Deploying Industry 4.0: The Importance of Starting with Cybersecurity: Manufacturing X.0 SE Preview

So welcome everybody. This is the Industry 4.0 Club's fireside chat. Our purpose is to engage the power of diverse worldwide talent to accelerate the global evolution to Industry 4.0. We accomplish this by hosting and supporting respectful, thoughtful, and interdisciplinary open conversations and creating quality content on wide-ranging Industry 4.0 topics. To expand the reach of our community, we're glad you've decided to join us today for our fireside chat with Allison Giddens. Allison is going to share her thoughts on the deployment of Industry 4.0 with a particular focus on cybersecurity. My name is Mike Ungar, an Industry 4.0 club founder— club co-founder, excuse me. For the past almost 3 years now, I've been a Focal Point business coach and executive coach. Prior to that, I spent 35 years at Michelin North America in a variety of continuous improvement, operations, finance, and HR roles. My co-host today is Mike Yost. Mike, would you mind introducing yourself as well?

Sure. Thank you, Mike. Thank you, Allison, for being here with us today. As Mike said, my name is Mike Yost, one of the co-founders of the Industry 4.0 Club. I've been in the industry for about 35-ish years, mostly on the solution provider and nonprofit side. Also founded an organization called Bennett, in which we help manufacturers solve problems by finding smart people that can help them. So with that, back to you, Mike.

Thanks, Mike. So I'm going to take a moment now and introduce A little more depth, our guest today, Allison Giddens. Allison worked for a small business manufacturer, WindTech, which is an aerospace precision machine shop in Kennesaw, Georgia, before buying the company with her business partner in 2020. From assistant to co-owner over the last 16 years, Allison now leads as president for business operations while her business partner, John Hudson, leads the manufacturing. Allison is actively involved in the local workforce development and industry associations, including the Chattahoochee Technical College Foundation Board of Trustees. Allison helped found a Georgia chapter of the Women in Manufacturing as well. She serves on the National Defense Industry Sharing and Analysis Center as a small business working group co-lead and board member. Allison will also be one of the presenters at this year's Manufacturing Xcelo Southeast, which will take place in Greenville, South Carolina on April 26th and 27th. Allison, we're glad you could take time from your busy schedule to share your insights today. As we get started, for those listening on LinkedIn Live, if you have a question for Allison, please share it in the comments section and we'll try to answer it during our time together. So Allison, to start us off, how did you get into manufacturing?

Hey, thanks, Mike and Mike. Hard to remember one of y'all's names, right? Mike and Mike. Thanks for having me here today. Yeah, so I got into manufacturing kind of as an accident. I started working for a large corporation that had nothing to do with manufacturing right out of college, where my undergraduate degree was in psychology and criminal justice. So I went to work for a national company, big corporation, enjoyed my time there, got to know a lot of people. But over the past couple of years, the first couple of years I was there, I thought, you know, I don't feel like I'm really making an impact or a difference. And so I wanted to quit my job. And I had a conversation with my dad who said, you're not allowed to quit your job until you find a new one. So, you know, typical dad, right? So I, I got in touch with my next-door neighbor who I knew owned a small business, and I talked to him and Dennis Winslow, who founded Wintec. And Dennis said, you could come in for an interview for me, but you don't even know what it is that we do. And I said, I don't care what you do. I just need a new job. And my dad said, I can't quit my old one until I have a new one.

Right.

And so, yeah, the rest is history. I got to, got to start at Wintec. I took a pay cut to do it, and I remind Dennis of that. But the joke is that Dennis said to me across the table, you can take this pay cut, and if you trust me, one day you could own this place. So 16 years later, he was right.

Wow, that's a great story. You know, I think for a lot of us, I think a lot of us end up going down a path maybe we didn't think about initially, but then it turns out to be really something pretty tremendous for our lives. That's really cool to hear about that story. Thank you for sharing that. So I also noticed that you have a master's degree in manufacturing from Georgia Tech. I didn't know they offered such a thing. Tell us, can you tell us more about that program and what you learned from it?

Yes, it's called the, the PMML, and it's the Professional Master's of Manufacturing Leadership. And it's specifically designed for people who are already in the industry and kind of want to hone in on some manufacturing concepts And it's kind of a cross between an MBA and a, quote, more traditional engineering degree, which of course, when I, when I looked at the content being a psych major, I looked at the content, saw the calculus, and I went, uh-oh. So I mean, it was, it was definitely a challenging program, but it was fantastic because it really, it helped being in industry for so long before I jumped into the program. I'd been in industry 10 years before I jumped in. And the program itself helped me to understand the math and science behind things like bottlenecks and constraints and, and things like that, much beyond what I think a traditional engineering undergraduate degree would have done. It was a great way to piece together things that I had grown to intuitively understand to be real, and then ways to link it to explain the past and help to predict potential futures.

That sounds just fantastic. So As we get started here on the Industry 4.0 Club, one of the things I like to ask people, Alyson, is if you had to define, like, what does Industry 4.0 look like to you as a manufacturer, as a manufacturing business owner?

I think as a business owner, it's all about the connectivity of different processes and procedures, and it's automation, but not necessarily in the streamlined way that I think we all think of when you think of robots and, you know, hitting a button and everything works for you. I think it's Industry 4.0 to me is the connectivity between these processes and the insight and being able to see what's in between.

I think that's fantastic because I actually spend a lot of time with people trying to get them out of the device-level connectivity discussion and up to the process-level discussion. So you see that, and you mentioned supply chain and such. Does that— how does that play into your thinking with your business and what Industry 4 potentially opens up on that regard?

I think that the supply chain itself, Industry 4.0, not to say that we're only as good as our weakest link, but if you've got a process or a procedure in the grand scheme of things, well, as you provide a product to a customer, if you've got something that is severely lacking in whether it's automation or technology or efficiency in general, that's gonna hurt. That's gonna hurt your overall process. So your supply chain as a whole has to be considered for your overall Industry 4.0 strategy.

That's excellent.

Yeah, so that's a— I think it's really neat because, you know, as Mike mentioned, you kind of, you are coming up from the technology, you're thinking about processes, and the supply chain is certainly one of those areas where Industry 4.0 can be applied without question. Speaking of that though, I wanted to ask you, you know, a lot of small and mid-sized businesses don't take time to develop more of a long-term strategy. And I'm wondering, do you have an Industry 4.0 strategy for your business today?

So yes, it's deliberate and it's rather conservative. It might be because we're a small business with limited investment resources. Could be that it's hard to upgrade a machine that's paid off and making good parts. But in all honesty, it's something that manufacturers, especially small business manufacturers should be very deliberate in the approach. I think that by connecting the machines and technology so that we have fewer silos and that we have better data at our fingertips and all of that, becoming efficient is key. And if efficiency means a much older machine that just happens not to be connected to everything else, then that's okay. I think convenience and connectivity come with risks and When you connect everything to each other, you presumptually— you basically, you have to presume that you are connecting everything with whatever access it has to the world, and therefore your risk footprint gets a little bit wider.

So if we could jump in for a second, Maya, just on the strategy itself, I'm curious about how it came to be. So did you drive that as the owner and say, thou shalt do this? Did it bubble up from You know, requirements from supply chain partners? How did it get started? Then I'd like to understand sort of how you even drove it to develop it.

So there's a little bit of everything. There were several things that we saw coming down the pipe that everything shared a trend with, and that was ultimately becoming more efficient. And if that meant, like I said, if there was an older machine that Runs parts, runs good parts, and it's paid off, and you're making time, and the customer's happy with the price. Okay, well then, you know, yeah, you could upgrade the machine, and eventually over time it would pay for itself, but where are there other gains to be had? And so as customers were flowing down requirements to us on, okay, where can you better your processes so that you can flow down cost savings to us? Okay, so now we have to identify on the shop floor, what can we be doing differently? And a lot of times it was about people, not so much the machine. And then as you hone in on the people, then you start saying, okay, now how can we make this machine or this technology better to make that individual even more efficient? So it's kind of those steps that we're taking a look at.

So if I heard that correctly, I'll send a notice out to all the the vendors listening here to say, listen to what the manufacturer is saying, is they are listening to their customer and driving off of that. I've seen so many instances where people are automating for the sake of automating, and they're removing bottlenecks of, or trying to put intelligence on machines that aren't their bottlenecks and aren't actually going to drive to improvement. So—

Bingo.

It's really good to hear you I like how you say that. I'm just curious, did you create it yourself? Did you work with an outside firm? Did you, you know, go to Georgia Tech to get resources? How did you come to shape this?

This was another one of those, gosh, I don't like the word bespoke, but it was another one of those kind of mixed input resources. So we have a great relationship with the Georgia Tech Manufacturing Extension Partnership. I've got great relationships with a lot of colleagues that have been there, done that. And so there's a lot of information sharing with them. National Tooling and Machining Association, NTMA. So that's a great resource. Having conversations like these and encouraging others to be candid and open with their specific use cases. Because while I think manufacturers, especially small businesses, we're very— we're apt to hold our cards close to the chest because we're like, I'm not going to show you what we're doing because you could take it, you could steal it, and then you're going to go do what I'm doing and take my customers. No, because I have confidence that we're doing it right. And I have confidence that my customer's not going to leave me for something that you've got to spend a few years trying to figure out yourself. So I think that there is, there's a little bit more comfort level over time that as people begin sharing with each other, it's much easier to develop these kind of personalized programs and strategies.

Excellent.

That's great.

I just want to echo what Mike said and what I heard you say too. Mike mentioned listening to the customer, then moving forward, and I like to phrase it as identify the problems you need to solve. That's how your strategy has evolved, not for the technology itself, is what Mike said. It's just such an important— it's worth repeating because it's such an important principle. We really appreciate the approach that you've taken. It makes a lot of sense. You mentioned connectivity several times as something that you want to try to achieve here. And you mentioned the risk in connectivity. And I guess that leads us to our conversation around cybersecurity a little bit. So can you talk about why cybersecurity is so important? Because I know that's where the— when we talked earlier, getting ready for this broadcast, you spoke about, you know, your first and most important step this year is cybersecurity. How does that fit into the overall plan? Why is it so important to you? Can you talk about that a little bit?

Sure. So cybersecurity is very important to WindTech for obvious reasons of customer regulations and flowdowns, but also for survivability. You know, I mean, if we get— if there's an incident and we have some sort of breach, there's a, there's a much wider problem in my personal circle than customer leaking of data. And that, and that's, that is an extremely Big problem. But even more so, it's am I in business tomorrow? So I could tell you all day our top priority is that we care about customer data and that we want to protect, you know, government data to perfect— to protect the warfighter, which is a big thing you always hear in industry. And that's implying that by not prioritizing cybersecurity that we don't care about those things. But in reality, anybody that prioritizes cybersecurity understands that the bottom line is that you want to stay in business. People The customer, the data, the warfighter, all these things are important, but I can't do anything about those people until I prioritize the security of my company. It's kind of like when they tell you on airplanes to secure your own oxygen mask before you help somebody else. It's the same, same idea.

That's really cool, that analogy with, with, with the safety briefing on an airplane. So when we think about cybersecurity, then I know in our previous conversation, you mentioned that's really your main focus in 2023, if I remember correctly. Why does it take so long? I mean, what's, what's, what's hard about that, if you don't mind me asking?

Sure. No, that's a great question. It's, it's hard when you are trying to work things into processes that already exist. When you're trying— I think that it would be much simpler if somebody were to hand you a blank piece of paper and say, create a company from scratch and incorporate cybersecurity and technology and Industry 4.0 practices and all these things all at the same time, integrate it from scratch. By the way, here's $20 million, go ahead, go. That would be challenging from the perspective of you have a lot of choices and options. What would you like to do with this money? But not as challenging As, okay, here's a 35-year-old company that has figured out how to make money the way that it's doing things now. And now all of a sudden, there are going to be different flow-down regulations, different things that come with prices. And there's an argument in our industry too that there are certain government flow-downs that have been happening for years, and that all of a sudden there are a lot of small businesses now up in arms about these things. So there's a whole group of people that are arguing, well, you should have been doing this all along. My argument is, yeah, but nobody was going to come around and charge $80,000 for a third-party assessment on something that wasn't— had no ROI. So you could talk about Aerospace 9100, ISO, all these different certifications. We all— we could live and breathe those manufacturers, you know, those are old hat, we get it. But With the different requirements now that are involved in security that didn't exist before, even on the peripheral, that's the challenge is figuring out now you have all these extra potential expenses that, oh, by the way, when you drop 80 grand for a third-party cybersecurity standard certificate, that's not gonna improve your efficiency on the floor.

Right.

It might open the door to get you some contracts, that you could hope you could integrate that into different fees and overhead rates and things like that, but that's not going to make your machines faster.

Right. I'm curious, similarly to the previous question, where'd you get help? How do you know to do this? Are there frameworks that you follow? You mentioned getting a certification. Did they give you steps to go by? How would somebody else as a manufacturer say, all right, here's the first 5 steps?

So I think that that conversation would have to— you'd need another 10 hours of fireside chat. But the Cliff Notes version of that is I stumbled on a Discord server. If you're familiar with Discord, it's kind of like a cross between Reddit and, you know, message boards and things like that. But a Discord server called the CUI Center of Excellence. C-O-O-E-Y, Center of Excellence, kind of tongue-in-cheek. That's how it sounds, CUI, which is the data that the government shares with manufacturers, many manufacturers.

Yeah.

And I stumbled on this community, and ultimately they help each other. There's a lot of gnashing of teeth right now because of some rulemaking that's going on that Congress is looking at the CMMC, which is the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification. to determine what's on the horizon and how it's going to impact business. So we know it's going to impact business, we just don't know which ones and how intense, how significantly. So that's kind of the short answer of how do we kind of wrap our heads around it. But that community is open to anybody and very similar to Industry 4.0 Club, it sounds like it's just a good group of people willing to help each other.

You want to give the name again in case anybody's listening is interested?

Sure. Yeah, it's the Cooe Center of Excellence. And if you just go to cooe.life in your internet browser, it will pop up an invitation and you can jump right in.

That's fantastic. Thanks for that. You know, a lot of times in cybersecurity, and I guess just because, you know, you're very, you're quite informed about the topic, right? So How much of that is technology and how much of that is people in your workplace?

That's a really good question. So it is, it's all about the culture. And that can be very tough to change in a company that's 35 years old. And you also have to think about your workforce. So if we have a general workforce, it's no secret in manufacturing that we have an aging workforce. And for me to go out to the shop floor and tell a seasoned toolmaker who is 5 years from retirement, hey, now we're going to use these special little YubiKeys where you've got to, you know, multi-factor auth, and we've got to have you log in 3 different ways to Sunday in order to get to an engineering file that you need to work on. And oh, by the way, we need that yesterday. Those kind of conversations can't happen like that. So there is, there is, the technology is important, but it's meaningless if the people are not on board.

And where are you finding your biggest challenge, on the technology or the people side?

These days, it really, we've done a pretty solid, solid job of getting people on board. I think the challenge now is finding, is the technology in a couple of minor little pieces of our process along the way. Is figuring out how to implement technology that's not gonna get in the way of efficiency. So kind of things like I said about that YubiKey or a third-party, you know, MFA, you can't, it used to be where a machinist could walk over to a workstation that was already logged on and open to Mastercam, you know, do something, fix a toolpath, send it to the machine through an RS-232 cable, Then walk back over, and then another machinist comes over, opens up a different file. That used to be the way of doing things. But having additional steps, you know, in an environment where we measure by the minute and by the second, now all I'm doing is tacking on minutes and seconds.

Yeah, very good. We can circle back to the cybersecurity. I have a question. Since you started talking about acquiring the company in 2020, 2020 was quite the year with the pandemic shutdown and all that stuff. I guess a couple of things in that, what was it like? First of all, congratulations for doing that. You said it was 16 years and you took a leap of faith and a pay cut. That's all fantastic, but timing of that and then wondering also how it plays into this conversation about Industry 4.0 and supply chain and ultimately cybersecurity to be more connected in supply chain. So maybe just talk about the timing of your acquisition.

Yeah, so it was a fun journey. So the first few years, I got to know a little bit about a lot. Dennis kind of mentored me on everything from the financial side to risk management, everything in between. And about 2018, 2019, Things were rough. Things where we saw a ton of late jobs. There were things we just couldn't seem to get right. We were having issues with consistency of processes and things just, things were rough. And John, who was managing the shop at the time as sales business development, came into Dennis's office with me and we sat down with him and said, we've got some ideas and we need you to Get on board with us because these are things that have to change. And I remember the look on his face and he sat back in his chair and he said, you think this is very easy, don't you? And we said, no, no, we don't think it's easy at all. But we need you. We've been saying we need to do XYZ for a long time now and you're not on board with it. And finally, Dennis said, I'll tell you what, starting Monday, the two of you will be in charge. And if this works in a year, I'll let you buy the company from me.

Wow.

So we thought, okay, this was November 2019, I believe. And so John and I kind of looked at each other like, uh, is this really happening? And, uh, Monday we took over, we hit the ground running, we divided and conquered. John and I make a great team because he knows the manufacturing side inside and out, knows how to run every machine out there, and he knows how to quote, and he knows the intricacies involved in anything hands-on out there. And then I've got the business operations knowledge And the HR stuff. And so from there, we can trust each other to ultimately know what the other doesn't. And yeah, a year later, we were signing paperwork and laughing about it because we're like, we bought a business during a pandemic. Yay!

Have you been able to— have you been able to— I don't know your particular client portfolio. Has the economy hit you hard or you've been able to weather it pretty well given your clients?

Clients have been pretty good. Really, the challenge for us for a little while and still to a degree has been workforce. We had a handful of people during the pandemic either take early retirement or decide to move to be closer to family. You know, I mean, pandemic did a lot to realign priorities for a lot of people. So, we were down almost 20% of our production workforce after the pandemic. So 2022 was, was kind of the, the culmination of recognizing a lot of that. And we, we pushed hard past few months and we're, we're hiring like crazy. So if you know any CNC operators, programmers, we're always hiring. But it's looking good in the past, past couple months now. So we're hopeful things are picking back up.

Did you have— you mentioned the attrition— did you have folks step out of the business because they didn't want to make the journey into the future with you? I mean, the Industry 4.0, the technology, the new equipment, the new requirements— they just sort of said enough. Did you have that happen to you at all?

Nobody came out and said that. I know that there were a couple of people that retired because their significant others were not comfortable with them out in workforce during pandemic, during how things, you know, kind of older, older individuals that families got together and said, you know, let's go ahead and call this a day. They were going to be retiring anyways, and they kind of took a step back. And I've not received any feedback that people were unhappy with technology or the road ahead enough to say, I quit. If anything, I think generally people have been pretty open to trying new things. I think the key is just how you frame it. If you can frame it in a way of, hey, look, we're looking at doing this and here's why, you know, it'll help you do your job easier. Or don't you think this is cool? Or hey, here are the 2 options. I love the illusion of choice. I love having, you know, presenting someone with a couple of options, either which you'd be happy with. And you bring it to them and say, hey, I want your opinion. What would you prefer? And then you being cool with either of them.

That's really cool. A lot of folks, you know, it's about— a lot of folks don't realize you've got to develop the why. And I call it, you know, you'll hear the term the WIFM, the what's in it for me. You know, it's got to be there. It's got to be personal. And that really helps people own the future. That's really excellent. As we think about the Industry 4.0 journey, just some advice, if you can give some advice to other manufacturers, what are some of the principles that you see, principles for success, as you go down this road of Industry 4.0?

I think there are a couple of things. There's first to come up with the game plan. You touched on it earlier, you don't want to have a solution looking for a problem. You, you want to ask yourself, what is it that you're trying to do? What on your shop floor needs the refresh in automation, technology, connectivity? Oh, how do the people play into that for you? What does the return on investment look like? And then that second piece is understanding where you are currently. So if you want to come up with the game plan, you need to at the same time know, what does my current environment look like? From the security standpoint, from the connectivity point of view, I consider, you know, what does the network infrastructure look like? Is it flat or do you have a single server? Do you have a cloud service that hosts your ERP? Does the ERP connect to machines or technology? If, if someone were to gain unauthorized access into that server, what could they do to destroy you in a matter of minutes? You know, think like a bad guy. If you kind of come up with the current environment situation as well as the game plan, that puts you ahead. I heard great advice just last week, actually. They said it starts even before implementation of this new technology or equipment, before it even arrives on the shop floor, and to encourage manufacturers to involve the information security people in conversation. Ask a vendor for white papers on how to secure technology. Salespeople and installers, they're doing their jobs. They're focused on getting stuff on your shop floor. This is an afterthought. Security is an afterthought. So if you put it front and center early and include the right people in the conversation, I think that can help overall success in Industry 4.0.

Well, I'm a huge fan of everything that you're saying, Allison, and, you know, I think To the point that Mike asked about, as far— I mean, you are an example of what to do, right? And you talked earlier about sharing, about being here, about doing things like this. You're talking at the conference. And I know Mike said in your bio at the beginning that you're part of local workforce development initiatives and associations and things like that. So what about calling manufacturers to do what you're doing and be more involved and What sort of value do you get out of those sorts of initiatives and how you spend your time there?

There's— it's tough as a manufacturer and as a small business manufacturer to make time for stuff on the peripheral that doesn't impact your business. And I think that's really tough. We're the Chattahoochee Technical Foundation Board of Trustees I'm a part of. We're always joking because I'm tasked often with, hey, Tap some of your manufacturing colleagues and competitors to come participate in these conversations. And I try, and the competitors and colleagues, they're great to talk to. They'll talk to you, but they're just as strapped for time as you are. And I am very fortunate to be able to do what I'm doing because I have a business partner. It's the two of us running things. So on days that I'm doing these kind of things, then he's holding down the fort and vice versa when he's out doing things. I'm holding down the fort. And not everybody has those kind of, uh, a kind of luxury. I think that if we can try to, to continue to, to be an example for a lot of people that look like us and small businesses, then we can hopefully move the needle a little bit. It's not going to happen overnight, but we've got to— we have to be more representative in things like workforce development initiatives. The pie of workforce is only going to get smaller. We hit our population peak, I think, right before COVID And with so many people retiring and so many different jobs out there demanding people, we've got to figure out different ways to make manufacturing a priority.

Yeah, for sure.

For sure.

Well, again, I mean, I would hold you up as an example, and I just think about The steps you're going through, right? So you're leading your company through this journey.

We—

this is what we talk about all the time with people about their journey. How do we start our journey? How do you succeed at your journey? You know, and I can just tell by the perspective that you have and how you've educated yourself and how you've engaged that somebody that comes in and if they try to sell you something, you have this lens, I think, that is extremely valuable that you've shaped because of the things that you're doing, right, and how you're exposing yourself to others and other topics. And, um, you know, you know when somebody comes in, you just said it a minute ago, that security is going to be, you know, last thing on their mind. You're going to make sure that that's first thing on your mind, on their mind. You're going to be thinking about your processes. You're going to be thinking about your people. And those are some of the things that are so valuable that you've learned in your living. And I, again, I think it's just Great example for other smaller companies to go, yeah, we're so busy working on the business, we don't have time for that kind of stuff. But wow, if you're going to take advantage of this, you really should do the types of things that you are doing, at least to some, to some level.

I just want to quickly remind folks, if they're listening in on LinkedIn Live in particular, if you've got a question for Allison, please feel free to put it in the comment box. And we'll make sure we get it to Allison to answer while we're talking to her this afternoon. Allison, so you've gotten on this road towards improving your processes through the use of technology and other things, it sounds like. Why are so many companies, do you think, are slow to get started on this journey?

I think there's kind of 3 buckets that I would, I'd say, hold people up. I think that if you're on the shop floor, unless you're on the shop floor every day, some obstacles are unknown to the wider industry. You don't know what you don't know. So I think those— but within those buckets, you have to consider that Industry 4.0 can be expensive. I mean, in a time that not everybody is flush with cash, and when the cash that many companies do have might be going towards other more pressing things like paying people more to get them to stay or or get them to come work for you, that all this is a challenge. I think when you're looking at the purchase or financing of machines, transportation, tooling, rigging, all that stuff is not insignificant. Number 2, that second bucket is that time is precious. How do you implement Industry 4.0 without shutting down the most critical in-demand machines that you have that would also benefit the most from a said upgrade or improvement. That third bucket, I believe, is that Industry 4.0, it can often expand the scope of something that a shop is not ready to take on. It's kind of giving, you know, the keys of a Lamborghini to a 15-and-a-half-year-old. Interconnectivity and the Internet of Things, it means that security has to take a front seat. But if you're more hung up on, Holy cow, look at this, you know, live-action tooling. If you're too hung up— not too hung up, that's the wrong word, but wrong phrase— but if you don't have the security in mind, there's going to be some things that are going to hurt later on. And I think some of these minor things that are related to these challenges ultimately affect the efficiency on your shop floor, like I talked about earlier with the shared workstations example, or Um, you know, in, in my world, USB flash drives, that was a regular thing. You use them to transfer data. Okay, well, remember how, um, Iran got hacked several years ago? It was someone picked up a random USB flash drive, plugged it into a workstation, and all of a sudden their nuclear capability went kaput because that was by design. They knew somebody would be curious and pick up a USB flash drive and plug it into a machine. So if that happens in an Iranian nuclear facility, what makes you think it's not going to happen on a shop floor in Kennesaw, Georgia? So there are all these different things that I think we have to consider these, that there— it's not just someone kicking and screaming and not wanting to get with the program. It's different constraints depending on the shop floor.

2 real quick things. One, I have a teenager that I know would love the keys to the Lamborghini. So if you got one, We would welcome it, or at least he will for sure. But secondly, just your opinion on a friend of the club is retired from a larger corporation that was one of the leaders down this technology adoption path, what it's been called over the decades. And his point was always that the organization They never talked in terms of piloting things. Like, they would trial things, but they were doing it. They were committed to the initiative overall. And if they went and they did something and it didn't work, they weren't stuck with it. They could come off of it, but they would stick with the path and then get back and find another way to solve that problem. So he always cautioned people not to talk, and it could be pilot, it could be proof of concept, it could be any other, you know, name, but just wondering your thoughts on that as far as sort of staying the course while you're, you know, sort of looking and trialing to figure out the right solutions along the way.

Yeah, definitely. That's a great way of looking at it too. I think there's a, there's a delicate balance too between you don't want to look like you don't know what you're doing while you don't know what you're doing, trying to figure it out along the way. So I think when you reframe it again, I guess my undergraduate psychology degree really did come in handy. But it helps to bring in somebody on the shop floor, bring in somebody from another department into that conversation while you're piloting or while you're doing a test or a beta and use them kind of as a tool. Because especially in my experience, I'm staring at something for so long and I'm ingrained in the overall strategy that I start seeing what I want to see.

Yeah.

And to have somebody from the outside come in, or not outside, but somebody from that other circle come in and say, you can say to them, hey, we're going to try this new secure way of file share with our suppliers. Before we do that, I'm going to share a file to you and you tell me, tell me what it looks like. Tell me where you would click. Walk me through your thought process. And then from there, not only are you telling the employee, I value what it is that you, that the feedback you give, but you're also probably finding out stuff you wouldn't necessarily know just by troubleshooting it yourself. So I, yeah, I definitely, definitely would recommend that pilot or beta piece of it all. It lets you kind of fly blind without anybody else knowing you're doing it.

That's excellent perspective. Thank you.

When we— so we're— I wanted to just take a moment. And we mentioned at the top of the conversation, that you're going to be speaking at the Manufacturing X.0 Southeast event in April here in Greenville, South Carolina. What are you hoping to learn at the conference when you participate?

I'm hoping to hear from others on some of these best practices on the shop floor for everything from their strategies to their fixes of minor inconveniences. I, you know, I think that the types of challenges that they've solved, I love seeing the patterns In things that they fix and how I can carry that over to here at Wintec. And sometimes, again, you're so entrenched in a problem, you forget to kind of see the things on the outside. That's why it's great to have these kind of conversations where somebody can speak up and say, oh yeah, that was tough, and here's how we fixed it. We're still getting through it. The conversation that can be had is great. So I'm hoping to use— I'm hoping to learn from others on that and kind of learn some Industry 4.0. use cases from small businesses like myself.

Yeah. And do you see, you know, I know you're— you do particularly machining, but do you see the, the, uh, the transfer of this sort of knowledge between completely different manufacturers? You know, someone who makes, uh, you know, my background's tires or, or other, other parts and components.

Is—

you think it's limited to needing to talk to a machine shop, or—

I think the machine shop's a unique perspective, but Ultimately, it comes down to processes. So I think that that would ultimately— that, heck, I was talking to a chemical manufacturer not long ago, and they said something that knocked my socks off. And I was like, oh my God, I could be doing that here. So yeah, I think it doesn't necessarily matter what you're making, just that you're making something.

Yeah. So really, I guess that what I appreciate what you said there is, you know, regardless of the industry, You can learn from each other, and especially when it comes down to processes. That's really, that's really true. I appreciate that a lot.

Absolutely.

So I think we're getting— we're reaching towards the end of our time together, and it's been really great conversation. Mike, do you want to share any final reflections on anything you've heard this afternoon from Allison?

Yeah, just a couple of things maybe. Maybe, maybe ask one final, final thought here from Allison. This has been fantastic. I think the perspective that Allison brings, like, right off the bat has been just really well grounded. And again, I think it's just an example that, that manufacturers of all sizes should look at, not just small manufacturers and not just machine shops, but like the perspective that Allison brings here is focusing on process and and focusing on people and being committed to the journey. I think those are tenets that everybody should adopt. So that's my big takeaway, just to see you sit there and just say, yeah, I got this. I would very confidently say, you should go talk to Allison because she's got this. I mean, she has a really good grasp of where she's going with her business. And the other thing that I would say, I know you were part of the bio at the beginning. Mike was talking about Allison's work in women in manufacturing. And so maybe just talk about that because it's not hard for us to get vendors here. It's harder to get manufacturers. It's easier to get men than it is to get women. I think 3 of the last 4 guests we've had, though, Mike, have been women leading manufacturing organizations. So this is great, but maybe just a quick nod to you as a woman business owner. Like, maybe just reflect on that for just a second, if you wouldn't mind, Allison.

Thanks. No, that's a really cool observation about the last 3 of 4 guests. That's cool.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's been interesting being in industry, in the male-dominated industry. And I, again, I'm really, really lucky. Dennis and John have both been mentors to me. John's been the person that speaks my name in rooms that when I'm not there. Dennis constantly goes to bat for me, even now as a former owner. I think the key to being the odd man out, so to speak, or odd woman out in an environment, whether you feel like, you know, you're older or younger than everybody else, man or a woman, Black or white, however you feel, if you feel you're the minority in the situation, the key is just finding that ally, finding somebody who can back you up, who others respect. Doesn't matter what they look like. That has been really helpful to me, but also to pay it forward. So if you think you're really lucky and you recognize that you're very fortunate, then do a favor for somebody else because just keep on, keep that cycle going. But that's, I think, ultimately what matters. We're all in the same industry, so it shouldn't matter.

Yeah.

Excellent. Thank you for that. I appreciate that.

Yeah, Allison, is there anything else that you'd like to share with the audience before we wrap up?

That I think Industry 4.0 can be a really good workforce recruitment strategy, and if manufacturers embraced it whenever possible, we have a foundation that the next generation of employees can get excited about. Who wants to only play with old stuff, old machines, old technology, old equipment, old ways of thinking, whether it's equipment or not? New and prop— improved processes. But the opportunities that Industry 4.0 comes with is an inherent risk of security. But if security is prioritized alongside those shop floor advances, then a business can truly set itself apart from everybody else.

Thank you for that. That's been great. So, so just as we wrap up then, I'd like to thank Mike and Allison for joining us for this very insightful discussion. I know I've learned a lot. And if you want to hear more from Allison, please Please come to the 2nd MXO Southeast manufacturing event coming up here in Greenville, South Carolina in April. Allison, you're going to be speaking, I understand, and so we look forward to hearing more from you and other small, midsize, and global manufacturers as they share case studies ranging from how to get started from the— with their digital implementation to how to standardize and scale across global plants. Again, the event's going to be taking place on April 26th and 27th. at the Hyatt Regency here in Greenville, South Carolina. And if you want to register for that event, you can register at www.mx0southeast.com. Well, and also want to thank everybody who's joined us today in the audience as well. If you like these kind of conversations, please look for them on our LinkedIn Live or LinkedIn Audio through our Industry 4.0 Club or group page. The Industry 4.0 Club hosts conversations on alternating weeks Focusing primarily on Tuesdays and Wednesdays now, dedicated to women in manufacturing, future of manufacturing, fireside chats like this one, and people, process, and culture. Please join our LinkedIn page and visit our website at www.industry4.0club.com. Again, thanks, Allison. Thank you, Mike, and I wish everybody a great rest of the day.

Thank you.

Thanks, Mike. Thanks, Allison.

Thanks, guys.