Manufacturing Happy Hour

Growing your own machinists and orchestrating robots across four continents, is this what the future of manufacturing looks like?
This live episode from Hapa's Brewing in the Bay Area features two panels of people who have built careers at the intersection of mechatronics, automation, and industrial innovation.
First up, Vinod, Kevin, and Adam get into what it takes to build a skilled workforce from the ground up, talking about apprenticeships, college partnerships, and growing your own talent in-house.
Then we get into the bigger picture with our founder panel Kim, Glenn, Nick, and Florian on what Silicon Valley gets wrong about manufacturing, and what manufacturers are missing by not paying closer attention to what's being built there.
In this episode, find out:
How Vinod bootstrapped an automation company in the Bay Area while raising a family and why his wife had something to do with it
What Kevin learned from a 3-year German apprenticeship that he thinks more US manufacturers should be paying attention to
How Adam solved his machinist shortage by bringing the training programme in-house and partnering with a local college
How Kim thinks about leading companies through inflection points when there are no guardrails or safety nets
Why Glenn believes manufacturers who aren't paying attention to what's being built around them won't even know when it's too late
How Nick's B2C background completely changed the way he thinks about building software for frontline manufacturing workers
Why Florian ignored his investors and opened a public-facing robotics storefront on the main street of Mountain View

Enjoying the show? Please leave us a review here. Even one sentence helps. It’s feedback from Manufacturing All-Stars like you that keeps us going!
Tweetable Quotes:
“You don't have that mechanical job anymore that's done by one person. You need support, whether it's software support or you need a robot at your side.” – Kevin Toomer, Product Manager at Sumitomo Drive Technologies
“In automation, you don't need a master's or a PhD to be successful. Just getting creative and having that experience in mechanical engineering really helped me in my career.” – Vinod Anandarajah, Co-Founder and CEO at Kanavu Automation
”In Silicon Valley, we tend to love disruption because to us it represents something new and something better. But when you get on a manufacturing floor, they tend to want predictability.” - Kim Losey, Founder and CEO at NextLine Group

Links & mentions:
Kanavu Automation, bringing value to manufacturing clients via a strategic focus on machine automation and robotics
MaintainX, empowering maintenance professionals to reduce unplanned equipment downtime and boost production capacity
NextLine Group, architecting what is next in robotics engineering
Sumitomo Drive Technologies, providing engineered solutions to industrial power transmission customers
Beluga Navigation Systems, building deep tech navigation solutions for vehicle and vessel navigation
InOrbit.AI, leading AI-powered robot orchestration platform, driving software-defined operations at scale
Hapa’s Brewing Company, craft brewery and taproom located in San Jose, CA

Make sure to visit http://manufacturinghappyhour.com for detailed show notes and a full list of resources mentioned in this episode. Stay Innovative, Stay Thirsty.

What if the biggest efficiency problem in your factory isn't your machines, it's the dead time you waste before you even get to one.
Workers queuing at ADP and ERP terminals every morning. A wing rib scrapped at the cost of $18,000 because the wrong work instruction was on screen. A program gone forever when the machinist who maintained it quietly for a decade retired to Poland. David witnessed all of these problems within his manufacturing acquisitions despite them having advanced tech for the time period.
Chris sits down with David Caputo, Co-Founder of Harmoni, to get into how his intelligent factory orchestration system connects machines, people, and data for true control across the shop floor.
Harmoni fills the gap in the renowned ISA-95 stack that most manufacturers never knew they were missing, supplementing human-intensive operations that make up 99% of the market.
Harmoni operates within three buckets with the aim of wasting less time and making less mistakes. The system is designed to cover all bases without interfering with the essential human input needed to fulfil complex tasks. David talks to Chris about the labor automation, process control, and observability that Harmoni brings to the factory floor.
In this episode, find out:
What factory orchestration is and why David sees it as a distinct category from existing tools
How David's experience acquiring and running four aerospace and defense manufacturers drove the creation of Harmoni
Why Harmoni's three pillars (labor automation, process control, and observability) address the ISA-95 gap that leaves most human-intensive factories underserved
How the no-titles, pods-based structure at Harmoni works and why David recommends it for companies under around 200 employees
What the Harmoni AI Lieutenant (HAL) does on the shop floor versus in the office, and why shop floor AI requires both context and a delivery mechanism to be useful
Where David sees the 297,000 US manufacturers under 500 employees needing to compete in a world of autonomous factories and vertically integrated supply chains
Why David advises manufacturers to ask one question before any software investment: how will this tool change what happens on my shop floor

Enjoying the show? Please leave us a review here. Even one sentence helps. It’s feedback from Manufacturing All-Stars like you that keeps us going!
Tweetable Quotes:
"What Harmoni's built is a new category of technology. We call this factory orchestration, and there's a very simple goal: waste less time and make fewer mistakes." - David Caputo
“Simply having indicator lights to say whether a machine's running is not telling you the full picture. A machine could be running but running very inefficiently. We're giving you the information you need and allowing you to manage your factory in real time.” - David Caputo
“Somehow you have to produce more with less, all in the face of autonomous competition and vertically integrated supply chains. Pretty tough position for the 300,000 manufacturers in this country.” - David Caputo

Links & mentions:
Harmoni.io, bringing together data from operators, machines, and your shop floor software, all in real-time, to help managers make decisions and spot trends quickly
Greenwich Street Tavern, a different tavern experience that takes a traditional American pub fare menu to the next level located in Tribeca in NYC

Make sure to visit http://manufacturinghappyhour.com for detailed show notes and a full list of resources mentioned in this episode. Stay Innovative, Stay Thirsty.

What happens when manufacturers stop competing for talent and start working together to develop it?
In this special LIVE episode of Manufacturing Happy Hour, Chris travels to Wausau, Wisconsin for a collaboration with the Central Wisconsin Manufacturing Alliance (CWIMA) to explore how manufacturers across the region are working together to strengthen workforce development, accelerate innovation, and build a thriving manufacturing ecosystem.
The discussion features five manufacturing leaders representing a wide range of industries:
Jim Waldron, President of Wausau Tile
John Peterson, Owner & CEO of Schuette Metals
Scott Mattmiller, Greenheck Group
Laura Strek, President of Imperial Industries
Tom Felch, J&D Tube Benders

Together, they discuss everything from workforce shortages and apprenticeship programs to automation, mentorship, community engagement, and why collaboration may be the biggest competitive advantage a manufacturing region can have.
Make sure to visit ManufacturingHappyHour.com for detailed show notes and a full list of resources mentioned in this episode. Stay Innovative, Stay Thirsty.

Content becomes forgettable when the key message isn't wrapped in storytelling.
People don’t retain information anywhere near as well as they remember stories they hear, and this is where manufacturing is missing a trick.
Manufacturers are battling false perceptions that the industry is dirty, dingy, not innovative and not creative. But what’s really happening is a failure to communicate the good stuff - the advanced systems and problem solving going on behind factory walls. The things that impact almost everything we touch in our lives.
Chris is joined by Danny Gonzales, CEO at IndustrialSage – a video production company focusing on telling those manufacturing stories. Danny noticed that the sector was massively underserved and saw an opportunity to change peoples’ perceptions. Using his background in B2B video production to fill the empty space with tales of meaningful work, and to show them to people in a way that they can receive it as something cool. Not a brain dump of stagnant information.
For anyone thinking about how manufacturing companies can better communicate their value, attract talent, build stronger brands or create connections through storytelling, this episode is a look at how media and manufacturing are merging.
In this episode, find out:
How IndustrialSage was born out of the discovery that the machines, technology and processes happening in factories was both very cool and underrepresented in media.
IndustrialSage and Danny’s mission to change the common misconceptions about the manufacturing industry through storytelling and thought leadership.
How true opportunity is found in the niches, despite the instinct to gravitate towards the aesthetic and techy industries which are usually overserviced.
How Danny’s career has evolved from his college dream of becoming a Hollywood producer, and how an actual Hollywood producer set him on his current path.
Why product-user content filmed on an iPhone is outperforming brand films and how leveraging these tools can save time and money while embracing the shift towards authenticity.
Why Danny believes the key to creating quality video content is in the strategy and distribution and what companies can do to implement these effectively.
Why storytelling is the best way to communicate the value proposition and the psychology behind why it is so effective in overcoming the flood of content.

Enjoying the show? Please leave us a review here. Even one sentence helps. It’s feedback from Manufacturing All-Stars like you that keeps us going!
Tweetable Quotes:
“IndustrialSage is on a mission to change the perception of the industry. There are a lot of people that think it's dingy, grimy, not innovative, not creative, and they're dead wrong. We want to show what is going on. We want to do that through storytelling.” – Danny Gonzales
“Most people will upload videos, and they just sit there on YouTube, maybe embedded on their website, and that's it. There are so many other use cases – social media, in your trade shows, in your email campaigns.” – Danny Gonzales
“For anyone that's going to be a little bit more storytelling driven, there's like an 8X chance that people are going to remember it better when you wrap it inside of a story. That's just how we communicate, and it's easier to be able to transmit.” – Danny Gonzales

Links & mentions:
IndustrialSage, industry-leading media company, publishing compelling content for industrial & manufacturing professionals
Sierra Nevada Brewing, their Mills River Taproom in Asheville is the Willie Wonka of craft breweries
Connect with Danny on LinkedIn

Make sure to visit http://manufacturinghappyhour.com for detailed show notes and a full list of resources mentioned in this episode. Stay Innovative, Stay Thirsty.

20 years ago, automation was a pipe dream for industrial workers, 10 years ago it existed in research and development labs. Now it's fully operational in warehouses, production facilities and even mines.
The companies driving robotics forwards are going one step further than developing smarter AI. They’re figuring out how to apply that advanced engineering to ‘gritty’ manufacturing – and there are few places that understand that world better than the Steel City.
Pittsburgh has become an important ecosystem for developing autonomous technologies, the combination of engineering talent and thriving industrial background has turned it into somewhat of a testing ground for physical AI.
Recorded in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, this was a special live show in collaboration with the Pittsburgh Robotics Network. Chris is joined by three industry leaders to talk about adopting autonomy in critical industries. Brett Phillips is Chief Revenue Officer and General Council at Hellbender, specializing in on-edge AI hardware development. David Griffin is Chief Sales Officer at Seegrid, manufacturer of autonomous mobile robots. Mike Smocer is CEO of Mine Vision Systems, a mining technology company building real-time digital mapping systems for GPS denied environments.
They dig into how autonomy is moving beyond one-off projects, and into fully integrated systems. Brett breaks down how the incorporation of sensors and models are shrinking development timelines for autonomous systems and why Pittsburgh’s willingness to ‘get their hands dirty’ is key. David explains how advances in perception and control systems have pushed AMRs beyond basic pallet moves into large, complex material moves through busy logistics environments. Mike shares how Mine Vision Systems support vital underground decision making with millions of dollars of impact by replacing manual mapping and tribal knowledge with accurate digital records.
For anyone considering where robotics and AI can create value inside their operations, thinking about the intersection between advanced software and manufacturing, or curious why Pittsburgh has become so strong in robotics and autonomy, this episode is a look at how three industry leaders are managing that change today.

In this episode, find out:
• About the technological advances that shifted autonomy from isolated deployments to a broader ecosystem covering manufacturing, logistics, mining and warehouse operations.
• How David explains the evolution of AMRs within lifting, going from limited pallet moves to an all-in-one technology capable of moving any material to any location.
• Why mid-tier manufacturers are becoming a major driver of autonomy adoption due to labor constraints and the positive impact of this in regional production environments.
• What mining looks like without the implementation of automated systems, Mike discusses highly intelligent operators still using coloured pencils and paper to capture critical underground data.
• Mining as a tunnel building process with the constant balance of optimizing extraction with breakage vs. how much time and cost is spent processing the material caused by that breakage.
• How Hellbender utilizes their expertise and capability to provide an end-to-end service inhouse, getting their customers to market in a matter of months rather than years.
• The role of sensors, on-edge AI, and manufacturing capability in accelerating the production of perception systems that serve as the eyes and ears of the autonomy stack.
• What the conversation reveals about Pittsburgh’s current position as a robotics hub where engineering talent, institutional history and manufacturing culture are allowing them to go head-to-head with the likes of Silicon Valley.

Enjoying the show? Please leave us a review here. Even one sentence helps. It’s feedback from Manufacturing All-Stars like you that keeps us going!

Tweetable Quotes:
• “At the end of the day, we are a software company. The hardware component of our product is essentially a near commodity at this point. It's the navigation systems, the safety systems, the perception systems, the control systems.” – David Griffin
• ”There is a transformation involved. There's change management involved. There are workflows that if you disrupt them just because your cool technology solved one little problem, broke 12... There's an approach to developing your technology so that it succeeds not only now, but in the future.” – Mike Smocer
• “What's gonna separate us moving forward is the ability to sort of mash this really high-level, very technical engineering with real-world manufacturing. That is where, uniquely, Pittsburgh stands alone.” – Brett Phillips

Do you want to connect with other leaders that are moving the needle in manufacturing everyday?
Then make sure to join us in the Manufacturing Happy Hour Industry Community on LinkedIn.
Apprentice has developed the first AI Agent designed specifically for manufacturing, not adapted from a general model. It connects across your full tech stack, keeps an eye on operations 24/7, and helps automate the mission-critical workflows your team is handling manually today. This isn’t “set it and forget it” AI. Your team stays in control of every critical decision, because that’s how real manufacturing works.

Recommended Resources
• Pittsburgh Robotics Network, facilitating commercial business growth and economic development opportunities for the Greater Pittsburgh region's robotics, automation, and vision communities
• Seegrid, delivering customized AMR solutions that meet the changing needs of today's manufacturing, logistics, and warehousing facilities
• Mine Vision Systems, maximizing efficiency and safety in underground mining operations with real-time 3D mapping technology
• HELLBENDER Inc., building mission-critical hardware and software infrastructure for AI-driven perception systems in autonomy, robotics, and industrial applications

Connect with David, Mike, and Brett
David Griffin | Mike Smocer | Brett Phillips
Make sure to visit http://manufacturinghappyhour.com for detailed show notes and a full list of resources mentioned in this episode. Stay Innovative, Stay Thirsty.