Episode Transcript
[00:00:08] Speaker A: Hello, hello, hello, everybody. You are here on an auspicious day because you're here for the maiden voyage of the Control alt manufacturing podcast, Resetting and Rethinking Manufacturing, with me, Gary Cohen and my co host here, Stephanie Neal. Stephanie, say hello to the people.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: Hello, people. Thanks for joining us today.
[00:00:29] Speaker A: So this should be a fun one. This is an idea that Stephanie and I have been kicking around for a little while because I'm a writer at heart. I'm going to read you the little description and then I'll start sounding like a human.
But what we're trying to do here is this podcast. Our goal is to talk about manufacturing automation, but it'll explore the people, technologies and strategies driving the digital transformation of manufacturing. Each episode we have is going to feature conversations with industry leaders, system integrators, engineers, innovators, people who are rethinking how products are made. So it'll cover everything from automation to AI to data analytics. It's a lot. If it has to do with control, engineering, manufacturing, automation, we're in it. So, Stephanie, add on. What did I mean?
[00:01:14] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I mean, I think it's an important time to have this conversation because it's an industry in transition, right? I mean, we hear it all the time, especially from the system integrators, that they're trying to upgrade legacy systems, they're trying to do more integration, they're trying. We always hear about AI, but how much is it actually being implemented? So we're going to bring in some experts and talk amongst ourselves a lot of times.
And even maybe there's ripping from the headlines, some news, some major deployments at manufacturing sites that really worked well that we can highlight. But I think it's a good time to have these conversations.
[00:01:52] Speaker A: And Stephanie and I will be talking about this stuff, the current news, what's going on in the industry, every episode. But other than this episode, we're generally going to have somebody we're interviewing talking about the industry and what's going on out there. I mean, with digital transformation, one of the things we say all the time is like, everybody is doing digital transformation. There's no such thing as you're not doing it if you're in manufacturing. It's just which stage are you in right now? So, you know, as smart manufacturing starts to dominate, we're going to talk about some of the technology, some of the vendors. We're going to give some advice, or probably not us, but our subject matter experts are going to give some advice so we can kind of understand what's happening out there. And it's, as Stephanie kind of mentioned, it's also a little bit of a transitional period because the technology is coming at such a fast pace and because of political and societal things that are happening right now. That would be tariffs that are changing the way a lot of people are investing or doing their manufacturing. So there's a lot going on out there that we're going to be able to talk about. But before we jump into all of that, we should introduce ourselves. Who are we? Why are you listening to us? I mean, you don't have to listen to us, but you should.
Stephanie, who are you? Why am I talking to you right now?
[00:03:11] Speaker B: I don't know. Who am I?
[00:03:13] Speaker A: I ask myself that question every day.
I'm finally going to get the answer. Give it to me.
[00:03:19] Speaker B: Well, first of all, Gary and I work together at WTWH Media, and we're in the automation and controls group. And as Gary introduced me, I'm Stephanie Neal. I'm the editorial director over there. I have been reporting on automation for, dare I say, decades.
I don't want to say that, but I have. I'm not going to tell you how many decades. And I'll just tell you that when I first started on my journey as a B2B journalist covering automation and I walked into a conference room and it was full of men in suits speaking a language I didn't understand because it was all very proprietary type of technology. And I had come from the IT world like the Enterprise. And well, PCs were new on the scene, too. I am dating myself, aren't I?
So a lot has happened over the years and I've been kind of covering it and going through different types of periods. I also have covered different areas like specifically packaging and, you know, automation, though, like digital transformation really captures my attention just because it really elevates what we're doing with automation. And I think the bigger thing is I don't even know that people really understand what the term digital transformation means. I mean, Gary, when we've had discussions with people before and we talk about their digital transformation journey, I know plenty of people that have said, well, what do you mean by that?
I mean, do you agree? Is it, is it sort of a term that is not necessarily widely understood? There's are, there's different definitions.
[00:05:02] Speaker A: I think there are. So, okay, so first I'm gonna introduce myself and then let's not get into the discussion.
[00:05:06] Speaker B: Who are you?
[00:05:07] Speaker A: No, no. But then I don't. I want to answer your question because it's a really good point. I'm Gary Cohen. We do work together. Stephanie and I work together. I was gonna say, I feel like I've been in automation for a while. I've been in this for about four years. But comp parent to Stephanie, I'm a little bit of a neophyte.
My background is varied. I have worked in creating content for everything from healthcare publications to the Chicago Cubs baseball team.
Came to automation, specifically cybersecurity and digital transformation about four years ago. So been thinking about that and doing that. And as you know, as everybody knows, as you jump into this industry, it probably takes a year or two before you understand what anybody's talking about. So I think I'm at the place where I kind of understand what people are talking about. But. But yeah, like I said, my main interests are in digital transformation, cybersecurity, but everything in manufacturing is fairly interesting. Now back to the question.
Yeah, digital transformation. It's funny, the when. So our company does a lot of webcasts and things like that.
We found out a while ago that when we did webcasts, that said, it's about digital transformation. Digital transformation, they didn't do very well because people kind of are like, yeah, digital transformation, it's just, it's one of those buzzwords. Everybody's doing it. It means everything and it means nothing all at the same time.
But if you really break it down into what digital transformation is like, if you break it down into the component parts, I think people are doing it and they want to hear about smart manufacturing and they want to hear about AI or gen AI, you know, they want to hear about smarter automation. But yeah, for whatever reason, digital transformation as a watchword has gotten, I think, a little washed out, where people don't.
Don't really know what to make of that word anymore. So I do agree with you on that.
[00:07:02] Speaker B: And I mean, I think we have to call it something, right? People are doing this already, right? They're layering software or analytics on top of data. I mean, data is the most important aspect of a manufacturing plant, right? That's how we're going to get better. That's how we're going to obtain operational efficiency and make our machines more productive and our people too, which we have to factor into the equation.
So they're doing it in pockets and in little application areas. They're just not calling it digital transformation. And I mean, I don't know that we should call it digital transformation either, but if we don't, what are we going to call it? Gary.
[00:07:44] Speaker A: Advanced Automation, smart manufacturing, There are other things. But, but I do that. That's sort of what my point was in. Everybody is somewhere on the digital transformation journey, even if they don't know that they are because of the way technology and analytics and data and AI are impacting the way we do things. It's just a very different industry than it was five years ago or 10 years ago or 20 years ago.
The one of the things that I think has really been a sea change for the industry is the democratization of AI. People are using it more and more and more. And if you're working on a factory floor, is AI going to flip a switch for you? It isn't right now, but in the way that it can analyze and process data and the speed at which it can analyze and process data, I think it's just make. It's got. It's having a huge impact on the way that this industry runs. And if you, like us, go to a lot of different conferences.
It's been a joke that we've been making for years now. You cannot go to a conference or talk to any vendor without them talking about AI at this point, because it's really impacting everybody. And I think there's a part of that that's marketing. Everybody wants to talk about AI, so we're going to call everything AI, even if it's machine learning and not really AI. But I do think it is having a massive impact on the industry.
And you know, Stephanie, as everybody says, AI is the worst it's ever going to be at this very moment. It's never going to be worse than it is now. It's only going to get better and better and better.
And I think you could probably agree with this, even the way I use it as a content creator and a journalist.
You know, when ChatGPT came out a couple of years ago, I was skeptical. And almost immediately I started using it every day. Because you realize there are some things that it does poorly, but you realize pretty quickly how many things it does well.
[00:09:42] Speaker B: Well, just to kind of piggyback on what you said about the democratization of AI, you don't have to be a data scientist anymore. Like back in the day, in order to make sense of all the information that you were collecting, you had to bring in, you know, a data scientist to sift through all that information and make sense of it. And with AI, we don't have. You don't. It can be, it can be you, Gary, it could be me, it could be the operator on the plant floor making sense of information because the AI is doing it all in the background for us. So, you know, it's making our jobs and our lives easier and making us more productive.
So there's a lot of value there and it's only going to get better.
[00:10:28] Speaker A: Exactly. One of the things that we do a lot at WTWH is research. So we look at the industry and look at some of the things that are happening in the industry.
So the, the big meaty part of this first podcast that we're bringing to you, we wanted to talk about a little bit of that research that we do every year. And one of those is a, the State of Industrial Automation report from spring 2025 that we just did. So there's a lot of information about people, how people are using this new technology.
Yeah. Stephanie, you want to give kind of an intro as what the report is and then we could talk about some of the findings from the report.
[00:11:06] Speaker B: Yeah. So what we did is we, you know, we surveyed our readers, right. And we asked them some very specific questions about where their investments are, what their barriers to adoption are, what their emerging technology interests are. And it really is a reality check for us because while, you know, we go to these conferences and we see, we hear from all of these experts about all of the amazing things that can happen with technology, a lot of the manufacturers are still just investing in foundational technologies like PLCs and controllers and sensors and actuators and motors and drives. Like that's where they're putting their money.
But, you know, that's important because those are the foundational technologies. You have to have that in place and then you start layering on top of it. So it was a really, it's an eye opening report.
You know, it also brought to light, like I just said, a lot of folks are very risk averse, right. They're not investing. They want innovation, but they want roi. Right. So how do you balance that? They're very reluctant to put their money into a new technology because they don't know if it's going to work A or B, they're going to get their return on investment. So that came to light in the findings as well.
[00:12:27] Speaker A: Yeah, it's still, I mean, for any manufacturer, operational reliability is still the big thing.
The assembly line has to run. That's the cash register. So that's why I think people are really investing the majority of their time and effort and money into those foundational technologies. Like Stephanie said, like in this research and we, to get this, we did survey a wide range of People out in the industry, manufacturers, technology vendors, policymakers, people who are out there and how they're using it. And 52% said that their top priorities are investing in things like sensors and control systems.
So some of that advanced technology or real time data infrastructure, robotics, edge computing, AI adoption, it's happening, but it's lagging in comparison to those foundational technologies. And part of that, as Stephanie said, that moderate adoption is the norm from the research. I'm gonna drop numbers on you because I have numbers and it makes me sound smart. 60% of the companies are taking a cautious, progressive approach to automation.
From our study, only 12% said that they were aggressive adopters. So, you know, if you're a vendor out there, how do you reach those people? You really need to tailor that messaging, tailor your offering, because you got to know that the buyers out there are risk averse.
And Stephanie talked about, Stephanie and I talked about this right before we jumped on that. Risk aversion is anecdotally getting worse and worse and worse with the tariffs that are happening right now because people don't.
Uncertainty stops people from spending. You don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. And so people get more risk averse as they're waiting to see how everything's going to land.
[00:14:22] Speaker B: Yeah, well, you know, one of the unique things about this report is while we gathered information from our readers, the end users, the manufacturers, the report is also very much for the technology suppliers offering some recommendations based on the findings that we have.
So it does cover a wide aspect.
Here's the problem, here's what people said, here's a potential solution.
I thought that some of the barriers to adoption to some of this technology was interesting. They do talk about implementation costs. That was like 55% of.
That's a huge thing.
[00:15:01] Speaker A: Oh, look, Stephanie's got numbers too. Yeah, I do.
[00:15:06] Speaker B: I'm wicked smart too.
[00:15:08] Speaker A: Stephanie is in Boston, so she can say that.
[00:15:12] Speaker B: But also really, really important, integrating legacy systems. I mean, let's talk about that. Like, what a pain in the neck, right? Like you can't just pull the plug on a legacy machine and throw it out the door. You got to figure out how to integrate it into the new stuff.
And that's holding a lot of people back. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. But we gotta fix it if you're gonna stay productive and relevant moving forward.
[00:15:39] Speaker A: Yeah, that legacy system thing, I'm gonna come at this from a cybersecurity perspective. Cause that's my background. But when you talk to People in cybersecurity, whether it's a vendor or somebody who's just trying to help out there, you know, as somebody who's trying to help secure systems.
One of the biggest problems are exactly what you just said, legacy systems, because as we said, reliability, operational reliability is what you're looking for. And so if you've got a machine on your plant floor that's been working for the last 20 years and probably is going to work for the next 20, it's not going anywhere. And when you look at something like AI or cybersecurity, that machine was built before those, that was even a consideration. It was not built with cybersecurity in mind. And so how do you layer something on top of a machine that was never meant to support it? And so that has been a real trick. And when you look at some of these really transformative technologies that are coming out there, that is the sticking point is how do you marry these new technologies with these legacy Systems that are 20 and 30 years old that are still working reliably on the floor and aren't going anywhere?
[00:16:49] Speaker B: Yeah. The other issue is the workforce. Right. There's a skills gap and we just don't have the people to do what needs to be done.
And because of all of the advancements in the technology and AI making our jobs better, what we really need to do is retrain the workforce to more advanced type skill sets, which I think is better. Right. It's better for the people working in the plant. But first we got to find the, the people. I mean, manufacturing still suffers from that, that stigma of being a dark, dirty and dangerous place. It still does. I mean even, I mean, I've walked in some, into some of the most modernized, pristine plants. But you know, people still, if you're an engineer and you have, you have the option to go work for Amazon or go work for Pepsi, like you're probably going to go for Amazon. So, like, we have to do something as an industry to change that perspective of our perception of what we do and who we are and get more people coming into this industry.
[00:18:05] Speaker A: Well, so I think that's really important to get more people coming into the industry. But I think when some of these new technologies came out, especially artificial intelligence, the fear was always, oh my God, they're going to take our jobs. We're going to live in a Terminator future where the machines are going to be doing everything for us and then obviously overthrowing us.
[00:18:27] Speaker B: But wait, don't, I don't want you to lose that thought. That could happen. I went to the robotics summit and they were all about the humanoid robots. They were everywhere and they're like getting generalized and like using all this like model based control and reinforcement learning. I mean, that could be happening soon, Gary, so don't dismiss it. Anyway, sorry.
[00:18:46] Speaker A: It's moving fast. I know it went from like, oh, the little robotic dog on the shop floor to like, no, these are getting complicated.
[00:18:54] Speaker B: Sorry.
[00:18:55] Speaker A: But you know, when you talk to experts out there, the fear isn't really the machines are going to take our jobs. Although, you know, that's what automation is. We're going to try to automate as much as we can.
But the workforce, as you mentioned, that skills gap, that's the problem. If you stay up to date and learn about the new technologies and learn how to use the new technologies and learn robotics and learn AI and learn edge computing, you're going to have work. It's not going to take your job. You're going to be even more useful in your company, whether that is Pepsi or Amazon. But you know, the people who do stay stuck in the past and aren't willing to adapt to these new technologies, those are the people who are being left behind. And as you mentioned earlier, engineering is, you know, when we do research, it's an older profession. So as people are retiring and moving on, there aren't enough people, young people coming in and taking those roles right now. So they're, they're not, we, Stephanie and I, aren't going to fix this. We're going to try, but I don't think we're going to fix it.
But we need to figure out as an industry how to get more people into roles like this. So we do have A, a younger workforce, but B, a technologically savvy workforce that knows how to use these tools coming in.
[00:20:15] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. 100% agree.
[00:20:19] Speaker A: Yeah. And then, you know, one other thing in this, and I mentioned it earlier, that our research showed is that these advanced technologies are being adopted, but they are still underutilized out there. So, you know, if you look at the people who are out there, they, I think people see these, and the research supports this, are seeing these technologies as transformative.
But there is a perception, and sometimes it's true, that they're complex, that it's unclear what the return on the investment's going to be, what your ROI is going to be. And so people are sitting on their hands and aren't really adopting these things. They are defaulting to. We're going to buy these foundational technologies and we're not going to invest in these more complex technologies that could transform our business.
Some of them, I mean, there is complexity to them, but that unclear ROI is a big part of it, too.
And again, I'm going to attack this from a cybersecurity perspective. One of the problems with cybersecurity, with the industry, is there isn't a clear ROI on roi, on it, because you are bracing for something that might happen. Now, people in cybersecurity would say you are going to get attacked, it is going to happen.
But it's hard to get somebody who you can, you can buy, you know, an HMI or you can spend money on this thing to protect you for.
From something that may never happen to you. And so a lot of new technologies suffer from that unclear ROI that's out there, which I think does slow adoption a little bit.
[00:21:55] Speaker B: No, I agree. I also think people don't know where to start. Right.
Where do you start? How do you like, okay, we're going to implement all this technology.
[00:22:05] Speaker A: Where, why?
[00:22:06] Speaker B: What's the problem that we're trying to solve? So there's a lot of business aspects to this.
And you know, and the report that we, you know, that we came out with the state of industrial automation talks about some of the, you know, the business aspects, like why do you want to, you know, invest in technology if you're going to. And it has a lot to do with operational efficiency and getting costs down. I mean, that's kind of weird because they're not investing because it costs too much, but they want the technology to bring the costs down.
[00:22:37] Speaker A: Yeah, well, and I mean, I think that's part of it. So if you are a technology vendor out there, you've got to understand that the opportunity that's out there lies in simplification and support of the industry. So people do want these new technologies, but they want them to do exactly what Stephanie said. They need to be scalable and secure and easy to integrate. And so if you're a technology vendor, you need to find ways to, whatever that is, offer training, create a low barrier to entry and offer support. So people don't think these are complex and that they do understand the ROI because it's clear that it's out there. But I do think that. Where do I start? It just seems so daunting at the beginning that I think a lot of people and sometimes technology vendors out there do not make it easy and make it simple. So, yeah, that I, and that actually is from our research too, is that if you can simplify and Offer support that really increases the chances of adoption.
[00:23:44] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, it's so easy now, like with, in terms of, well, you can make the technology easier, but you can also make the training easier. Like video, like you could just stream a video. You know, it's so easy for people now to, you know, I don't know how to use this. Just if you had some sort of app on the phone where they could, you know, or scan something on the machine and it pops up and shows a little tutorial. I mean, there's some opportunities here for the technology vendors to create new business value and new revenue streams for themselves while making it easier for the end users.
[00:24:19] Speaker A: Yeah. And there's one more point I want to make about the board. We're not going to read you the whole report. Go get it. Go get the report and read it yourself.
[00:24:25] Speaker B: We're not going to take it yourself.
[00:24:26] Speaker A: We're not going to spoon feed it to you.
But one other point I want to make is, and again, if you're traveling to shows, you hear it over and over, sustainability really is an emerging priority right now. It's not the primary driver and it may not ever be, but it's really becoming a business imperative. People are starting to see that in order to conduct business, sustainability has to be a part of it. And so, and what's great for this industry is right now automation is really being seen as a key enabler of things like energy efficient and energy efficiency and waste reduction. So automation is the way that we might be able to get to some of those sustainability goals. Again, not a huge driver right now, but more and more companies and manufacturers are looking at this and they know it's coming.
[00:25:18] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, it is. Well, it is a huge driver. I, I actually just did a, a separate research report for packaging OEM on energy efficiency in, in packaging machines. And so when we talk about sustainability, a lot of times it's from the, you know, the corporate level, you know, you know, being a good corporate citizen, environmentally friendly, making sure like, you know, you're not the greenhouse gases and all that stuff, but like it starts at the machine.
You know, manufacturing is one of the hugest consumers of energy.
Right.
So how do we, how do we make sure that every part of our organization starting on the plant floor is using energy effectively and efficiently?
So anyway, I don't know.
[00:26:08] Speaker A: I think it's also useful to think when we talk about manufacturing, there is no one manufacturer out there. There are Amazons and Pepsis out there, but there's also mom and pop shops and what they need, what their sustainability goals, what their technology goals are, are very different out there. There's tons of manufacturers out there that are family run businesses where they've got 20 people and they've been making the same product for years. And so, you know, if you're the technology, the automation, all of that stuff has to reach those people too.
Yeah. So. All right, so, Stephanie, where can people find this report?
Where can they find this great information that we're offering for free right now?
[00:26:52] Speaker B: Oh, Control.
Go to research. I think that's the tab and you can download it right there.
[00:27:00] Speaker A: Yep. No, that's a great report. There's a lot of good stuff in there. So, look, we just wanted to kickstart this thing, start it off, introduce ourselves, introduce the podcast so you guys understand what you're getting into from here on out. Like I said, we'll generally have. Unless there's some big topic out in the news that Stephanie and I just want to dive into, we'll have some experts on here. So hopefully you guys will enjoy this. We'll find it informative, maybe occasionally amusing or fun.
Stephanie might drop a Boston accent.
[00:27:28] Speaker B: Oh, I thought you were gonna say. I thought you were gonna say something else.
[00:27:31] Speaker A: Well, you might drop that too. I've talked to you. I've talked to you offline. I know.
So, yeah, the Boston comes out.
[00:27:37] Speaker B: We're keeping it clean. We're keeping it clean.
[00:27:40] Speaker A: We'll see.
But yeah. Thank you so much for tuning into this first episode. We're gonna drop this podcast every two weeks. So if you're listening to it now and you got it on the first day, in a couple weeks there'll be a new one out.
So keep looking. It's going to live exactly where you probably found it on control Engineering. That's controlenge.com. you can always find it there. Also, just a little plug if you're not going to Control Engineering regularly. All kinds of good stuff on the Control Engineering website. So you'll be everything we talked about today, aside from the fact that this report is actually there.
Anything that you want to find out about process manufacturing, artificial intelligence, data privacy, data security, that's all out there. So we're covering all that on Control Engineering in podcast form now, but also in videos and articles. So make sure you're checking out Control Eng as well. Stephanie, anything else we want to plug before we say goodbye?
[00:28:35] Speaker B: No, I think that's good for right now.
Just happy to be here.
[00:28:39] Speaker A: Happy to be here. All right, everybody, thanks so much. For listening to the inaugural episode of the Ctrl Alt Manufacturing podcast.
Hopefully we will be doing exactly what our tagline says, resetting and rethinking manufacturing. We look forward to talking to you next time. Bye everybody.
[00:28:56] Speaker B: Bye.