February 4, 2025 • 36 mins
Are you curious about how manufacturers can keep up with the rapid advancements of the digital age? Join us as we chat from afar with Australian John Broadbent, the visionary behind Realise Potential. John shares many insights into the evolution of Industry 4.0, from the early days of PLCs and automation to today's AI-driven innovations, but you may be surprised as his recommendations for the best path forward for manufacturing leaders seeking to future-proof their operations.
Through our conversation, you'll uncover the essential steps in implementing Industry 4.0, starting with the foundational task of connecting equipment and gathering data. We tackle the challenges organizations face when diving headfirst into AI without a robust data foundation, and explore how incremental improvements can drastically enhance operational efficiency. John shares real-world examples, like reducing packaging errors, to illustrate the tangible benefits of integrating data-driven insights into everyday processes. We also confront the hurdles operational leaders encounter in championing innovation, particularly when met with resistance from higher management.
Shifting gears, we delve into the leadership dynamics within the manufacturing sector, emphasizing the transition from proof of concept to proof of value. John discusses the pressing need for strategic leadership and long-term planning, contrasting it with the short-term mindset often driven by the corporate or private equity mindsets. Finally, we explore John's personal advocacy work, especially his commitment to supporting men, whether in dealing with midlife struggles or needing to foster deeper connections. His journey of personal growth and dedication to service is both inspiring and a call to action for others in the industry. Don't miss this insightful episode with a leading figure in manufacturing transformation.
Chapters:
00:00 - introduction
13:45 - unlocking the advantages of Industry 4.0 with digital transformation, whether through factory digitalization or work process automation
19:41 - challenges in manufacturing leadership and strategy
29:08 - empowering men through advocacy, service, and connection
John's book site: https://manunplugged.com.au/
Realise Potential website: https://realisepotential.com.au/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to Manufacturing Talks with Jim
Vanosky.
Industry has a million coolstories and Jim talks to the
movers and shakers who aremaking them happen.
Let's dive in.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hey everybody, welcome back to Manufacturing
Talks.
I'm Jim Vanosky, your host.
I'm glad to be joined today byJohn Broadbent.
He is a director and founder ata company over in Australia
called Realize Potential anindustry 4.0 and digital
transformation manufacturingconsultancy.
Welcome, john.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Good afternoon for you, jim john, good afternoon
for you, jim, and good morningfor me yes, good morning
tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
In fact, I'm sure you get that a lot when you talk to
americans yeah, people ask mefor the lotto numbers what's
going to happen.
Yeah, I guess so very, veryglad to have you on, because we,
(01:11):
in talking beforehand, you knowwe were hitting on all these
points that are your interests,that are so closely aligned with
what we cover here, so got alot to talk about.
Before we do, though, why don'tyou just tell us about yourself
and how you got doing whatyou're doing today?
Speaker 3 (01:27):
wow.
Um started a mechanicalengineering cadetship in 76 um,
so this year actually startedmanufacturing, the end of 75, so
this is my 50th year inaustralian and international
manufacturing.
But interestingly, in my earlyroles as a cadet I took a deep
(01:51):
interest in programming and whenPLC's programmable logic
controllers finally emerged onthe scene, in the factory that I
was working as a maintenanceand projects engineer young
projects engineer we didn't haveanybody who was capable of
doing the programming side, so Ivery quickly adapted into the
automation space.
Yeah, um did some incredibleprojects.
(02:11):
Um worked on dcs's distributedcontrol systems as well.
So I became an absoluteautomation nut a bit of a
propeller head, I'm sure at thetime, and then ended up during
the 90s building factories inSoutheast Asia for an Australian
building materials company.
So we did work in Malaysia,china, then Thailand, and each
(02:35):
project was about a year long.
So I got a huge amount ofexperience in the integration
space 2000,.
Read a book called who Moved myCheese and recognised my cheese
pile was getting smaller.
So we elevated the company thatI had at the time called
Millennium IT into a role wherewe became a distributor for a
(02:55):
company out of Pennsylvania whohad a very clever tool that
allowed you to mine content inSCADA's PLCs and other systems
that didn't normally talk toeach other and act basically as
an integration hub.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
We brought that product into Australia in 2001.
Sap acquired the company in theUS in 2005, just as we were
getting traction.
So my company then had productand no pipeline because we lost
our distributorship and SAP thenhad product and no pipeline
because we lost ourdistributorship.
And SAP Australia had pipelineand sorry had product and no
pipeline.
And we had pipeline and noproduct.
So I got an introduction to SAPhere in Sydney to keep their
(03:36):
door in and struck a deal whereI would be their free pre-sales
functional specialist that couldthen help them sell the product
, but we would get the serviceswork.
And that's what happened.
We did probably 10 to 12 majorprojects for the likes of BHP
and Rio Tinto and other bigorganisations food and beverage
(03:56):
as well and so we got a reallygood experience on how to
integrate manufacturing datathat we've spent my life in, but
putting it into in in ameaningful context so that
people could then use what theycall, you know, buzzword
actionable insights.
And then in 2017, I left thatthat business partnership, uh to
(04:17):
go out on my own again andfound and realized potential,
because I was recognizingisingthat Australian manufacturing in
particular was certainly behindthe eight ball.
I reckoned that probably 80% to85% of our manufacturing was
being done on already fullydepreciated kit.
Most companies were sweatingtheir assets so much they were
(04:38):
dripping, and so I wanted toencourage companies to consider
the whole thing around Industry4.0, but I didn't really
understand much of its historyand what it meant.
So I spent the whole of 2018 ina very deep dive, understanding
the features and benefits, onlyto realise that my first smart
factory in 2011 for Coca-Colacomplied with all the Industry 4
(05:02):
maturity phases, but we builtit from the ground up as a grid
field site.
So that was a big aha momentfor me, and that then set me on
the journey of helping othercompanies do the same.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Wow, that is a heck of a history.
And it brings us right up tothe next question, and I saw in
looking at you know, yourinformation online and the stuff
about realized potential.
You've got the tagline thatyou're about future-proofing
(05:33):
manufacturing, so tell us moreabout the company and how it
delivers on that.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
So organizations.
I hearken it back to what theycall the emergence of the second
industrial revolution, which isthe electrification.
So we had mechanisation in 1784, with what we call the
industrial revolution and theweaving loom and steam, and then
in 1870, tesla and Edison werehaving an arm wrestle.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Right.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
Between AC and DC and Tesla won.
And it's almost like looking atdigital transformation and
Industry 4 today as being in the1870s and said, oh, this
electricity thing is newfangled,I'm going to stick with steam.
And I think that's why Germany,in 2011, coined the term
Industry 4.0, because they couldsee that it was a convergence
(06:23):
of.
It was almost inevitable thatit was a convergence of.
It was almost inevitablebecause it was a convergence of
very three, three very differentconcepts.
Um, in terms of you know, cyberphysical systems, which is
basically your car's dashboard,where you take signals from
somewhere, you put them into aform that we can consume them as
humans cloud computing, and theemergence of the industrial
internet of things.
(06:43):
Cloud computing and theemergence of the industrial
internet of things.
Once those three converge asGermany said, it was inevitable,
but we would then amalgamatethose into the way to do things
in a more modern context.
And the biggest frustration Isee is that the large majority
of manufacturing people are whatI call below-the-line knowledge
workers.
So, the front office has hadknow two screens, three screens
(07:06):
on their desks, access to saporacle you know whatever your
flavor of erp is and all thatinformation pretty well at their
fingertips.
But the poor manufacturingpeople are still working off old
time, untimely information,pieces of paper being passed
around, different layers of theplant and equipment, as we said,
that could be you know, 1970s,1980s, 1990s that isn't
(07:28):
computerized and isn't able tobe connected to a network to
extract data from it.
So I see a lot of factory-basedoperational people production
managers, engineering managers,operation managers really
struggling with um getting theinformation they need when they
need it in the form that theyneed it in to make good
decisions.
And so my view is that if we'regoing to become more
(07:50):
sustainable across the board,then we have to learn how to do
more with less, and that meansusing less energy, less raw
materials, less people whereappropriate and minimizing waste
and maximizing finished goodsoutput.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Yeah, and it's the only way we in the developed
world are going to becompetitive anyway.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Absolutely.
I mean the Coca-Cola factorythat I mentioned is run
effectively on the factory floorby five people.
It's a fully integrated SAP tofactory floor.
There's 23 different systems inthat organization and the
manufacturing hub sits in themiddle and talks to all of those
.
So SAP is just one of thespokes, which which means they
can do upgrades and patching andservice packs and all that sort
(08:33):
of stuff.
And as long as that linkbetween the two is the same, or
even if it changes, you don'thave to change a plethora of
background stuff to regressiontest.
You simply have to make surethat the data being passed
backwards and forwards alongthat pipe is the same.
But if it changes you just haveto change one thing.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Yeah, now you talked about companies over there in
Australia sweating the assets,so insanely I would submit that
we're, you know, in very muchthe same boat here in America,
where we're running aged systemsand still loaded up with people
to your point.
You know in very much the sameboat here in America, where
we're running aged systems andand still loaded up with people
to your point, you know, um verymanual approach and labor
(09:13):
intensive.
What are the biggestopportunities you see?
Uh to to modernize factoriesand bring that that industry 4.0
and digitalization to bear onbecoming competitive in the
global marketplace.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
So if we the analogy I often use is that you're
driving your car, you have nodashboard, the windows are
blacked out, the view in therearview mirror is where you
were a month ago and themanaging director or president
is sitting in the rearviewmirror is where you were a month
ago and the managing directoror president is sitting in the
passenger seat asking are wethere yet?
And sadly, that's the way mostmanufacturing businesses are
(09:59):
running, and I'm in awe to behonest that so many
organizations can continue tofunction like that and still
stay in business.
Because if our CFOs chieffinancial officers here had any
idea of how much money I call itbeing left on the table, I
think they'd need adefibrillator in every boardroom
(10:20):
.
Boardroom.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Right.
Well, and that, I think, is thehuge disconnect is.
I mean, I've been having thisdiscussion with some executives
over here just in the last fewweeks about how, whether it's
private equity or corporations,they're so short-sighted they
don't want to put capital intomanufacturing, and yet that
means, to your point, we'vealready been behind.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Now we're falling farther and farther and farther
behind and, interestingly,enough if you look at the global
consumption of robotics,purchasing of robotics.
We were sold the story inAustralia that we had to move
all our manufacturing offshoreto Southeast Asia.
For us predominantly China,Malaysia, Thailand,
(11:05):
predominantly China, Malaysia,Thailand, and in that,
offshoring.
we did nothing more than exportout inefficiency Right yeah, and
in doing that we then lost ourskill set.
We lost supply chain issues,which certainly became
(11:29):
self-evident during COVID, andit's made reshoring the option
of bringing that manufacturingback to Australia much more
difficult.
You guys outsourced a lot ofyour manufacturing, as far as
I'm aware, to sort of EasternAsia as well, across the Pacific
for you guys, and to bring thatback to Australia firstly, you
(11:49):
can't now bring a 1980s piece ofequipment that you move because
of the inefficiency, because ofthe lower-cost labour base
overseas.
Now that labour rates arestarting to increase in those
countries, you can't bring that1980s piece of machinery back.
So now you have to find newland, build a building, buy new
equipment.
Then you have to find new land,build a building, buy new
equipment.
Then you have to find the skillsfor people to run it um and
(12:11):
before we got on this call, wewere talking quickly about
reassuring and I know thattrump's down office in america
has been talking about trying todo that.
Yep, my concern for that isit's what I call chicken and egg
.
Um, the biggest issue is, if wecan't get the skills, the
skills that we do have in thediminishing pool is going to be
(12:34):
a supply and demand response tothat and therefore the cost of
labor is going to increasebecause there's such a scarcity
in the STEM area, engineeringarea, tool making, all those
skills and we're not attractingyoung people anymore to
(12:54):
manufacturing, because I don'tthink we've made it sexy enough.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
What are some other kind of focus areas that people
ought to think about as theylook at that digital
transformation, whether it's inexisting or in new?
Speaker 3 (13:08):
look at that digital transformation, whether it's in
existing or in in new.
Well, if you, if we look at,just simply looking at the what
I call the four phases ofmaturity, or the four stages of
maturity of industry 4.0, thefirst one is being able to see
the information on your factoryfloor without having to go to
the piece of equipment and havea look.
And the example that I used, jim, that a lot of people are
familiar with, particularly fromthe food and beverage industry,
is a piece of equipment andhave a look, and the example
that I used, jim, that a lot ofpeople are familiar with,
(13:29):
particularly from the food andbeverage industry, is a piece of
equipment called a check wire.
Um, a check wire weighs productas it travels across it and
confirms that it's withincertain weight tolerances.
Now, in any, in any factorythat has a check repair, I can
go down to the check wire andlook at the display and watch
the pack weights, see them goingacross.
But industry 4.0 is firstlybeing able to see that
information away from theequipment.
(13:49):
So if I then have that checkway, a computerized, and that's
on a network, and I can minethat check way for information,
I can now start extracting thosepack weights and, for example,
put them into a trend or astatistical process control
chart or a database.
I can do with it, what myprocessor story and I can do
with it, what I process thestory and I can do with it what
I will.
So let's assume I'm making a500 gram jar of coffee and in
(14:16):
order to know that I'm making a500 gram jar of coffee, I need a
standard to measure it against.
So the second step of industryfour is the context piece.
It's like driving your car I'mdoing 60 kilometers an hour, but
if I'm doing 60 on the motorwayat 120 limit I'm in trouble,
and if I'm doing 60 in a schoolzone which is 40 kilometers an
(14:36):
hour.
I'm in trouble, but fordifferent reasons.
So we need, we need, we needcontext of that information in
order to show us where we are.
So we may then have the standardof that pack weight, the 500
grams, coming from an ERP system, for example, like SAP, so we
can now compare what we'remeasuring to what we should be.
So that's the second stage.
The third stage is then goingwell, based on the data that I'm
(14:59):
collecting, that I now trustand I now have a standard to
measure it against, I could, for, for example, create a
statistical process controlchart that will show me, through
a proper sampling regime, wheremy pack weights are and my
natural variation and as long aswithin my upper and lower
control limits and my standarddeviations, etc.
Happy days.
But if a system then starts togo a little bit um awol, um, I
(15:25):
can see that I'm now starting toincrease my pack weights over
time, so I need to make a littlebit um awol, um, I can see that
I'm now starting to increase mypack weights over time, so I
need to make a correction to thecontrol system and I can go and
do that manually.
And that's the level three, orthe third phase of maturity,
which is um, which is predict,which is predicting where the
process is going to go.
What a lot of people miss isthat the fourth step is the only
part of the industry fourjourney where you then close the
(15:45):
loop.
So when you start to collectthat data, for example, and you
see that you're about to makeout a specification product, the
supervisory control systemautomatically makes the
adjustment, so say the fillingsystem, to put the product back
into specification.
And that's the optimise andadapt piece.
And that's where AI and machinelearning can really come of age
(16:08):
.
But I'm seeing organizations inmanufacturing miss the scene,
the understanding and thepredicting piece, and going
straight to market and going oh,we want to go AI, we want to go
AI.
And it's like hang on, guys,that's the last step.
You've got to start at step onefirst, to make sure you can
connect to your equipment andget the data from it in the
first place.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Right, yeah, hence your point about a lot of ground
to cover if you're going toreshore.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
Very much so.
But what people don't realize,jim, is that you can apply that
industry four staged approach toa single piece of equipment,
and that's why I use the checkwire as the example, because you
don't have to apply it to thewhole company at once.
You can apply it to individualpockets, and each one you do,
you will improve your visibilityand responsiveness, and what
(16:57):
you effectively do is youshorten the time between an
issue, a issue, and thediscovery of that issue.
The classic example is readymeals.
Someone goes to the supermarket, buys a ready meal, gets it
home, looks inside and realiseswhat's on the pack is not what's
(17:18):
in the pack.
So they now take that back tothe store for a refund because
it might be.
They bought butter chicken, butit's chicken satay and they
have a peanut allergy.
So there's a risk.
And in Australia a third ofrecalls are for undeclared
allergens.
I used to be quite confused bythat and think how would a
company not know it's gotparticular allergens in its food
(17:40):
?
And it's not that it'sundeclared, it's undeclared
because it's wrongly packagedyeah so the time between when
that product was made and thetime it was discovered on the
shelf at a supermarket could betwo weeks yeah if we have a
in-line packaging and labelverification system, using
barcoding or 2d barcodingcameras, for example, to look at
(18:04):
the actual pack itself, knowingwhat to look for.
The moment someone puts thewrong sleeve on the wrong
product, the line stops.
So, we've still had the sameissue, but we haven't waited two
weeks to discover it.
We've captured it a few secondsdown the line, and that
compression of time betweenincident and discovery is when
that time is long.
There's a significant loss ofvalue.
(18:24):
When the time is short, there'sa significant loss of value.
When the time is short, there'smuch less loss of value, and
you can only do that throughconnectivity and integration.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Yep, got it.
Now let me shift gears on you,because I know another thing
that you focus on is leadershipdevelopment and how that fits
with all this too.
So how does that kind of playwith this modernization effort
that you're trying to help lead?
Speaker 3 (18:55):
There are a number of companies that I know of and
I'm sure it's the same in the USwhere people at the factory
floor level again theoperational level, engineering
managers, production managers,operations managers have great
ideas about what they could doif they had some funds and they
will start to run a proof ofconcept pilot.
I'll come back to that in a sec.
(19:15):
They will then hit an approvalceiling.
Someone further up the foodchain will look at that often.
Uh, people my age, what I callthe gray-haired ceiling and
they'll suppress.
They'll suppress that um and sothat they, the company, ends up
multiple plants you know aroundthe country and they end up
(19:37):
stuck in what they call pilotpurgatory.
Firstly, proof of concepts areno longer required.
We have been collecting data,storing it, displaying it and
disseminating it for 30 to 40years.
We know we can do that.
What we need to show is is canwe have a proof of value?
Because ultimately thepresident of finance, vp of
(20:00):
finance, the cfo, is going tohave a look at that and say um,
yes, it's going to save us money, no, it's not, and they're
going to sign the check.
But the um, the way that thoseprojects are done when they're
driven from the factory floor upis, they will inevitably hit
that ceiling.
What needs to happen is thatthe leadership of the business
needs to say we don't have astrategy.
(20:22):
We need a strategy for the nextthree to five years to know
where we're going and then givethe mandate to the people who
are going to do the actual workof implementing these projects
and funds to be able to go anddo that.
Yeah, so it's.
It's.
It's a top-down lead, butbottom up delivery um modality,
if you like.
And in fact, recently I was ona call with a large company here
(20:45):
that I was talking aboutdigital transformation and the
guy interrupted the call and hesaid you know, john, you're not
really convincing me that thisis a journey we need to take.
And I went hey, no, hang on aminute here, that's not my job.
If your leadership isn'ttelling you that you need to
digitally transform yourbusiness, it's of no consequence
(21:05):
to me.
That's not my job, that's thejob of your leadership.
I'm not here to convince you ofanything.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
And therein lies the challenge.
Most organizations don't have astrategy.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Yeah, and that point about the lower-level leaders
needing to help foster that, Imean I can tell you straight up
on our side of the pond it'svery rare that you've got that
kind of development.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
Yes, and it was Hillary Clinton, back in 2015,
16, I think it was, who coinedthe term quarterly capitalism.
She read somewhere, somewherethat fortune 100, I think it was
.
Uh, ceos were interviewed andthe question was if you could
make a decision today that wouldhave significant impact,
(21:54):
positive impact in your businessin two years time, but it took
a penny off the stock price.
Would you do it?
and they all said no yep and,and clinton, you know, rang one
of the ceos.
She happened to know and goesplease explain.
And he said well, if I make adecision today and it takes a
penny off the stock price, myhead will roll.
Yep, yeah.
So you can see how that WallStreet mentality is driving poor
(22:18):
decision-making with thisalmost quarterly capital cycle
and therefore long-termstrategic thinking isn't
happening.
And I read only a few years ago, Jim, that Toyota's strategic
plan, the long-term plan, is 200years.
I can't even conceive of that,but that's what they do.
(22:39):
So Japanese investment, forexample, is often very good at
the long game 10 to 20 yearsworth of thinking about where
they're going to go.
I worked with a company here afew years ago and their return
on investment requirement waseight weeks.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Right yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
And they wondered why nothing got done.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Yeah, and it's very typical over here that capital
projects aren't approved unlessthey pay off within a year or
two, which is still ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
It's tough, really tough, yeah, because that level
of low hanging fruit has usuallygone a long time ago.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
Yeah, and it's not setting you up to compete down
the road.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
So yeah, I applaud that approach.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
I don't necessarily have the answer on how we fix
our corporations and our venturecapitalists and all that, but
at least we start talking aboutit right.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
I think it's important to raise it because
there will be people out therelistening to this and maybe
someone might go.
Actually, I do need to lead, Ido need to understand where this
organization.
There's a classic line thatsays when you don't know where
you're going, any road will doRight.
Yeah, and I'm staggered that somany organizations don't have a
(23:55):
manufacturing transformationstrategy.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
And unfortunately they don't have people who know
manufacturing, who have a voiceeven within the company
leadership.
In fact I would submit that alot of our supposed
manufacturing leaders, if theyever knew much about
manufacturing, they've been offthe floor for so long they've
forgotten it.
But you know, you look atBoeing, where it was the bean
(24:20):
counters and the finance peoplewho were kind of driving the bus
, and you see that everywhere.
So Boeing is kind of that tipof the iceberg example of how
things go seriously, seriouslyawry.
But we're all in the sameunfortunate boat to some degree.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
We will have a COO chief operating officer in a
bank heading up operations, butwe won't have a COO in the
manufacturing business.
We'll have a CEO and a CFO.
The CTO and CIO will often situnder the CFO, and the person
(24:59):
usually isn't a head ofmanufacturing.
But anybody who does headmanufacturing is way down
literally the food chain, and sothey don't get a seat at the
table.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
So here's an interesting thing I've just come
across recently.
I talk to a lot of executivesin private companies and I've
seen how they've been afraid tospeak up about these things, and
I actually just challenged onehere recently trying to get him
to lend his voice.
I was offering to you know I dothe manufacturing coverage for
(25:31):
forbescom and I wanted to writean article talking about.
He was talking about this verything, the way that for him it
was private equity companiesthat are buying up people in his
sector and not investing inmanufacturing, and I wanted him
to talk about it.
He wouldn't go public with it.
So to some degree we've all inmanufacturing gotten in this
defensive crouch over the lasttwo or three decades and we have
(25:53):
to get out of it.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
What really staggered me is I'm reasonably active on
linkedin and I did a videoseries a few years ago that sort
of got me traction and, youknow, reputation.
Um is that at the end of lastyear, someone that I know quite
well opened a center ofexcellence for 3d metal printing
and he said to me hey, wouldyou mind coming over for the
(26:18):
opening?
There'll be about 60 peoplethere.
Could you give us 10 minutes ofyour time to do a bit of a
keynote?
And I thought okay.
I thought well, what am I goingto talk about?
So I did a bit of research anddiscovered, in Australia, for
example, that in 1960,manufacturing contributed 30% to
our GDP.
In 1990, it was 14% and in 2023was 5.4%.
(26:44):
It's an 80 to 85% reduction.
After I finished my talk, manypeople in the audience came up
and said oh, thank you so much.
You're speaking exactly what webelieve is the issue, what
needs to change, because we usedto be a good manufacturing
country.
Two days later, I decided toput a cheeky little post out
(27:04):
onto LinkedIn where I showed thegraph of that decline and where
I'd normally get anythingbetween 800 to maybe 2,000
impressions, as they call it,and a few comments this thing
hit 45 000 impressions.
Uh, it had, I think, about um 40or 50 reposts.
(27:24):
Uh, it had probably nearly 200comments.
I was flat out just respondingto the comments to this thing
and I I sent the link to our umminister for industry, uh in the
government and said if youreally want to check the pulse
of Australian manufacturing,just read this damn thread.
It tells you everything youneed to know.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
And it shows that we're not alone in understanding
where the problem lies.
But unfortunately there's stillthat hesitance of so many
people in manufacturing to raisetheir voices about it.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
Yes, unfortunately, they don't seem to have any ears
.
And young engineers.
I've done a few, you know,keynotes and workshops and bits
and pieces, and I've lost countof the number of young engineers
who have come up to me and saidhow do we get past you old
blokes?
Because I've got these digitalnatives, I've got these great
ideas about machine learning andAI and vision and all the sort
(28:24):
of stuff that they want to playwith.
And my generation is, andslightly younger are going no,
no, we don't need to do that.
We've always done it this wayand it's just not going to work.
So what I mentioned beforeabout robotics, if you look at
the spread of robotic purchasing, we were sold the idea that,
well, let's go to China.
You know cheap labor, southeastAsia, but China, I think, is
(28:48):
the second or third biggestcountry for users of robots.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
Well, why would they be?
Speaker 3 (28:53):
doing that if labor is so cheap.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Yeah well, and they're doing it when their
labor still is much cheaper thanus, and they're doing it when
their labor still is muchcheaper than us, and yet here we
are not even keeping pace.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
And I think the spread is in the top 20.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Yep.
Another piece I want to hit onbefore we wrap up your book is
about the plight of men, right,yes, which is a whole other
topic I've covered, kind ofinterweaving with my
manufacturing coverage and kindof separate.
But I definitely want to hearyour perspectives on you know,
(29:27):
the state of men in the Westernworld today and what you think
the needs are and what youpropose we do.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
So the original title was called man Unplugged
Exploring the Inner man, and itwas published in 2014 and
realised it was possibly alittle bit esoteric, but during
the last 10 to 12 years, I'vebeen through significant
personal growth lost bothparents, been through a divorce.
(29:57):
My kids are growing up so I'vehad to parent them through
teenagehood.
I've got a lot more involved inmen's work.
I run retreats both here andoverseas for men, week-long
events, and I decided it wastime to do a bit of a rewrite.
But this time I changed thetagline from Exploring the Inner
man to Secret Men's businessfor men and those who love them,
(30:20):
and the reason and the reason Idid that is because when a man,
particularly through midlife,hits the wall, which typically
happens in F40, we call it themidlife crisis, but it doesn't
have to be, as men, whogenerally don't don't share
what's happening for us, we keepthat to ourselves and we
process inwardly where womenprocess outwardly through
dialogue.
(30:41):
So when a man then discoverssomething that is a is a
positive for him in how tonavigate that time, he doesn't
share that with people, withother men, because he thinks
well, I'm just robertson crusoe,because no one talks about this
stuff.
So a lot of what I I've sharedin the rewrite of the book is
secret to men themselves and Iwanted to broaden its reach so
(31:06):
that men, particularly in theWestern world, could have a read
.
And I had someone just reviewit the other week and his
comment to me which will be onthe book as a testimonial was
it's the most male-friendly bookI've ever read.
So I'm happy that it's landingthe way that I wanted it to land
and it's really a guidebook forany man who wants to be a
(31:28):
better man and what gets in theway of us being able to do that?
But certainly encouraging mento get out more, get more male
friends, because loneliness formen is one of the biggest issues
.
Some of the forums that I'm onthere are men in the States all
over the world saying I don'thave friends.
I don't have friends.
I don't have friends, but Iwant quality friends.
(31:48):
I don't want the friends thatgo down to the pub or the bar
and, you know, just drinkcopious amounts of alcohol or I
want to have deep and meaningfulconversations.
But we seem to have lost thecapacity to do that and social
media hasn't helped no, that'sfor sure.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
I couldn't agree with you more, though, um, and I'll
have a link to your book in theshow description.
So I do highly recommendeveryone check that out, because
, just based on what you'resaying, I'm definitely getting a
copy and we'll be plugging itfar and wide.
Speaker 3 (32:19):
It's about thank you.
It's about probably two tothree months from publication.
The website currently has thePDF and the audio of the
original book from 2014.
I've got my good old, trustypodcast mic, so I'll be sitting
and doing a book read over thenext few weeks to make sure the
audio book is ready to go atlaunch as well.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Okay.
So one last question then whatdo you think the big
opportunities for you are downthe road?
Speaker 3 (32:55):
Whether it's through manufacturing or whether it's
through men's awareness, thebiggest thing for me is advocacy
.
I'm an advocate for localmanufacturing.
I'm an advocate for educationand I'm an advocate for men to
understand why we are as we areand what we can do to live a
(33:15):
more fulfilling life.
So all of those roles requireme to be in a role of service.
It took me until I got to my50s to discover my purpose and I
realised that when I'm in atrue role of service I'm in my
happy place.
So as long as I can continue todo that and the workshops that
I run in Bali are a week longfor men over 55 to step into the
(33:39):
more formal role of eldershipand that's something that I've
been embracing for the last fiveto 10 years, and for me that's
going to continue because I lovebeing in that role.
It feeds my soul.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
You know clearly I'm biased.
We obviously have several areaswhere we're in violent
agreement on things, so I'm gladyou're out there doing that and
advocating for things I careabout too.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
Well, likewise for you, jim.
I know it's a hard road,running up a podcast and getting
guests and being sometimes abit of a voice in the wilderness
, but the more voices in thewilderness, the less of a
wilderness it is.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
Well, put Yep Any last points before we wrap up.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
No, but it's interesting just for me to
reflect that in a conversationwith a guy from Montana about
six months ago, he and I had avery similar conversation.
He was waxing lyrical about thestate of manufacturing in the
US.
I was like well, canada, likeyou know, it seems to be, uh,
the bane of the western world,but we, we either have to make a
(34:47):
decision to do something aboutit or just get off the bus and
become a services economy.
Um, I'll go down screaming ifthat fighting.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
if I was just gonna say I'm not taking that sitting
down and I know, know, you'renot either, so we'll go down
kicking and screaming if that'sthe way it's headed.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
We will.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
Good deal.
Well, John Broadbent, thank youso much for being with us on
Manufacturing Talks today.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
Thanks, jim, appreciate the opportunity.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
And, as always, thanks to you guys in the
audience.
You're why we're here.
We're here every Tuesday andsometimes even more.
So keep an eye out.
We got more episodes comingwith.
You know, more great guests.
I can't say that they're allgoing to have.
You know the violent agreementon things that we all care about
that John does, but they're allgoing to be in violent
agreement on at least something.
So tune back in.
We'll be here at ManufacturingTalks and I'm Jim Vodovsky
(35:33):
signing off.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
So long.
Thanks for tuning in toManufacturing Talks with Jim
Benosky.
Watch for new episodes droppingevery Tuesday.
Don't forget to like, share,comment and subscribe you.
Welcome to Manufacturing Talks with Jim
Vanosky.
Industry has a million coolstories and Jim talks to the
movers and shakers who aremaking them happen.
Let's dive in.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hey everybody, welcome back to Manufacturing
Talks.
I'm Jim Vanosky, your host.
I'm glad to be joined today byJohn Broadbent.
He is a director and founder ata company over in Australia
called Realize Potential anindustry 4.0 and digital
transformation manufacturingconsultancy.
Welcome, john.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Good afternoon for you, jim john, good afternoon
for you, jim, and good morningfor me yes, good morning
tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
In fact, I'm sure you get that a lot when you talk to
americans yeah, people ask mefor the lotto numbers what's
going to happen.
Yeah, I guess so very, veryglad to have you on, because we,
(01:11):
in talking beforehand, you knowwe were hitting on all these
points that are your interests,that are so closely aligned with
what we cover here, so got alot to talk about.
Before we do, though, why don'tyou just tell us about yourself
and how you got doing whatyou're doing today?
Speaker 3 (01:27):
wow.
Um started a mechanicalengineering cadetship in 76 um,
so this year actually startedmanufacturing, the end of 75, so
this is my 50th year inaustralian and international
manufacturing.
But interestingly, in my earlyroles as a cadet I took a deep
(01:51):
interest in programming and whenPLC's programmable logic
controllers finally emerged onthe scene, in the factory that I
was working as a maintenanceand projects engineer young
projects engineer we didn't haveanybody who was capable of
doing the programming side, so Ivery quickly adapted into the
automation space.
Yeah, um did some incredibleprojects.
(02:11):
Um worked on dcs's distributedcontrol systems as well.
So I became an absoluteautomation nut a bit of a
propeller head, I'm sure at thetime, and then ended up during
the 90s building factories inSoutheast Asia for an Australian
building materials company.
So we did work in Malaysia,china, then Thailand, and each
(02:35):
project was about a year long.
So I got a huge amount ofexperience in the integration
space 2000,.
Read a book called who Moved myCheese and recognised my cheese
pile was getting smaller.
So we elevated the company thatI had at the time called
Millennium IT into a role wherewe became a distributor for a
(02:55):
company out of Pennsylvania whohad a very clever tool that
allowed you to mine content inSCADA's PLCs and other systems
that didn't normally talk toeach other and act basically as
an integration hub.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
We brought that product into Australia in 2001.
Sap acquired the company in theUS in 2005, just as we were
getting traction.
So my company then had productand no pipeline because we lost
our distributorship and SAP thenhad product and no pipeline
because we lost ourdistributorship.
And SAP Australia had pipelineand sorry had product and no
pipeline.
And we had pipeline and noproduct.
So I got an introduction to SAPhere in Sydney to keep their
(03:36):
door in and struck a deal whereI would be their free pre-sales
functional specialist that couldthen help them sell the product
, but we would get the serviceswork.
And that's what happened.
We did probably 10 to 12 majorprojects for the likes of BHP
and Rio Tinto and other bigorganisations food and beverage
(03:56):
as well and so we got a reallygood experience on how to
integrate manufacturing datathat we've spent my life in, but
putting it into in in ameaningful context so that
people could then use what theycall, you know, buzzword
actionable insights.
And then in 2017, I left thatthat business partnership, uh to
(04:17):
go out on my own again andfound and realized potential,
because I was recognizingisingthat Australian manufacturing in
particular was certainly behindthe eight ball.
I reckoned that probably 80% to85% of our manufacturing was
being done on already fullydepreciated kit.
Most companies were sweatingtheir assets so much they were
(04:38):
dripping, and so I wanted toencourage companies to consider
the whole thing around Industry4.0, but I didn't really
understand much of its historyand what it meant.
So I spent the whole of 2018 ina very deep dive, understanding
the features and benefits, onlyto realise that my first smart
factory in 2011 for Coca-Colacomplied with all the Industry 4
(05:02):
maturity phases, but we builtit from the ground up as a grid
field site.
So that was a big aha momentfor me, and that then set me on
the journey of helping othercompanies do the same.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Wow, that is a heck of a history.
And it brings us right up tothe next question, and I saw in
looking at you know, yourinformation online and the stuff
about realized potential.
You've got the tagline thatyou're about future-proofing
(05:33):
manufacturing, so tell us moreabout the company and how it
delivers on that.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
So organizations.
I hearken it back to what theycall the emergence of the second
industrial revolution, which isthe electrification.
So we had mechanisation in 1784, with what we call the
industrial revolution and theweaving loom and steam, and then
in 1870, tesla and Edison werehaving an arm wrestle.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Right.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
Between AC and DC and Tesla won.
And it's almost like looking atdigital transformation and
Industry 4 today as being in the1870s and said, oh, this
electricity thing is newfangled,I'm going to stick with steam.
And I think that's why Germany,in 2011, coined the term
Industry 4.0, because they couldsee that it was a convergence
(06:23):
of.
It was almost inevitable thatit was a convergence of.
It was almost inevitablebecause it was a convergence of
very three, three very differentconcepts.
Um, in terms of you know, cyberphysical systems, which is
basically your car's dashboard,where you take signals from
somewhere, you put them into aform that we can consume them as
humans cloud computing, and theemergence of the industrial
internet of things.
(06:43):
Cloud computing and theemergence of the industrial
internet of things.
Once those three converge asGermany said, it was inevitable,
but we would then amalgamatethose into the way to do things
in a more modern context.
And the biggest frustration Isee is that the large majority
of manufacturing people are whatI call below-the-line knowledge
workers.
So, the front office has hadknow two screens, three screens
(07:06):
on their desks, access to saporacle you know whatever your
flavor of erp is and all thatinformation pretty well at their
fingertips.
But the poor manufacturingpeople are still working off old
time, untimely information,pieces of paper being passed
around, different layers of theplant and equipment, as we said,
that could be you know, 1970s,1980s, 1990s that isn't
(07:28):
computerized and isn't able tobe connected to a network to
extract data from it.
So I see a lot of factory-basedoperational people production
managers, engineering managers,operation managers really
struggling with um getting theinformation they need when they
need it in the form that theyneed it in to make good
decisions.
And so my view is that if we'regoing to become more
(07:50):
sustainable across the board,then we have to learn how to do
more with less, and that meansusing less energy, less raw
materials, less people whereappropriate and minimizing waste
and maximizing finished goodsoutput.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Yeah, and it's the only way we in the developed
world are going to becompetitive anyway.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Absolutely.
I mean the Coca-Cola factorythat I mentioned is run
effectively on the factory floorby five people.
It's a fully integrated SAP tofactory floor.
There's 23 different systems inthat organization and the
manufacturing hub sits in themiddle and talks to all of those
.
So SAP is just one of thespokes, which which means they
can do upgrades and patching andservice packs and all that sort
(08:33):
of stuff.
And as long as that linkbetween the two is the same, or
even if it changes, you don'thave to change a plethora of
background stuff to regressiontest.
You simply have to make surethat the data being passed
backwards and forwards alongthat pipe is the same.
But if it changes you just haveto change one thing.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Yeah, now you talked about companies over there in
Australia sweating the assets,so insanely I would submit that
we're, you know, in very muchthe same boat here in America,
where we're running aged systemsand still loaded up with people
to your point.
You know in very much the sameboat here in America, where
we're running aged systems andand still loaded up with people
to your point, you know, um verymanual approach and labor
(09:13):
intensive.
What are the biggestopportunities you see?
Uh to to modernize factoriesand bring that that industry 4.0
and digitalization to bear onbecoming competitive in the
global marketplace.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
So if we the analogy I often use is that you're
driving your car, you have nodashboard, the windows are
blacked out, the view in therearview mirror is where you
were a month ago and themanaging director or president
is sitting in the rearviewmirror is where you were a month
ago and the managing directoror president is sitting in the
passenger seat asking are wethere yet?
And sadly, that's the way mostmanufacturing businesses are
(09:59):
running, and I'm in awe to behonest that so many
organizations can continue tofunction like that and still
stay in business.
Because if our CFOs chieffinancial officers here had any
idea of how much money I call itbeing left on the table, I
think they'd need adefibrillator in every boardroom
(10:20):
.
Boardroom.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Right.
Well, and that, I think, is thehuge disconnect is.
I mean, I've been having thisdiscussion with some executives
over here just in the last fewweeks about how, whether it's
private equity or corporations,they're so short-sighted they
don't want to put capital intomanufacturing, and yet that
means, to your point, we'vealready been behind.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Now we're falling farther and farther and farther
behind and, interestingly,enough if you look at the global
consumption of robotics,purchasing of robotics.
We were sold the story inAustralia that we had to move
all our manufacturing offshoreto Southeast Asia.
For us predominantly China,Malaysia, Thailand,
(11:05):
predominantly China, Malaysia,Thailand, and in that,
offshoring.
we did nothing more than exportout inefficiency Right yeah, and
in doing that we then lost ourskill set.
We lost supply chain issues,which certainly became
(11:29):
self-evident during COVID, andit's made reshoring the option
of bringing that manufacturingback to Australia much more
difficult.
You guys outsourced a lot ofyour manufacturing, as far as
I'm aware, to sort of EasternAsia as well, across the Pacific
for you guys, and to bring thatback to Australia firstly, you
(11:49):
can't now bring a 1980s piece ofequipment that you move because
of the inefficiency, because ofthe lower-cost labour base
overseas.
Now that labour rates arestarting to increase in those
countries, you can't bring that1980s piece of machinery back.
So now you have to find newland, build a building, buy new
equipment.
Then you have to find new land,build a building, buy new
equipment.
Then you have to find the skillsfor people to run it um and
(12:11):
before we got on this call, wewere talking quickly about
reassuring and I know thattrump's down office in america
has been talking about trying todo that.
Yep, my concern for that isit's what I call chicken and egg
.
Um, the biggest issue is, if wecan't get the skills, the
skills that we do have in thediminishing pool is going to be
(12:34):
a supply and demand response tothat and therefore the cost of
labor is going to increasebecause there's such a scarcity
in the STEM area, engineeringarea, tool making, all those
skills and we're not attractingyoung people anymore to
(12:54):
manufacturing, because I don'tthink we've made it sexy enough.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
What are some other kind of focus areas that people
ought to think about as theylook at that digital
transformation, whether it's inexisting or in new?
Speaker 3 (13:08):
look at that digital transformation, whether it's in
existing or in in new.
Well, if you, if we look at,just simply looking at the what
I call the four phases ofmaturity, or the four stages of
maturity of industry 4.0, thefirst one is being able to see
the information on your factoryfloor without having to go to
the piece of equipment and havea look.
And the example that I used, jim, that a lot of people are
familiar with, particularly fromthe food and beverage industry,
is a piece of equipment andhave a look, and the example
that I used, jim, that a lot ofpeople are familiar with,
(13:29):
particularly from the food andbeverage industry, is a piece of
equipment called a check wire.
Um, a check wire weighs productas it travels across it and
confirms that it's withincertain weight tolerances.
Now, in any, in any factorythat has a check repair, I can
go down to the check wire andlook at the display and watch
the pack weights, see them goingacross.
But industry 4.0 is firstlybeing able to see that
information away from theequipment.
(13:49):
So if I then have that checkway, a computerized, and that's
on a network, and I can minethat check way for information,
I can now start extracting thosepack weights and, for example,
put them into a trend or astatistical process control
chart or a database.
I can do with it, what myprocessor story and I can do
with it, what I process thestory and I can do with it what
I will.
So let's assume I'm making a500 gram jar of coffee and in
(14:16):
order to know that I'm making a500 gram jar of coffee, I need a
standard to measure it against.
So the second step of industryfour is the context piece.
It's like driving your car I'mdoing 60 kilometers an hour, but
if I'm doing 60 on the motorwayat 120 limit I'm in trouble,
and if I'm doing 60 in a schoolzone which is 40 kilometers an
(14:36):
hour.
I'm in trouble, but fordifferent reasons.
So we need, we need, we needcontext of that information in
order to show us where we are.
So we may then have the standardof that pack weight, the 500
grams, coming from an ERP system, for example, like SAP, so we
can now compare what we'remeasuring to what we should be.
So that's the second stage.
The third stage is then goingwell, based on the data that I'm
(14:59):
collecting, that I now trustand I now have a standard to
measure it against, I could, for, for example, create a
statistical process controlchart that will show me, through
a proper sampling regime, wheremy pack weights are and my
natural variation and as long aswithin my upper and lower
control limits and my standarddeviations, etc.
Happy days.
But if a system then starts togo a little bit um awol, um, I
(15:25):
can see that I'm now starting toincrease my pack weights over
time, so I need to make a littlebit um awol, um, I can see that
I'm now starting to increase mypack weights over time, so I
need to make a correction to thecontrol system and I can go and
do that manually.
And that's the level three, orthe third phase of maturity,
which is um, which is predict,which is predicting where the
process is going to go.
What a lot of people miss isthat the fourth step is the only
part of the industry fourjourney where you then close the
(15:45):
loop.
So when you start to collectthat data, for example, and you
see that you're about to makeout a specification product, the
supervisory control systemautomatically makes the
adjustment, so say the fillingsystem, to put the product back
into specification.
And that's the optimise andadapt piece.
And that's where AI and machinelearning can really come of age
(16:08):
.
But I'm seeing organizations inmanufacturing miss the scene,
the understanding and thepredicting piece, and going
straight to market and going oh,we want to go AI, we want to go
AI.
And it's like hang on, guys,that's the last step.
You've got to start at step onefirst, to make sure you can
connect to your equipment andget the data from it in the
first place.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Right, yeah, hence your point about a lot of ground
to cover if you're going toreshore.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
Very much so.
But what people don't realize,jim, is that you can apply that
industry four staged approach toa single piece of equipment,
and that's why I use the checkwire as the example, because you
don't have to apply it to thewhole company at once.
You can apply it to individualpockets, and each one you do,
you will improve your visibilityand responsiveness, and what
(16:57):
you effectively do is youshorten the time between an
issue, a issue, and thediscovery of that issue.
The classic example is readymeals.
Someone goes to the supermarket, buys a ready meal, gets it
home, looks inside and realiseswhat's on the pack is not what's
(17:18):
in the pack.
So they now take that back tothe store for a refund because
it might be.
They bought butter chicken, butit's chicken satay and they
have a peanut allergy.
So there's a risk.
And in Australia a third ofrecalls are for undeclared
allergens.
I used to be quite confused bythat and think how would a
company not know it's gotparticular allergens in its food
(17:40):
?
And it's not that it'sundeclared, it's undeclared
because it's wrongly packagedyeah so the time between when
that product was made and thetime it was discovered on the
shelf at a supermarket could betwo weeks yeah if we have a
in-line packaging and labelverification system, using
barcoding or 2d barcodingcameras, for example, to look at
(18:04):
the actual pack itself, knowingwhat to look for.
The moment someone puts thewrong sleeve on the wrong
product, the line stops.
So, we've still had the sameissue, but we haven't waited two
weeks to discover it.
We've captured it a few secondsdown the line, and that
compression of time betweenincident and discovery is when
that time is long.
There's a significant loss ofvalue.
(18:24):
When the time is short, there'sa significant loss of value.
When the time is short, there'smuch less loss of value, and
you can only do that throughconnectivity and integration.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Yep, got it.
Now let me shift gears on you,because I know another thing
that you focus on is leadershipdevelopment and how that fits
with all this too.
So how does that kind of playwith this modernization effort
that you're trying to help lead?
Speaker 3 (18:55):
There are a number of companies that I know of and
I'm sure it's the same in the USwhere people at the factory
floor level again theoperational level, engineering
managers, production managers,operations managers have great
ideas about what they could doif they had some funds and they
will start to run a proof ofconcept pilot.
I'll come back to that in a sec.
(19:15):
They will then hit an approvalceiling.
Someone further up the foodchain will look at that often.
Uh, people my age, what I callthe gray-haired ceiling and
they'll suppress.
They'll suppress that um and sothat they, the company, ends up
multiple plants you know aroundthe country and they end up
(19:37):
stuck in what they call pilotpurgatory.
Firstly, proof of concepts areno longer required.
We have been collecting data,storing it, displaying it and
disseminating it for 30 to 40years.
We know we can do that.
What we need to show is is canwe have a proof of value?
Because ultimately thepresident of finance, vp of
(20:00):
finance, the cfo, is going tohave a look at that and say um,
yes, it's going to save us money, no, it's not, and they're
going to sign the check.
But the um, the way that thoseprojects are done when they're
driven from the factory floor upis, they will inevitably hit
that ceiling.
What needs to happen is thatthe leadership of the business
needs to say we don't have astrategy.
(20:22):
We need a strategy for the nextthree to five years to know
where we're going and then givethe mandate to the people who
are going to do the actual workof implementing these projects
and funds to be able to go anddo that.
Yeah, so it's.
It's.
It's a top-down lead, butbottom up delivery um modality,
if you like.
And in fact, recently I was ona call with a large company here
(20:45):
that I was talking aboutdigital transformation and the
guy interrupted the call and hesaid you know, john, you're not
really convincing me that thisis a journey we need to take.
And I went hey, no, hang on aminute here, that's not my job.
If your leadership isn'ttelling you that you need to
digitally transform yourbusiness, it's of no consequence
(21:05):
to me.
That's not my job, that's thejob of your leadership.
I'm not here to convince you ofanything.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
And therein lies the challenge.
Most organizations don't have astrategy.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Yeah, and that point about the lower-level leaders
needing to help foster that, Imean I can tell you straight up
on our side of the pond it'svery rare that you've got that
kind of development.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
Yes, and it was Hillary Clinton, back in 2015,
16, I think it was, who coinedthe term quarterly capitalism.
She read somewhere, somewherethat fortune 100, I think it was
.
Uh, ceos were interviewed andthe question was if you could
make a decision today that wouldhave significant impact,
(21:54):
positive impact in your businessin two years time, but it took
a penny off the stock price.
Would you do it?
and they all said no yep and,and clinton, you know, rang one
of the ceos.
She happened to know and goesplease explain.
And he said well, if I make adecision today and it takes a
penny off the stock price, myhead will roll.
Yep, yeah.
So you can see how that WallStreet mentality is driving poor
(22:18):
decision-making with thisalmost quarterly capital cycle
and therefore long-termstrategic thinking isn't
happening.
And I read only a few years ago, Jim, that Toyota's strategic
plan, the long-term plan, is 200years.
I can't even conceive of that,but that's what they do.
(22:39):
So Japanese investment, forexample, is often very good at
the long game 10 to 20 yearsworth of thinking about where
they're going to go.
I worked with a company here afew years ago and their return
on investment requirement waseight weeks.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Right yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
And they wondered why nothing got done.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Yeah, and it's very typical over here that capital
projects aren't approved unlessthey pay off within a year or
two, which is still ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
It's tough, really tough, yeah, because that level
of low hanging fruit has usuallygone a long time ago.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
Yeah, and it's not setting you up to compete down
the road.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
So yeah, I applaud that approach.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
I don't necessarily have the answer on how we fix
our corporations and our venturecapitalists and all that, but
at least we start talking aboutit right.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
I think it's important to raise it because
there will be people out therelistening to this and maybe
someone might go.
Actually, I do need to lead, Ido need to understand where this
organization.
There's a classic line thatsays when you don't know where
you're going, any road will doRight.
Yeah, and I'm staggered that somany organizations don't have a
(23:55):
manufacturing transformationstrategy.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
And unfortunately they don't have people who know
manufacturing, who have a voiceeven within the company
leadership.
In fact I would submit that alot of our supposed
manufacturing leaders, if theyever knew much about
manufacturing, they've been offthe floor for so long they've
forgotten it.
But you know, you look atBoeing, where it was the bean
(24:20):
counters and the finance peoplewho were kind of driving the bus
, and you see that everywhere.
So Boeing is kind of that tipof the iceberg example of how
things go seriously, seriouslyawry.
But we're all in the sameunfortunate boat to some degree.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
We will have a COO chief operating officer in a
bank heading up operations, butwe won't have a COO in the
manufacturing business.
We'll have a CEO and a CFO.
The CTO and CIO will often situnder the CFO, and the person
(24:59):
usually isn't a head ofmanufacturing.
But anybody who does headmanufacturing is way down
literally the food chain, and sothey don't get a seat at the
table.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
So here's an interesting thing I've just come
across recently.
I talk to a lot of executivesin private companies and I've
seen how they've been afraid tospeak up about these things, and
I actually just challenged onehere recently trying to get him
to lend his voice.
I was offering to you know I dothe manufacturing coverage for
(25:31):
forbescom and I wanted to writean article talking about.
He was talking about this verything, the way that for him it
was private equity companiesthat are buying up people in his
sector and not investing inmanufacturing, and I wanted him
to talk about it.
He wouldn't go public with it.
So to some degree we've all inmanufacturing gotten in this
defensive crouch over the lasttwo or three decades and we have
(25:53):
to get out of it.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
What really staggered me is I'm reasonably active on
linkedin and I did a videoseries a few years ago that sort
of got me traction and, youknow, reputation.
Um is that at the end of lastyear, someone that I know quite
well opened a center ofexcellence for 3d metal printing
and he said to me hey, wouldyou mind coming over for the
(26:18):
opening?
There'll be about 60 peoplethere.
Could you give us 10 minutes ofyour time to do a bit of a
keynote?
And I thought okay.
I thought well, what am I goingto talk about?
So I did a bit of research anddiscovered, in Australia, for
example, that in 1960,manufacturing contributed 30% to
our GDP.
In 1990, it was 14% and in 2023was 5.4%.
(26:44):
It's an 80 to 85% reduction.
After I finished my talk, manypeople in the audience came up
and said oh, thank you so much.
You're speaking exactly what webelieve is the issue, what
needs to change, because we usedto be a good manufacturing
country.
Two days later, I decided toput a cheeky little post out
(27:04):
onto LinkedIn where I showed thegraph of that decline and where
I'd normally get anythingbetween 800 to maybe 2,000
impressions, as they call it,and a few comments this thing
hit 45 000 impressions.
Uh, it had, I think, about um 40or 50 reposts.
(27:24):
Uh, it had probably nearly 200comments.
I was flat out just respondingto the comments to this thing
and I I sent the link to our umminister for industry, uh in the
government and said if youreally want to check the pulse
of Australian manufacturing,just read this damn thread.
It tells you everything youneed to know.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
And it shows that we're not alone in understanding
where the problem lies.
But unfortunately there's stillthat hesitance of so many
people in manufacturing to raisetheir voices about it.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
Yes, unfortunately, they don't seem to have any ears
.
And young engineers.
I've done a few, you know,keynotes and workshops and bits
and pieces, and I've lost countof the number of young engineers
who have come up to me and saidhow do we get past you old
blokes?
Because I've got these digitalnatives, I've got these great
ideas about machine learning andAI and vision and all the sort
(28:24):
of stuff that they want to playwith.
And my generation is, andslightly younger are going no,
no, we don't need to do that.
We've always done it this wayand it's just not going to work.
So what I mentioned beforeabout robotics, if you look at
the spread of robotic purchasing, we were sold the idea that,
well, let's go to China.
You know cheap labor, southeastAsia, but China, I think, is
(28:48):
the second or third biggestcountry for users of robots.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
Well, why would they be?
Speaker 3 (28:53):
doing that if labor is so cheap.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Yeah well, and they're doing it when their
labor still is much cheaper thanus, and they're doing it when
their labor still is muchcheaper than us, and yet here we
are not even keeping pace.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
And I think the spread is in the top 20.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Yep.
Another piece I want to hit onbefore we wrap up your book is
about the plight of men, right,yes, which is a whole other
topic I've covered, kind ofinterweaving with my
manufacturing coverage and kindof separate.
But I definitely want to hearyour perspectives on you know,
(29:27):
the state of men in the Westernworld today and what you think
the needs are and what youpropose we do.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
So the original title was called man Unplugged
Exploring the Inner man, and itwas published in 2014 and
realised it was possibly alittle bit esoteric, but during
the last 10 to 12 years, I'vebeen through significant
personal growth lost bothparents, been through a divorce.
(29:57):
My kids are growing up so I'vehad to parent them through
teenagehood.
I've got a lot more involved inmen's work.
I run retreats both here andoverseas for men, week-long
events, and I decided it wastime to do a bit of a rewrite.
But this time I changed thetagline from Exploring the Inner
man to Secret Men's businessfor men and those who love them,
(30:20):
and the reason and the reason Idid that is because when a man,
particularly through midlife,hits the wall, which typically
happens in F40, we call it themidlife crisis, but it doesn't
have to be, as men, whogenerally don't don't share
what's happening for us, we keepthat to ourselves and we
process inwardly where womenprocess outwardly through
dialogue.
(30:41):
So when a man then discoverssomething that is a is a
positive for him in how tonavigate that time, he doesn't
share that with people, withother men, because he thinks
well, I'm just robertson crusoe,because no one talks about this
stuff.
So a lot of what I I've sharedin the rewrite of the book is
secret to men themselves and Iwanted to broaden its reach so
(31:06):
that men, particularly in theWestern world, could have a read
.
And I had someone just reviewit the other week and his
comment to me which will be onthe book as a testimonial was
it's the most male-friendly bookI've ever read.
So I'm happy that it's landingthe way that I wanted it to land
and it's really a guidebook forany man who wants to be a
(31:28):
better man and what gets in theway of us being able to do that?
But certainly encouraging mento get out more, get more male
friends, because loneliness formen is one of the biggest issues
.
Some of the forums that I'm onthere are men in the States all
over the world saying I don'thave friends.
I don't have friends.
I don't have friends, but Iwant quality friends.
(31:48):
I don't want the friends thatgo down to the pub or the bar
and, you know, just drinkcopious amounts of alcohol or I
want to have deep and meaningfulconversations.
But we seem to have lost thecapacity to do that and social
media hasn't helped no, that'sfor sure.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
I couldn't agree with you more, though, um, and I'll
have a link to your book in theshow description.
So I do highly recommendeveryone check that out, because
, just based on what you'resaying, I'm definitely getting a
copy and we'll be plugging itfar and wide.
Speaker 3 (32:19):
It's about thank you.
It's about probably two tothree months from publication.
The website currently has thePDF and the audio of the
original book from 2014.
I've got my good old, trustypodcast mic, so I'll be sitting
and doing a book read over thenext few weeks to make sure the
audio book is ready to go atlaunch as well.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Okay.
So one last question then whatdo you think the big
opportunities for you are downthe road?
Speaker 3 (32:55):
Whether it's through manufacturing or whether it's
through men's awareness, thebiggest thing for me is advocacy
.
I'm an advocate for localmanufacturing.
I'm an advocate for educationand I'm an advocate for men to
understand why we are as we areand what we can do to live a
(33:15):
more fulfilling life.
So all of those roles requireme to be in a role of service.
It took me until I got to my50s to discover my purpose and I
realised that when I'm in atrue role of service I'm in my
happy place.
So as long as I can continue todo that and the workshops that
I run in Bali are a week longfor men over 55 to step into the
(33:39):
more formal role of eldershipand that's something that I've
been embracing for the last fiveto 10 years, and for me that's
going to continue because I lovebeing in that role.
It feeds my soul.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
You know clearly I'm biased.
We obviously have several areaswhere we're in violent
agreement on things, so I'm gladyou're out there doing that and
advocating for things I careabout too.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
Well, likewise for you, jim.
I know it's a hard road,running up a podcast and getting
guests and being sometimes abit of a voice in the wilderness
, but the more voices in thewilderness, the less of a
wilderness it is.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
Well, put Yep Any last points before we wrap up.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
No, but it's interesting just for me to
reflect that in a conversationwith a guy from Montana about
six months ago, he and I had avery similar conversation.
He was waxing lyrical about thestate of manufacturing in the
US.
I was like well, canada, likeyou know, it seems to be, uh,
the bane of the western world,but we, we either have to make a
(34:47):
decision to do something aboutit or just get off the bus and
become a services economy.
Um, I'll go down screaming ifthat fighting.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
if I was just gonna say I'm not taking that sitting
down and I know, know, you'renot either, so we'll go down
kicking and screaming if that'sthe way it's headed.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
We will.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
Good deal.
Well, John Broadbent, thank youso much for being with us on
Manufacturing Talks today.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
Thanks, jim, appreciate the opportunity.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
And, as always, thanks to you guys in the
audience.
You're why we're here.
We're here every Tuesday andsometimes even more.
So keep an eye out.
We got more episodes comingwith.
You know, more great guests.
I can't say that they're allgoing to have.
You know the violent agreementon things that we all care about
that John does, but they're allgoing to be in violent
agreement on at least something.
So tune back in.
We'll be here at ManufacturingTalks and I'm Jim Vodovsky
(35:33):
signing off.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
So long.
Thanks for tuning in toManufacturing Talks with Jim
Benosky.
Watch for new episodes droppingevery Tuesday.
Don't forget to like, share,comment and subscribe you.
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