Smart Manufacturing for All
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 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. Each episode dives deep into a contemporary topic of concern across the industry and airs at 9 am US Eastern Time every other Wednesday.
In episode 17 of the podcast, the topic is: Smart Manufacturing for All. Our guest is John Dyck, CEO at CESMII, the Smart Manufacturing Institute.
In this conversation, we talked about democratizing smart manufacturing, the history and ambition of CESMII (2016-), bridging the skills gap in small and medium enterprises which constitute 98% of manufacturing. We discuss how the integration of advanced sensors, data, platforms and controls to radically impact manufacturing performance. We then have the hard discussion of why the US is (arguably) a laggard? John shares the 7 characteristics of future-proofing (interoperability, openness, sustainability, security, etc.). We hear about two coming initiatives: Smart Manufacturing Executive Council & Smart Manufacturing Innovation Platform. We then turn to the future outlook over the next decade.
My takeaway is that US manufacturing is a bit of a conundrum. How can it both be the driver of the international economy and a laggard in terms of productivity and innovation, all at the same time? Can it all be explained by scale–both scale in multinationals and scale in SMEs? Whatever the case may be, future proofing manufacturing, which CESMII is up to, seems like a great idea. The influx of smart manufacturing technologies will, over time, transform industry as a whole, but it will not happen automatically.
Link to the Augmented Smart Manufacturing for All Podcast
Trond Arne Undheim
Host
Trond Arne Undheim is a futurist, podcaster, and author. He is a venture partner at Hitachi Ventures, the corporate VC, as well as Antler, the global early-stage VC. He is the industry ecosystem evangelist at Tulip, the manufacturing app. He is also a nonresident Fellow at the Atlantic Council, and a co-founder of Yegii, the analytics company.
Formerly, Trond was the Director of MIT Startup Exchange, the Director of Standards Strategy & Policy at Oracle, and a National Expert for e-Government at the European Commission. He holds a PhD on the future of work and artificial intelligence and cognition. He is a 4x author, his latest book, Future Tech comes out in March 2021. Trond is a serial entrepreneur having co-founded a consulting firm, a business incubator and a think tank. He currently hosts two podcasts, Futurized.org and Augmentedpodcast.co. Trond is based in Wellesley, MA.