Accelerating Smart Manufacturing: An Update from CESMII at Eastec

Good morning and welcome. This is the Industry 4.0 Club's fireside chat. We have a special edition today. We're going to be speaking with Mike Yost, Conor Leyva, and Jim Wetzel. about the acceleration of smart manufacturing. So we're really excited to hear from them today. Just a quick comment about the club, the Industry 4.0 Club. Our mission is to advance the deployment of Industry 4.0. We do this in several ways, by hosting important and significant conversations with industry leaders like these gentlemen, as well as help with programming at live events. And, uh, anyway, so we're real happy to be here today. My name is Mike Ungar. As I said, I'm an Industry 4.0 Club co-founder. I retired from Michelin North America 3 years ago after spending 35 years with them working in a variety of roles in manufacturing. And today I'm a business coach and executive coach. Conrad, would you introduce yourself, please?

Hi, Conrad Leyva, VP of Education at SESAME, the Smart Manufacturing Institute.

Jim Wetzel, co-founder of NextGen Group, and happy to be here.

I'm Mike Yost. I'm Mike's co-host for the fireside chats and one of the co-founders of the club. And just, we wanted to have this event here today because SESAME, Jim, the team, they're all here at the Eastech event in Springfield, Massachusetts, talking about their acceleration framework. We wanted to have a conversation about the value of the approach, the insights that they're learning from delivering these types of workshops. And I'm going to apologize in advance because we are in a workshop room and we've already had a couple people walk in and out, so we'll do our best to avoid the distractions, but we felt it was important to get these guys while they're here so we can learn from what they're what they're doing and how we can support.

Well, let's get started right away. I know we have limited time. So, you know, I know we're gonna talk about the acceleration framework here in just a minute. But before we do, why is, why is it important for companies to start their Industry 4.0 journey? Maybe, Conrad, could you start us off on that?

Well, there is so much great technology that has been made practical and affordable in the last 10 years, but even more so in the last 5 years. And if manufacturers haven't jumped into it, they really need to right now. This is the moment, or they risk, right, keep falling behind competitively. So it's about speed, it's about growing the business, Producing more with less resources. So I think it's very important to be competitive today and to set up for the future highly connected supply chains to move on and really incorporate the smart manufacturing into their whole way of doing business.

And Mike, maybe I could add on to that. You know, you think about the perfect storm or the perfect ecosystem that's kind of transforming in front of us. We've got technology coming down in price point and being simpler to execute. So those, you know, in the olden days, if you will, only the few that had deep checkbooks could actually afford to put in networks and the sensors and all of the technology stack that's needed to support this. And now it's becoming more available. I mean, we're sitting here today in this hotbed of a state fair kind of situation. And as you walk, everyone's got data coming out of their pieces of equipment and making it digitally available. So the topic of Industry 4.0 certainly is relevant and is becoming consumable by the masses.

Yeah, and I just come alongside that and say that that work and the work we're trying to do at the club is to help people figure out, well, what do I do with all of that? Because there are literally hundreds, if not maybe into 1,000 type of solutions and equipment out here. How do you understand it as a manufacturer in a way that frames your business? And that's the types of tools and training and methodologies that the team is advocating for and driving.

I kind of feel like if I was a man on the street with a mic and I walked down these aisles here, And I just asked the simple question, so what's your plan? What are you gonna do with all this stuff? I think I get a fair amount of blank stares.

Yeah.

Because there's a lot of excitement, and you can feel it in this, in the room that we're in, because we hear the noise from the expo floor. There's a lot of excitement of people seeing stuff for the first time. But the reason Conrad and I are here is to ask the question and help them answer that. So what's your plan? So, okay, you saw this stuff. How is— what are you going to do with it? How does it drive your business? How are you going to actually achieve results from it instead of just getting all excited to say, well, that was really cool?

Yeah, so you've got— I know you've got this framework, and you call it an acceleration framework. Just by definition, it sounds like it helps people get get going faster. Can you talk about what that framework can do for somebody?

Yeah, I'll start and then turn it over to Conrad. You know, it kind of— when you say acceleration, Mike, it's pretty easy to accelerate when everyone's stuck. So getting them to move, you got instant acceleration, you know, from zero to something is more than zero. So that's the first thing we talk a lot about, how to get unstuck and how do you get started and how do you get not overwhelmed by this. And, and I, I've been process-averse kind of my whole life. And I'd say, you know, what's interesting is if you follow a process, it kind of sets you free because it helps you walk in steps. So, so the way we accelerate is we have a framework and process that you can follow and you will get somewhere.

Well, and when we talk about acceleration, it doesn't mean that Go grab that robot and implement it and get it done in a few days, which you can. But it's about getting to that end state where you want to be faster. So a lot of it is about defining really that picture. Where do you want to be 3 years from now? And then how do we get there faster? You know, so, but we really stress looking at it strategically. for your company? What, what are your goals, business goals? And then let's look at how technology can help you get there quicker.

So one of the things I'd like to ask these guys is the message about trying to determine where you are, and how do you move forward is a common message, right? And so you hear, there are a lot of assessment tools out there, there are a lot of individual organizations that are offering You know, an approach, a plan. So what are you guys seeing and learning as far as— I don't think you want this to be our methodology versus their methodology kind of thing. So what are you seeing out there? And what's your approach to these points?

Well, I'd answer that. And you and I, Mike, have talked about this before. Well, what does help look like? Right? So you hear this, you know, use my assessment tool or use my process and And this will all help you. But at the end of the day, what we're really seeing the help looks like is kind of teaching people to fish, actually show them how they can learn about a process that will guide them appropriately, but then they can manage it and they can do it. So it's not being done to them, it's being done with them. And so when we leave, they know the framework, they know that They know how to go through it. They can look at and validate year in, year out, how we doing, did this deliver? 'Cause at the end of the day, the early statistics are that a lot of these digital projects are failing. They're not, and by failing, I don't think it's a technical failure, it's a business failure. It's not delivering the business results that were expected. And so part of the value of having an acceleration framework and a toolset and a process to follow is we really believe we can increase your probability of success because it's tied out to your business goals, and we've got momentum and alignment throughout the organization. You know, a lot of times what happens is help— when help comes, it's not involving the right players. It's not involving the players that become roadblocks in the future. So you can have the best technology, and it could have it actually could have been implemented flawlessly and returned nothing because let's say you didn't onboard the people or some of those kinds of things.

So it— I think there's great consultants helping people establish business strategies and vision. And there's great system integrators helping people implement technology. But what we're trying to achieve is that smooth transition from that business, that connection, really, that connective tissue of business strategy and technology through examples, and have more and more examples of how you can move from here to there, applying technology, putting it— but putting a good foundation in place. So there's interoperability, scalability, security, all that. Easy, the things that make it easier to keep adding solutions after solutions to get where you want to be. So it does on the surface sound very similar. But some of the differentiators are what Jim was talking about. Ownership needs to be at the manufacturer. So if you're looking for somebody to come and do it for you and help you do it, this tool is not for you, you have to have at least a couple of champions inside the company that are going to lead the transformation. That's very important to have that successful journey.

Well, and you talk also about that transition, right? We've talked, we've lived for years, right, this transition from awareness, like knowing we need to do something, into getting educated, into taking action. And so that's what you're talking about stitching together here, right? And that's really, I think, what What we do at the club is we're more on that front-end awareness and trying to drive an understanding and point people in the right direction to take action.

You can bring in help and resources, but somebody internally needs to be managing that, keeping the rhythm going.

Yeah. I would say another difference or answer to what help looks like is that we're not at the very start of the process in the framework, we're not worrying about the vendor selections. So we're not worrying about what brands and stuff you're picking for particular solutions. What we're really trying to get to is alignment on capabilities that your organization needs to achieve its business objectives. So what if I somehow magically doubled the capacity of my manufacturing facility? What if I reduced all my losses? What, what would that be worth? Then we'll get into the how. and we'll list out those functions and capabilities. Then you'll get into brand selection. He's going to—

quick.

So talk about for a second, you mentioned this, we've talked about this acceleration framework. What's important about it being open for everybody? I know it's one of the things we've talked around is making sure this is available for the masses. What's important about having that, having it be done that way?

Well, a clarification there. So it's open to everybody, but we do have a training program because it's not just about a tool, it's about a methodology and a process. It's about leveraging the ecosystem. So we want the advisors, the champions to know where What's the process to bring to bear?

So is that— and that training is for both manufacturers themselves and consultants?

Both flavors are available.

Yes.

Yeah.

So basically, you have to learn how to deploy the tools or have people around.

Yeah. So it's not so different than the quality movement, or the safety movement, or the continuous improvement movement, where there's, you know, what are these methodologies? How would I get skilled in that? Am I a black belt or whatever? So it's a similar thing. But Mike, to answer your question also around why is it important to actually go down this path and use these processes and you think and democratize it. When in the United States you have over 400,000 manufacturers and really less than 1% are really getting the limelight, you've got 99% of the audience that's underserved.

Right.

And so you go, okay, fine, the big Fortune 100 or 200 companies know about how to do this and/or hire prestigious and very, very capable consulting firms to guide them through. 98 to 99% of the other organizations are left behind. And so what we're really trying to do at SESAME and with my company NextGen is we're trying to help the underserved because at the end of the day, a weak link in the supply chain or a waste or scrap or quality opportunity happens anywhere along that chain, not just the big guy. And so we're trying to figure out kind of how to accelerate the digital transformation in much lighter of a touch than what the big consulting organizations do. And it's important to do that because if the 98 or 99% don't move, we're not going to achieve this Industry 4.0 vision.

And nationally, we want to move entire supply chains, right? So, and what the large OEMs are finding is that They need their suppliers to deliver on time, on quality, faster. They need data, more data connectivity from their supplier connective tissue. So, so if they're not data ready, then they cannot participate in these data-rich ecosystems.

So if you, if you don't mind, my— I'd just like to get an update from these guys because this is the second workshop that you've done in coordination with SME and SESME and these events. So there's an active program in place to roll out these methodologies, these tools, to train manufacturers, to train consultants. So maybe just an update from you guys on how it's going, and then maybe some insights that you're learning or roadblocks or, you know, things we have to change in our thinking.

So One of the things we're finding, like, 2 groups of companies. One, one is companies that have started implementing technologies, solutions, have some connectivity, and are— maybe they're a little stuck there and plateauing a little bit and need to maybe take a step back and look to, to then look forward the next 2 or 3 years and And there's those, which is a big group, that haven't started to really think about smart manufacturing journey from a point of connecting everything, really leveraging data in their everyday jobs, not so much just depending on spreadsheets, but how to automate all this data flow. And that gap seems to be getting larger. So, and we're set up to— we're setting up to help both groups. What else have you noticed?

Well, the awareness level of how do I get unstuck, right? So we're doing these workshops, you know, at places like, like this here with, with SME to, to expose people to— there's a way to, to get unstuck, there's a way to actually have a plan. So that's, that's one thing. There's going to be 4 of these. This will be our second one this year, but there'll be 4 of these. over the course of the year. And then we just are launching a session for manufacturers on how to do this with the collaboration of RPI, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. And so RPI at Work is launching for manufacturers how to get unstuck and how to actually go down this process. And so that starts in June, first week of June, that will begin. And then this whole program is launched through CESMI as well. Even on the CESMI website, there's a place to get started.

Yeah. Make sure you check the CESMI, that's CESMI.org website, and get more information under education roadmap tools. But also, there's a couple of myths that might be also paralyzing people. And I think one is that, that this is a money pit, that there is just have to spend a lot of money on this, and there's no end to it. And, and there's a fear of that. And the other one is cybersecurity, that if you start implementing these solutions, you'll get hacked. And, you know, your everything will Would be a disaster. So I also think a lot of what we're doing is educating that there— those are valid concerns, but there's ways to address them. There are paths and journeys on both cybersecurity and on spending that are practical milestones. And you need to consider those things, but they shouldn't paralyze you and make— the solution shouldn't be do nothing. That's not a good solution.

Yeah, just 2 things from my perspective looking at the LinkedIn Live comments. One asking if we're in a closet. I think we addressed that early on. We're close, almost more like a bomb shelter than a closet, but—

All our stuff is flying off the shelves here.

That's true, that's true. But if anybody has any questions, we have— we're only going to stay on for another 5 or 10 minutes here. Really want to give you guys the opportunity. Like, is there anything that's not working? Like, are you getting feedback from people that are hearing this story and going, eh, I don't want it, or like, you're going about it wrong? What are people, what are manufacturers who are sitting through these sessions and grabbing the tools saying?

Okay, yeah, sure, I'll jump in. So I think there's a lot of excitement about the insight that they can gather quickly. So when we use the word acceleration, I think we've proven it to these folks where they kind of go, oh yeah, we've heard about consultants follow a framework and it takes us forever and whatnot. And, oh, you know, part of one of the things that's different is we're not doing a lot of onsite presence. So a lot of this stuff is remote. Most of— actually, almost all the stuff is remote. And I think everyone's been impressed with how much insight you can gather using different methodologies without actually ever having to walk the floor.

Yeah.

And so we can go pretty far, pretty fast. And so I think that's really impressive. critical side has been in the process, we need their input. We need— it's a collaborative process.

Well, they've got—

everyone's got a day job.

Yeah.

When it might only take an hour of someone's time to weigh in and create a vision or a strategy or collaborate around developing a plan or asking some provocative questions, that 1 hour of time might take a week to get done.

Right.

Or another 2 hours of time might take a month to get scheduled. So, so still, I would say most organizations have not addressed the urgency on this topic. And they kind of go, you know, it's a nice to have, it's a vision, it's a future state. It doesn't matter if we get there tomorrow or a month from tomorrow or a year from tomorrow. And so we do face that a little bit.

Yeah, well, I think that ties in with part of the work. I know we've talked a lot about mindset, and there's a SESAME LinkedIn Live series around a smart manufacturing mindset. And one of the things that is a focal point there is to say that this needs to be treated with the sense of urgency, because I think honestly, if manufacturers at least committed to being in this discussion right now, like It's not that you have to commit to deploying technology solutions in the next 30 days to be on your journey, right? To start to get yourself into this dialogue, you know, have these conversations internally, get access to folks that can help. I think that's part of the process of getting started as well.

And a lot of what we're doing is facilitating an internal conversation in that company. So, and letting them pace that, right? Like you said, sometimes we have 20, 30, key stakeholders in a company, right? So, but we, by crowdsourcing with them, each at their own time, they fill out the surveys, they then we have these deep dive conversations with 15 or 12. But they can be participating and having their voice heard, and they see their voice in all of these reports. and stuff. And by the time we get them all together, it's less time, but, but not— but they're invested in it already at their own pace when they had time to give us an hour here and there.

So if I could add on to that, if we got time real quickly, here's where I've got a real-life use case in that, in that, where an organization that we're working with, came kind of to the table saying that we knew those guys were doing some digital transformation, and those guys was IT and OT folks.

Okay.

We knew those guys were doing something, but we didn't know what it was. And that's kind of the history of where stuff starts, right? Whether it be the engineering department and the controls guys figuring out, and they saw some new stuff at the show and they're bringing home a data historian and a sensor and something like that. or the IT folks got all excited that there's some relational database that can store real-time data, and let's bring this to our operation friends because they're going to be so super happy. And they haven't closed the loop of what are we going to do with this?

Right.

And so when we had this collaborative discussion, people went, oh, I get it now. We're actually going to solve this problem that the customers— we don't know what the customer service level is, or we don't know what's going on on the factory floor, and you're going to this digital thread that's gonna update this in real time. So my job got easier, your job got easier, we eliminated some waste, we're achieving these goals. Oh, I get it now. And you kind of go, well, that's kind of common sense, but it— which it is. But at the end of the day, in all these companies, you get so buried into your business.

Yeah.

And all of that's complex enough to understand, you know, what your job is. to let alone communicate that and integrate that and actually come up with interoperable approaches that are actually aligned to the business objectives. That's the thread that we start with, and people go, oh, that's more powerful and that's faster to get results.

And that, from a language perspective, we would frame as like your digital capabilities, right?

Yes. You didn't—

like, there was no conversation here yet other than a few examples of types of technology, Where it's you go buy this solution set, you go buy that solution set, whatever, right? You're talking about defining what a company's digital capabilities are, right, and how they tie in or what they need to be. What they need, right? Yeah, so we only have a few minutes left. Mike, I just wanted to ask one more question as far as we mentioned earlier, other nonprofits, other assessment frameworks, etc. If there are organizations out there that are doing this or perceiving themselves as doing this, Can they come to you? What do you— how do you guys interact with those folks? And should they be, you know, hopping on the SESAME website and making contact, or what do you want?

So you mean like the consultants? So if you're serving small-medium manufacturers and you're a consultant in that area, a client advisor, yes, you can come to us. Find me, conradleva@sesame.org, or Or education@cesme.org or ecosystem@cesme.org email, and we'll get back to you. It's on the website too, cesme.org. That's how you get in touch with us.

How about organizations? Individuals, they can get trained, they can be a part of this. What about organizations? Because to me, the value, the real value of like regional nonprofits is they have that connection with the local manufacturers in a position of trust.

We've made it very easy for these organizations, especially nonprofit organizations or organizations that are helping manufacturers to join. We've lowered the cost. If you look at the membership level, if you're a smaller organization, it's very easy to join and put— even put most of a big percent of your membership towards actually getting trained on these tools and stuff like that, making them available. Easier than ever.

The only other thing I would add to that is I want to clarify, a lot of organizations might have assessment tools and the assessment might be broad or it might be just technology and what things you have. The Acceleration Framework does have an assessment component to it, but its goal is to develop a strategic plan. So people go, yeah, can I use your assessment? Well, yeah, but the goal is not to have an assessment and then stop. The goal is to have an assessment, use that information, figure out where true north is, figure out where your digital capabilities need to be, and then go figure out your plan to do that, what needs to come first and second and third and so on. People somehow miss the rest of that story, that work has to happen, that a plan has to happen, that a digital framework has to happen, that it has to be tied to business objectives. And oh, by the way, because of the digital transformation that's possible, you might actually transform your business. You might be doing something different than what you were doing before.

Right. One of the things that I see in working with regional nonprofits that touch the manufacturers, especially smaller manufacturers, a lot of times they have events to share knowledge, but the people in the room, oftentimes it's HR leaders or it's line of business leaders. It's not necessarily the IT or the OT or the ops leaders. that are in these meetings. So if you offer a broader framework that's going to get to an actionable strategic plan, and that gives them the opportunity to define where they are, and then how to pull others from the business, then I think you have a more cohesive opportunity to actually drive something valuable.

Super.

And another differentiator is that— how much time do we have?

Go ahead, Conrad.

Finish up.

Go ahead.

That there is a You know, Germany has a tool and a framework. Singapore has a tool and a framework. This US, I mean, those have like 16, 20 dimensions. We've really focused on, on 6 key dimensions. So we've kept it simple, approachable for the small manufacturer, your, your business strategy, your culture, your workforce, your supply chain, your processes, and your systems. We've kept it very simple and very methodical, systematic process, easy to approach.

Well, I just wanted to put one more time, put up the website if people are interested in learning more about the tool. You can see on the screen or you can go to the, again, sesmi.org, education, roadmap tools, and get an opportunity to take a look at that in some more detail. I think we're reaching the end of our time together. Any last thoughts? Maybe we'll just kind of work our way from, you know, my left to right, I guess. Anyway, Mike, maybe, or Jim, maybe you'll start us off.

I'll start. Exciting to be here with this, with this group of people here, as well as attend this show. And I'd say, you know what, figure out your plan and have a process to figure out the plan and learn from others?

Join us, engage. I mean, it's time to get out of your comfort of your 4 walls or your virtual 4 walls in your enterprise. But come to these conferences, see what's going on. Go to events, workshops, learn, get educated. There's so much capability out there approachable. So just be systematic about it. And You can achieve great results for your business.

Yeah, and I think I would wrap up with a challenge to any manufacturers that are out there that if you're waiting for the market to figure this out and come to you with the packaged solution and answer, you're wasting your time, right? You have to get yourself on a path to understand what this stuff means and what it means for you and your business in particular. I'm a fan of the type of work that's happening at SESAME, at other nonprofits, at the Industry 4.0 Club to help drive that dialogue and get people pointed in the right direction, get them supported by domain experts that have been there, done that. There are a lot of people that are really leaning in to make themselves available, and I really encourage manufacturers to say it's time for them to jump in and figure out what it means for them and their business.

Yeah, thank you. Thanks to all 3 of you. I want to just wrap up by reinforcing something you said earlier just about where people can access this. Jim, you mentioned RPI in June. There'll be an opportunity for folks to reach out to their website to understand or to get involved with the tools. I know that the next 2 SME events are going to be in October in Greenville, South Carolina, and in November, I think, out in Long Beach, California. There'll be 2 more opportunities where I think both of you will be present, as well as the I-40 Club will be present at those events as well. The Industry 4.0 Club, you know, we host broadcasts during the week, typically along 4 different categories of broadcasts: Way of the Manufacturing, the Future of Manufacturing, looking at a technical issue related to Industry 4.0, a fireside chat like this conversation about an interesting topic with with interesting guests. Then finally, people processing culture. The club is also present at other events. We'll be at Automate and an ISG event in the next week or two. We'll be at ATX, IME East in New York in June. We're excited to be present as a club to support those around us. And of course, visit our website at itse4.0.club.com. Certainly go to the SESAME website for the tools, but if you're not sure how to find them, you can reach out to us as well. We'll be glad to help connect you. So this has been our fireside chat. I want to thank Jim, Conrad, and Mike again for joining us. Thanks, gentlemen. It's great to hear how the show's going there at Eastech, and best of luck as you continue the training.

Thanks for us. Thanks. Time for us to come out of the closet.

Yeah.

Join the conference.

All right. You guys have a good rest of the conference.

Okay.

Thanks, Mike.

Thanks.