GA 288 | Adapting to Industry 4.0 with Luke Mullins

Us as leaders, we need to become more adaptable to change. We need to become more agile and more embracing of the future that it could hold, just not within manufacturing, but within business in general.

Today I'm excited to welcome Luke Mullins to the show. Luke is a CEO of a company called Volta, and today he and I have an interesting conversation about the future of manufacturing and really the future of the world. Specifically, we talk about how industry has changed and most likely will continue to change as things like machine learning and artificial intelligence gain even more traction. We then get into how we believe things like Lean will continue to play an important role as well as the skills leaders and even our own children would be wise to develop the show. Notes for this episode can be found over@gembapodcast.com just look for episode 288. Finally, if you haven't had an opportunity to check out all Gemba Academy has to offer, I'd like to personally invite you to take us for a test drive by registering for a three day trial. Simply go to gembaacademy.com, scroll to the bottom of any page and look for the link for our free trial. Okay, enough from me. Let's get to the show. Luke, welcome to the show. How's it going?

Thanks very much for having me, Ron. Yeah, it's fantastic. Thank you.

All right, so where are you calling in from?

I'm from Manchester in the uk.

Okay. All right. All right, well, thanks for calling in. I know it's evening time for you there, so I appreciate your flexibility.

No, no, it's fine. No problem at all.

Yeah, good, good, good stuff. All right, well, hey, Luke, I'm really excited for today's topic. As we were mentioning before kind of we started the recording, you know, this has kind of been a little bit of a theme of late here on the podcast is kind of talking about the future, you know, what's going to happen. And obviously none of us have a crystal ball, you know, so no one know, you know, what the future holds. But it's fun to kind of think about it, make some, maybe some predictions and see what we learn as we navigate through this thing called life, I guess. Right?

Absolutely.

So, yeah. But before we kind of get into the topic, Luke, I know you listen to the show and as you know, we like to begin with a quote that our guest may have. So do you have one?

Yeah, I do, yeah. Yeah. And again, thanks for having me on the show. You know, it's, it's great to be on here and I think Something. The quote I'd like to share is by a guy called Nick Kremmling, who's an author. He talks a lot about business, but also about sports. And it's. You haven't come this far to only come this far. And I think it's great when you apply it to Lean Journeys or Transformation Journeys, because, you know, as we all know, these kind of transformation journeys are very difficult sometimes, and they're quite hard. And sometimes you can't see the width of the trees. And it's great just to kind of have that quote in the back of your head to go, we started something here. We need to see it through. We need to implement this change. We need to keep going with it.

Yeah, I love it. I love it. Now, speaking of sports, I wouldn't be a good podcast host if I didn't ask you, I suppose, Manchester United fan or something like that. Is that right? Or city or.

So. I'm a United fan. Okay. My son is actually a City fan, so he causes a bit of. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Problems in the household sometimes. Yeah, okay.

Yeah, I know it's a. It's serious business man over there.

So.

Good stuff. Good stuff. All right, well, Luke, let's jump right in. I guess the theme of the day that we want to kind of focus on is, is this whole idea of this. This industry 4.0, as it's being called, kind of talking about the future of. Of, of, of industry, not just manufacturing, but really, you know, really the world, in a way of what things are going to look like in 10, 15, 20, 30, 40 years from now. And let's kind of maybe just begin there, just before we kind of get into how that may pose some challenges, like what do you think it's going to look like? What's your opinion? What's your prediction, Luke?

So I've been asked this question a couple of times recently because, like I say, the industry as a whole is going through massive changes, and those changes keep on getting quicker and quicker. So it's difficult. Right. Because if you're going through a manufacturing project that may last three, four, five years, you need to know what that five years is going to look like, 10 years is going to look like. And I think, you know, there's some fundamentals we can all agree on. Change is going to happen, and it's going to happen quicker, and we need to adapt to that quicker. So we need to become more agile. We need to become quicker responding. You know, a perfect example of that would be consumers. You know, consumers care more now about where they're, what they're consuming, what they're buying, where they're buying it from their supply chain and the kind of circular economy more than they ever have done. So I think it's going to continue that path. I think we're going to be more culturally aware of manufacturing and what it means and the impact it's having. But I think business as a whole is going to continue to see this transformation through Industry 4.0 into Industry 5. Even of that constant change and constant reactions to new technology, to new environments, to new circumstances. You know, for example, Brexit over here is a big topic of discussion. No one has a crystal ball, but there's some fundamentals we can all kind of agree on and that it's, that change will happen and we need to be ready for it.

So, Luke, I don't have my normal notes in front of me, so I realized as you got talking that I totally blew my format here. And people are probably like, wait, wait, Ron, you missed the question, which is your background. And so let's reverse, you know, and I was going to try to make it to where Greg could just put it in there, but we'll just roll with it and we'll just do this organically. So apologize for that, Luke. So before we carry on with the story, tell us a little bit about your background and then, and what you're up to these days and then we'll jump back into Industry 4.0.

Yeah, I know. Sure, sure. So I, you know, I've been in manufacturing all my working life now and, you know, sort of coming on to back end of 16 years onto 17 years now in manufacturing. And I started it as a, as an apprentice on the tools, fixing machines and fixing production machines. So I felt firsthand the impact of things like tpm, of Lean Manufacturing. Now I was on the front line making sure production lines didn't shut down for whatever reason. And we always knew how many spares we had and how much the impact that was going to cost of if the machines did break down. And very quickly, while still doing my apprenticeship, started to see the impact that Lean could have. So I became very heavily involved in Lean Six Sigma projects. And yeah, I just carried that through because I have a real kind of passion for making things happen and making those improvements happen. So very quickly moved into production line management and then managing entire factories where we were implementing those Lean manufacturing practices. We were implementing change and introducing new technology all at the same time. So that kind of disruption happened very quickly in my career, and I've carried it through, and it's a passion of mine where I want to teach, coach and train people how to deal with that, because I was very, very fortunate to have those kind of mentors as I grew up through my manufacturing career. And now I'm on the other side of that, where I now own a consultancy company called Volta, where we do exactly that. We teach manufacturing how to go through that change. And we, we, we call ourselves manufacturing change experts because effectively we want to teach and coach people through the adoption of new technology, through the education of their staff, and through, you know, navigating the hardships of things like Industry 4 and what that means for them, and how do we embrace new cultures and new organizations and new change?

At the bottom of your email, you have a really interesting kind of a quote talking about poetry. Why don't you do, you know, offhand. Know it offhand or I can read it.

Yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely. So my company is called Volta. And the reason it's called Volta is really because I want to express what change means to me very simply. And Volta in Latin, it's, it's used to describe a change of thought and emotion when used in poetry. So as you quite rightly said, it's a quote taken from poetry where it describes that dramatic change or the dramatic change in emotion or thoughts. And that's what we want to do, is disrupt people's thinking about the problems. There is no problem that's not achievable and overcomeable. And, yeah, that's why we decided to call the company Volta, because it emulates what it is we're trying to achieve and what we're trying to help teach and coach and develop people into.

Got it. Love it. All right, so industry 4.0, let's talk about that a little bit. In particular, I want to kind of focus in on, you know, leaders of organizations and what that's going to. What that's going to look like. So what do you see as some of these. Some of these challenges that leaders are going to be facing in this next industrial revolution, whatever that might look like?

Because it's a really interesting one. And I've had the pleasure of. Of being on stage with Henrik von Scheele, who is the originator of Industry 4.0. And we've got some great mutual thoughts about it. This is a period of really destructive change where new technology is being brought online faster than ever. We've been through these industrial revolutions before where we've had new technology and there's A lot to say from learning from the past, where we have the old industry mills and people being replaced by technology. What it actually taught us is that, yes, there may be some job redundancies, there may be some changes within the organization, but actually it was creating a much more skilled workforce. And as long as organizations can be ready to embrace that, they can fully take advantage of what's to come. We're talking mass customization on a global scale is what Industry four will bring. And when you start thinking about what that will have in terms of the impact to your business, you can either one, prepare for it, or two, let others prepare for it, and they take the market share of your business. So it's really, it's a case of how do we embrace Industry 4? How do we understand what it is to our business, not as a whole global economy, but what does it mean to us and what will it mean to the impact of our business going forward? And I think it's a big, big message that I'm trying to send out to people is, you know, Industry four is just a term and it's just a terminology and it's a blanket statement. You need to think about what it means to you, what it means to you personally, what it means to your organization, and what changes that might happen in the future.

So there's a. There's a company that almost everybody listening is probably familiar with, called Amazon.

Yes.

And, you know, they're obviously on the leading edge of many things. Where do you, where do you see industry for impacting the way Jeff Bezos runs his company? And maybe we are already starting to see some of these changes occur.

Yeah, I mean, you're talking significantly more AI, so you're talking much more efficient warehousing operations. So from picking of parts, where they have obviously robots making the decisions of where parts can be placed in order to pick them more frequently, you've got much more integration of things like human machine interfaces. So, you know, you're talking cobots and things like that where, you know, people can be helped to work longer, more physically active, because obviously we all know that Amazon warehouses are quite physically active places.

So what about recruiting and the types of leaders that we should be developing for the future? You know, I've got some teenage kids, you know, thinking about college and university and whatnot down the road. Like, what kind of decisions do you think we should be making? You know, even. Even with our children and their future. What are your thoughts there?

Yeah, I mean, it's an interesting one because my son is getting to the point where he's trying to decide what he wants to do for his future. And the advice I'm giving to him is try and acquire skills that would be transferable rather than looking at a particular path. And the reason I say that is, you know, us as leaders, we need to become more adaptable to change. We need to become more agile and more embracing of the future that it could hold, just not within manufacturing, but within business in general. We need to embrace people who have different skill sets than what manufacturing needed 20 years ago. We're talking people who are more entrepreneurial inherently, people who can lead teams, not just from a manufacturing point of view, but from a purchasing supply and sourcing and, you know, looking at manufacturing as a global interaction rather than just a factory that produces an item. So I think leaders now need to be much more adaptable to change. They need to make decisions quicker. They need to be able to encourage others to drive forward and commit to change. I think we need leaders who can. Who are not afraid to stick their heads above the parapets and say, no, this is what we need to do and actually embrace that culture. And I think leadership as a whole needs to understand that it's okay to be wrong sometimes, and it's okay to be humble in what it is you're trying to achieve, because, you know, we're in a period of mass change and nobody really knows the future. But to make no decision at all is in itself a decision. So, yeah, I mean, from kids wanting to look at what their next future is, I think the biggest thing would be, is learn to acquire skills that can be transferable. So we're talking things like emotional intelligence. You know, know yourself inside out, you know, know what makes you tick and what you' good and what your strengths and weaknesses are, and learn how to apply those strengths and weaknesses. There's no such thing as a job for life anymore. And I think if people can start to understand that, they can start to embrace that change.

Yeah, it's. Yeah, it's really interesting times. So what about the role of Lean? You know, there's a lot of chatter. You know, I'm sure you've seen it on LinkedIn. All lean is dead. You know, when the Industry 4 comes with, there's no more need for thinking or problem solving. The machines will do it for us. Like, what's your. What's your take on that?

I think it's a good discussion to have, but I think, you know, there's a. There's a really good reason why Lean has survived this long. And it's because it works, you know, and it's, it's a mindset thing at the end of the day, you know, leaning lean teaches you how to think differently about the problems that you're trying to overcome. So it teaches you to want to constantly improve, and it gives you those tools to be able to do that. You know, those tools are not fixed in time, so they don't only apply to, you know, the Toyota production system in the 1980s, 1990s. Yeah. They are transferable through time. And, you know, if you learn to adapt your way of thinking too lean, regardless of the problems that come along, you'll always be able to use those tools to overcome them. And it's the entire reason why. The, the way we go about implementing change of volta is in three different ways. One is with people. So, you know, how do we encourage people to set targets and stretch themselves? And two is around data. So what data we're collecting, how do we know we're improving? And one is around tools, so actually the physical equipment, but data is a big one, you know, so data is that feedback to say is what we're doing, working or not? And lean is a great way of collecting that data and making those decisions. You know, industry four is a, a phase that we're going through now, and it's the collective term for that phase. But tools stand the test of time, and the way of thinking stands the test of time. And if you want to constantly improve, well, that's, that's lean. It's just you're applying to different situations than you used to 20 years ago.

Yeah, I think. Yeah, I guess the way, the way I've been reflecting on it and thinking on is, well, in the future, are there still people involved, like, at all, you know, anywhere other people? Yeah, there's people and. Well, are there going to be opportunities to make things better? Right. And of course, there's always going to be ways to make things better or a need to make things better, because competitors are all going to have access to the same artificial intelligence. They're going to have the same, you know, machines and equipment and whatnot. And so, you know, who, who learns to wield these technologies the best and, and create the most value, they're going to win. Right. I don't think that's ever going to change. And so that's why I don't believe. Yeah, well, we were walking. Well, I don't know. Well, will 5s look like it does today? Maybe, maybe not. I don't know. But the principles of 5s, like removing the things that aren't needed, you know, organizing the things that are left, you know? You know, like, I don't. I don't think these principles are ever going to die. I could be wrong, but I don't believe they will.

I think you're absolutely right. And I think that there's always going to be people involved in manufacturing. There may be more robotics and more things like 3D printing and AI, and that's great, but you still need people to look after those machines. You still need people to operate those machines. And if they don't understand the best way of doing that, I. E. Lean principles, then like you say, everyone's going to have access to the same technology.

Yeah.

Then going to be the person who utilizes and wheels that technology the best that makes the biggest impact. You know, there's a reason why Amazon is so good at what they do. Know that the technology that they have in their warehouses is applicable to everybody. Just that they use it better than others.

Yeah, exactly.

Absolutely. And I think the topic of Lean is a great one to have in coming into Industry 4, you know, and I think it's, as leaders, we shouldn't forget the lessons of the past. And the lessons of the past have been if we can focus on continuous improvement, if we can focus on. On the principles of Lean whilst introducing new technology, whilst bringing people on that journey, it creates a powerful force. It really, really does.

Well, yeah. And I think it's an interesting parallels to after the war when many of the Americans came back to the factories, this whole TWI movement and everything that had created or helped positively influence production of the war machine, if you will. We don't need that anymore. And it went away. Right. And now it's coming back. So it's like, will that ever happen? All that Lean stuff, you know, it's like, oh, wait, wait, there's this thing called Lean that my grandpa used to do. You know, let's bring it back.

Exactly, exactly. You know, and I've seen Lean in my experiences go through peaks and troughs. You know, there's people that have businesses that we've worked with that really embraced Lean culture. And then those people have moved on and Lean culture has disappeared out of that organization. And then, next thing you know, they found themselves back where they were 10, 15 years ago before leaving, even applied. So I think the biggest thing we can do is learn from lessons of the past and learn how to apply those lessons in the coming future, because it's a way of thinking It's a way of approaching problems. Well, all that's happening is problems are becoming more complex. And so actually Lean is required more than it ever has been because those problems are now much more complex because they require many more people with multiple different disciplines across multiple different sites, all at the same time that need to come together. Actually, I think Lean's more so important now than it ever has been.

Yeah, no, I would agree. And it's like anything, you know, the people who are, you know, spending eight hours on LinkedIn arguing, you know, they're not, I don't mean to be mean, but they're not probably going to be involved in shaping the future of anything anyhow. You know, the people out there doing the work don't have time to sit on LinkedIn for two hours at a time, you know, so, so I don't take a lot of, you know, I, I don't take a lot of some of these comments that come out, but it's still interesting to, to monitor.

So, yeah, I mean, you know, look, you know, if we're trying to affect change, an enterprise firm, we have to listen to those, those people and understand why they're saying that. You know, is it because they've had a bad experience with Lean? Is it because they don't understand the tools properly? Is it because they don't see the value in what it is we're trying to achieve? And I think all those, those points, you know, can be valid in certain circumstances, but I think it's not going to affect change if you have that mindset. Yeah, and it's an interesting one because we, we thought long and hard when we set up Volta. How do we communicate this? The passion that we have and the drive that we have to affect change at a global scale to every person within an organization, you know, from C level executives right the way down to the shop floor. And we decided we can't use the terminology that is around all the time. So when we say data, what we mean is things like Lean. So what is the feedback mechanism for us being able to make that decision? But we break more simply and we say, well, it's just data that's coming back. And when we coach and train and develop people, of course we train them in the ways of Lean and in the ways of Six Sigma, but we don't care that much if they don't have a full grasp on the tool. What we care about is it. Has it changed their mentality and their approach? Yeah, because I think, you know, there's not always going to be people, you know, in every organization there's always people that are more academic, there's always people that are more practical, there's more people that are more theoretical and they're not always going to get the same outcomes if they use the same tools because they're going to approach it slightly differently. You know, we need to go into an organization, affect change and effectively do ourselves out of a job at some point. You know, we don't want to be in an organization forever, so we need to make ourselves redundant. Well, how do we do that? We can only do that by affecting people's mindset and how they view things like clean, how they view things like Industry 4. So, you know, so hopefully we can start to change some of those comments. That sort of the negativity that's coming back to go, well, actually we've not thought about it that way. But you know, I see your point. Or we've in a different way and now it can be applied to us in a different context. So yeah, it's an exciting one, I think, but it's, I think take the negative with a pinch of salt but understand at the heart of it where it's coming from. It's a good one for sure.

For sure. So on a slightly different topic, I'm curious if you could. Many of the folks listening are, well, they're all over the world, but a large percentage of folks are here in America. So give us a state of the union of lean and maybe England and just Europe and just different places. What are you seeing over there as far as trends and any momentum or lack thereof? I don't know.

It'S a good question because there's lots of different trends going on within Europe at the moment. We see the Germans leading the way by far with things like Industry 4 and embracing new technology. They've got a very clear directive of trying to save efficiencies across their entire country. And I think they've set a target of something like 50% efficiency across their entire manufacturing division. So they're really embracing Industry 4 new technology and so are the Swedes and you know, they're carrying with it lean six sigma principles, which is fantastic to see because they're not just going technology heavy. France is doing the same, but I think they're a little bit behind. You know, they want to embrace industry for and they're trying to keep their position as one of the global manufacturing positions in the world. I think they're sort of number five at the moment, which is great to see. And I think the UK is a touchy subject at the moment because of Brexit. Manufacturers don't know where to invest because they don't know if they're going to have to offshore their operations. They're struggling to train their people because they don't know if they're going to have redundancies. So what you're seeing is Central Europe is in this great position where they're just forging forward with embracing the changes that's happening in manufacturing at the moment, whereas the UK is kind of lacking behind a little bit because of the sort of political turmoil that we're seeing. And it's a bit of a shame. Regardless of where you come down on the politics, it's a shame that it's having that impact in manufacturing where we're making people hesitant to make decisions and we're hesitating on investment and things like that. So it's good in one side with Central Europe, but where I live and personally, we're being heavily impacted by Brexit at the moment.

Yeah, well, it should keep going and going and going. You're kind of like, well, just do something. Right. Yeah. Uncertainty is a killer, right?

This is it. Because businesses set their budgets at the beginning of the year to, say, have 2 million or 10 million or 15 million as capital expenditure to invest in new equipment. And because it keeps going and going, you know, by the end of the year, they haven't spent that money and they've missed out on any opportunities that could have come from it. So it's. Yeah, it's a bit of a shame, really.

Yeah, yeah. Good stuff. Well, Luke, it's been fun chatting with you. It's. I think it'll be fun to watch this, you know, just watch industry in general, as always. There's one thing is constant is change, right? No matter what the world is changing, it always is and always has been and always will change. So I think it's those that can adapt to it, right? They're going to be the winners, right? And those that. That stay the same are going to be in trouble.

It's those that can embrace change the quickest and the best, and it's those that can learn from the past and implement those learnings quickly. I think the ones are going to succeed. And it's a. It's a great time to be in manufacturing at the moment because manufacturing is just getting, you know, it's just exploding with all this new technology and new skills and new people, and it's a fantastic time to be in it. But it's also a good time to stand back and go, okay, where do we think we're going to go in the next 10, 15, 20 years?

Got it. Luke, what's the best way for folks to connect with you?

Yeah, so just my LinkedIn profile. So just search Luke Mullins. Or if you want to see what we're doing as a business, it's wearevolta.co.uk. that will have all the information on, you know, what we're doing in terms of effecting change, where we're gonna be in terms of events coming up over the next year or so.

Good, good. And we'll put everything in the show notes. So this is episode, let me see, 288. So gembopodcast.com, look for episode 288 and Luke Mullins. Mullins is M U L L I N s Correct.

That's right, yes, absolutely. Yep.

Yeah. So look up on LinkedIn. Don't spend too much time on LinkedIn though, people. Come on. I see the same people. I'm like, do you do anything or you just spend a lot, sit on LinkedIn all day?

Just drop me a message on LinkedIn. Let's have a chat offline.

Yeah, exactly. There you go. All right. Hey, do you ever get over to the States for any conferences or anything like that?

Yeah, we do, definitely. Yeah. We're actually hoping to be at the North American Manufacturing Summit in April, which be fantastic if we, if we can make it over there.

Yeah, brilliant, brilliant. All right, well, if you ever make it down into Texas, come on down and we'll buy you some barbecue and take care of you.

I'm there already.

All right, well, thanks again, Luke. Have a good evening there. And yeah, good luck to your, to your, to your Man U boys.

Thanks very much for having me.

All right, take care. Thanks for listening to the Gemba Academy podcast. Now we invite you to take a no strings attached, fully functional test drive of GembaAcademy, gain immediate access to more than a thousand Lean and Six Sigma learning resources, all free of charge@gembacademy.com.