Step 1: Setting the Stage, why even take the leap with a new approach?

Change is hard and can feel risky. Oftentimes a plant can be meeting its targets, even with significant downtime and inefficiencies. So why rock the boat?

As a famous business book said, the reason is that what got us here won't get us where we need to go next. Manufacturing is at a crossroads where we can’t get the talent we need to fill our key gaps today, never mind expanding our capacity. We’re looking to onshore more of our manufacturing to higher-cost geographies, but that means finding ways to drive down costs to stay competitive. Our suppliers are in the same boat we are, so we can’t wring more price reductions out of them. We need a new way forward and fast, and that means mastering change at a pace we’ve never had to deal with before.

New technologies are emerging that can help us make that leap forward. AI is moving beyond a buzzword to becoming a practical tool that can address some of our most persistent challenges. New ways to collect and analyze data can give us insights into our processes and assets we never had before. We can finally stop reacting to even and start driving them instead. But embracing these new ideas means embracing change and moving fast- something that’s hard to master in manufacturing, where consistency and risk management have often ruled.

That’s where you come in. The changes that have to happen in manufacturing might get dreamed up at the executive level and discussed in new management books. But they only become real when we can make them work on the factory floor: that loud, messy, unpredictable and even dangerous place where fancy ideas and shiny new tools meet their real test. Helping them pass that test and become part of a new way forward for manufacturing takes courage, discipline, leadership, and imagination- the kinds of traits we see so often in the plant managers, team leads, and quiet heroes who exist in every manufacturing facility. You’re the people who can make that change real if you have the tools and techniques to do it.

The need to change is clear, and the technologies that can make it happen are real. But the key ingredient to the change is you. So we will get started with step one: preparing the ground.