehicles, forcing charging station manufacturers to rethink how to make the next generation of chargers.

New technologies impacting the compressed air industry

Ron Marshall is the founder of Marshall Compressed Air Consulting, a compressed air energy efficiency consulting firm, where he provides technical advice, system auditing, and training. He first developed his skills as an industrial compressed air systems expert at Manitoba Hydro, where he worked for 38 years, supporting more than 600 energy efficiency projects. Ron is a level 2 instructor with Compressed Air Challenge and conducts training internationally. Ron recently spoke with Plant Services editor in chief Thomas Wilk about training and professional development in the compressed air industry.
Key takeaways
In this episode, you'll learn:
Why training is an essential component of a successful compressed air program
What resources are available to help professionals get certified and improve their compressed air skills
Which new technologies are impacting the industry
On the record
"The lack of knowledge is the biggest obstacle in having an compressed air system running optimally. So yeah, that's quite important, and that was recognized back in the 1990s, right? And you know, as time went on, people working in Compressed Air Challenge and in the auditing field we get older and older, and the new people need to learn as well, so we can leave the field secure in the knowledge that people come coming to replace our vacancy know a lot about compressed air and auditing."
-Ron Marshall
Learn more
Marshall Compressed Air Consulting Compressed Air Challenge Compressed Air Challenge Training Calendar Compressed Air & Gas InstituteCertified Maintenance & Reliability Professional (CMRP) program Compressed Air Training and CertificationSee compressed air leaks with acoustical imaging Ask the Experts: How important are storage receivers in a compressed air system?

The ROI of automated packaging

In this special “Supply Chain Insider” episode of The Tool Belt, Sean Webb, director of sales and operations for North America with Sparck Technologies, looks at the impact of e-commerce on supply chains, and he explains when, why and how companies should automate their packaging processes.