“Pilots show the art of the possible; foundations make it repeatable and scalable.”
Smart Manufacturing Acceleration Roadmap Professional Certification Course
This digitally delivered certification course is designed to educate consultants, advisors, and innovation champions working with manufacturers on the CESMII Smart Manufacturing Acceleration Framework, the supporting toolkit, and prepare them to take the CESMII Certification exam. Supported by an expert mentor, you’ll engage with hands-on projects to assess a sample organization’s current and desired future states along six critical areas of world-class manufacturers. Your capstone will be to develop a strategic Smart Manufacturing Roadmap that encompasses all Acceleration Framework elements.
By completing the course projects, deliverables, and accompanying certification test, you will develop knowledge and capabilities to ensure your future client engagements are successful and your work is consistent with SM principles and the SM roadmap process developed by CESMII. The course was designed in collaboration with CESMII, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and NxGen Group.
Today, vendors promise transformation and headlines declare a revolution, while in most plants the story looks different. If your organization is feeling pressure to move on AI but is not sure whether the foundation is actually ready, this episode gives you a grounded, practitioner-driven answer to where to start. Today’s panelists bring insight into the question of: if everyone is under pressure to move faster on AI, why do so many smart manufacturing initiatives still struggle to scale?
For a view of smart manufacturing transformation from both the inside of a global enterprise and from the practitioners who designed the roadmap to navigate it, listen to the full episode wherever you get your podcasts:
Top 5 Takeaways
- AI pressure is moving faster than operational readiness. The question is no longer whether AI has potential in manufacturing but if your people and processes are mature enough. A common roadmap framework can help.
- A roadmap turns value potential into sequenced work. Use a ‘now, tomorrow, and in the future model to align on business goals and assess current state projects. Don’t start with technology, start with what you’ll do with it.
- People play a pivotal role in smart manufacturing. We’ve said this before and it still rings true: you can implement all the technology in the world, but you need the right people to adopt it. Focus resources on change management and training. This is the key to your success.
- Certification builds the human capability to sustain the transformation. Smart manufacturing cannot depend only on a small group of experts, external consultants, or technology partners. You need people who can connect business priorities, operational constraints, technical dependencies, and change management into one coherent conversation.
- AI does not eliminate the need for a roadmap. It raises the cost of not having one. Organizations that create value will be the ones that understand where they are starting, what capabilities matter most, and how to turn smart manufacturing ambition into disciplined execution.
If you’re interested in CESMII’s next Smart Manufacturing Roadmap Professional certification cohort, visit our website for upcoming dates and registration information.
For more Smart Manufacturing insights, be sure to tune into the full episode on Apple or Spotify.
Thank you to our panelists:
- Suraj Sriram, Digital Manufacturing Leader at Kimberly-Clark
- Jim Wetzel, Co-Founder and Architect of the CESMII Smart Manufacturing Roadmap Framework at NxGen Group
- Tim Stuart, President of Visual Decisions and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Instructor, CESMII Smart Manufacturing Roadmap Certification.
- Jeff Winter, Host
