IME West, News & Brews - The Industry 4.0 Club

It's time for News and Brews. Because packaging makes a huge impact in our everyday lives, we need smart solutions to design challenges. That's why we have Westpack correspondent Andrew Crowe.

Welcome back to News and Brews at IME West. I hope you guys have been enjoying all of the interviews and all of the games that we've been having today, but we are going to keep it rolling. This one is very exciting. For several reasons. You hit on pretty much everything we got going on in the building. It's workforce, it's automation, it's robotics, it's a little bit of everything. I've got Mike Yost with me, the chairman of Industry 4.0 Club. Mike, thanks for being here today.

Thank you. Appreciate it.

Absolutely. So tell us a little bit about Industry 4.0 Club, you guys' initiatives, and why did, why did we need this in the beginning?

Gotcha. Yeah, so what we do is we basically try to get people together, people that are looking to either share information, knowledge, experience that they have, or people that are looking to gain experience and knowledge. We started out during COVID on Clubhouse. We became a club of interested people that were just getting together, having regular rooms, talking about Industry 4.0. We ended up growing that to about 9,000 people following the club. And then ended up transitioning over to LinkedIn Live. And so we hold shows every week where we're inviting people in to share their perspectives and share knowledge because we think that's what's really important.

So why is that very important? I know that, you know, obviously knowledge is power, right? But it seems like there's been a democratization of the knowledge and it's not been a lot of people that have the same access to some of these things. Why was it important for you all to make this a space where learning was not only encouraged, but so was sharing?

Well, if you look at a lot of, I guess from a personal journey perspective, I used to work for a global giant in the software space. I spent all my time on airplanes flying around the world helping big companies deploy big solutions for big rewards. And I realized that my kids— like, what could I do to have an impact locally and give my kids something, a vibrant economy to return to, you know, after they grow up and move on? And the thing I could do best would be to help with the manufacturing base, right? If we can strengthen the manufacturing base, that drives jobs, that drives economic growth, We have a vibrant economy. And so I've always been a believer that the stuff that we're doing with the big companies is the same type of approach and the same types of tools that we can use for the smaller companies. And so it's really about how do we break down the barriers. We have a real market failure in how we serve the smaller companies. And I really think an expression I like to use is that, you know, the cavalry is not coming. If manufacturers are waiting for somebody to come in, a technology provider to come in and solve all their problems for them, it's not gonna happen. So they have to band together, right? I think we have to work together. We have to be more open than we've historically been. And I think a lot of that comes down to being willing to share experiences that people have.

How are you guys finding success in getting people to share their experiences, getting people to share their knowledge base? when our industry has traditionally been very competitive. If I found something that worked, I'm not telling the guy down the road because that's going to eat into my margins, or that's going to eat into, you know, the work that I get coming in. You're going to get some of that, right?

Right.

So how do you begin to change those perspectives and get to a collaboration theory instead of competition where we've been?

Yeah. Well, I tend to think in terms of a spectrum from awareness to education to implementation. And a lot of that protected— or protectiveness comes at the implementation phase. I'm doing something. I'm creating a competitive advantage. This is my process. I don't want you in here. But the education piece and the awareness piece, that's where we need to be sharing at scale.

Yeah.

Yes.

Right?

And we need to be banding together. And so, a lot of our focus is more at that level. And I used to run a global nonprofit that's all in this space about, you know, knowledge transfer and networking and stuff. And it was time and time again, it showed me people would show up that had a specific expertise in a vertical market, and they wanted to talk about their vertical market. But before they did, they had conversations more generally and more broadly about drivers and value and impact and things like that. Those are the conversations that we can have. And quite honestly, if we can do it in community together, then we have informed people that are ready to engage then with, you know, the sellers. And we get educated buyers and educated sellers working together, which is better for everybody.

That's the goal, right? So what do you think are the main barriers that has been keeping the implementation of Industry 4.0 away from these mom-and-pop shops outside of the knowledge sharing? Is it finances? Is it not having enough SMEs maybe on staff? What is it that's keeping the mass implementation from happening?

Well, I think there's a number of things. There certainly are some technology challenges, but I think it's more an issue of the market failure of How do you properly position and define what the value is and get people to understand what it looks like to— I want to say to be digital, right? And as part of the work that we're— or language that I'm starting to adopt is less about getting somebody to adopt a technology and more about taking a look at what it means to build their own digital capabilities, right? So what does it look like if I can serve customers in a different way? Well, I need some tech to go with that. And when there's a valid business driver or reason for it, it gets a lot easier to align the technology with it. And the way things have historically been positioned and sold, it's much more of a point solution. You have a problem, I have a solution, come and buy it. And then you put that in a box, or the solution providers end up putting that in a box. They position and sell that box, and it may or may not fit. It may or may not work. It may work the first time, but then, you know, there's trouble expanding it, extending it, those sorts of things. And it just sort of becomes unfulfilling for the companies as opposed to being another step on their journey that they're tied into. So a lot of it, I would say, again, is more— it's more organizational, it's more people-centric than it is technology-centric. But there's a lot of work that we have to do to sort of address the market failures and, and work together.

Okay, if I'm a manufacturer, if I'm a job seeker, if I am a machinist or a programmer, how can I access the benefits of Industry 4.0 Club? Is it open for people to join? Is it open for people to participate? Tell me a little bit about that.

Yeah, absolutely. So a number of things. We continue to try to expand the web of connections that we have. You and I met 2 years ago, right? And this is the first time today we've met in person, right? So we're meeting like-minded people constantly, plugging in with your networks, growing our asset base, you know, those sorts of things. And we welcome everybody. We don't— it doesn't cost anything to join the Industry 4.0 Club. Go to industry40club.com and go to, you know, find us on LinkedIn, start to follow us. And I was just telling some folks earlier today, raise your hand, raise your voice, like, ask what we can do for you. Especially if people are willing to provide some level of energy, we'll get behind that, right? That's really, really what we need is people to step forward and say, hey, this is something I'm passionate about, this is something I want to go and do. Well, we can put, you know, the resources that we have behind that.

And build that platform out. Yeah, yeah, amazing. And that's where that collaboration comes in again.

Yep.

As time ticks down, there's something that I, you know, definitely want to touch on. I'm big on workforce, and we connected about workforce and those things a while back. How can we use technology, especially Industry 4.0 technology, to start to close that skills gap and start to, you know, maybe keep it from widening as much as it is? Yeah.

Well, it's obviously a big task, right? And I'm fortunate, I live in Ohio and I'm plugged in with local community colleges and the local academics. I shouldn't say local. They're plugged into the states and there's a ton of initiatives that are going on for folks to get their arms around that. And I think part of it is we have to recognize as an industry and we have to recognize as a group of educators that people, especially the younger folks, are digital natives, right? They're used to working with technology. They're used to sharing, right? You talked about historically we're not good at sharing. Well, the younger generation is very good at sharing, right?

That's all you do. Like, yeah.

So I think that there's a mindset there, there's a mentality there that is good that we need to embrace, and we need to make it relatable. One of the things that we're working on at the club is with the National Institute on Small Business Smart Manufacturing on a framework to teach manufacturers the language of, you know, yeah, well, you know, to teach, to teach manufacturers themselves. And then we want to use that as a framework to have that impact the training and the curriculum and such that's being taught to, to the younger folks.

Fantastic. So I think in my own, in my mind, um, you know, that's where it starts. And I'm a little bit biased, right? If we get the youth involved. I like to call them the screenagers. When we get the screenagers and those digital natives to see that all of the things that they love and they use naturally are right here in the field, and that they can have a career interacting with all of these things, then we can begin to have more shops, I think, start to make that switch because they see the many SMEs. But we've got to open our doors and we've got to make sure that there's a clear pathway for them to be from where they are, to come into the manufacturing facility and to feel like they are a contributor. How can Industry 4.0 be a bridge? How can Industry 4.0 kind of maybe play a part in that connection between the workforce and the workers?

Well, you know, one of the things I think that it can do is it can help connect people Outside of the workplace itself. So maybe there's a shop that you're talking about and they only have a couple of people there, right? So there aren't a lot of peers to relate to. Well, you come to the club and there's a lot of people potentially your same age, same demographics, whatever, right? So you can start to have more of a social impact there of connecting with people. So I think there's a lot of things that actually The screenagers and others are likely to do without us figuring it out for them. And so maybe what we have to do is sort of get out of their way, right? There's probably— mentally, we think of how we run a business, how we've always run a business, how they have to sign up for this versus us taking a look and saying there's some things that we can learn from the younger generation and see how we can blend those together.

Let them run around your shop with their hair on fire. No, but I think that's important. 2 of the past guests kind of hit on that as well, that, you know, there's got to be a culture shift. And the culture shift has to start inside the shops. So we've got to look at our business models. We've got to look at the way that we've traditionally done things. I was an instructor, and I ran an advanced manufacturing department for 4 years. And I watched kids have all of this energy, and then they would go into an internship, or they'd go into their first job after they graduated, and they'd come back and they'd look completely different.

Yeah.

Their faces would be hanging out. They'd say, you know, what's going on? Oh, they set me on a manual Bridgeport and all I wanted to do was program. And these are the most prolific programming kids that I've seen, right? And how do we start to, you know, change the way that we've always do things to, hey, maybe that kid has some skills that I can empower and then it can become part of the way that we start to do things now.

Yeah, well, I gave a talk earlier today about sleeping through the 4th Industrial Revolution, and part of that conversation is about dreaming and thinking bigger, right? And I really think we have to take a look as a manufacturing community overall and say, what is possible, right? And a lot of the mindset is holding us back, right? And so I do think there's a lot of things organizationally, culturally, Where people have to take a look and say that, you know, they're going to have to do things differently, going to have to be willing to, you know, put things out there, be more open, be more responsive to, you know, the screenagers, the younger generation, and challenge them what they can do. One of the things that's always been encouraging for me is that, like, manufacturers are problem solvers.

Yes.

Right? So let people solve, right? Let people solve problems, give them the tools. And that's what Industry 4.0 has a capability to do, is let you solve problems in ways that you couldn't in the past, or you could, but it would take a whole bunch of infrastructure, a whole bunch of cost, a whole bunch of structure. Whereas now it's a lot easier to collaborate, right? Get information, share information. And I think that that's one of the ways that we can, you know, have people, turn them loose, solve problems, and solving problems is good for the business.

I love it, man. Whether you are a baby boomer or a screenager, there's a place for you in the Industry 4.0 Club. We want you to check it out. We want you to sign up. We want you to get involved. If you don't know anything, this is a great place to start. If you do know a lot, we want your expertise. We want you to share that. We want you to give that knowledge that you have so everybody can be better. Please check out Industry 4.0 Club. Mike, thank you for your time today.

Yeah.

Any closing words?

No, just thank you for what you're doing, and I would just encourage everybody to get involved, get engaged, and, you know, and share.

There you have it. Thank you, sir.