Robots and Reshoring vs. the Skills Gap with Jake Hall, the Manufacturing Millennial

Robots don’t kill jobs, and they might even be able to save them when you use them right.

In this episode, Jake Hall: the Manufacturing Millennial, joins Olivier Bloch and Ryan Kershaw of Thing-Zero to dig into the real levers behind U.S. manufacturing: reshoring, automation, brownfield vs. greenfield, AI (yes, generative too), security/trust, and the single biggest constraint of all… people and skills.

We cover:

• Why many SMEs still run like it’s 2005—and what flips the adoption switch

• RaaS, easier software, and proof-you-can-scale examples• Robots creating local jobs (not replacing them)

• Practical security/trust moves when connecting OT → cloud

• Education pipelines: FIRST Robotics, digital natives, and what Gen Z actually wants at work

Chapters below. If this helped, hit Subscribe and share with a manufacturing friend who needs a nudge to modernize.⏱ Chapters:• 00:00 Intros & setup (Olivier, Ryan, Jake)

• 01:38 Sports icebreaker → manufacturing mindset

• 02:30 Reshoring & tariffs: can the U.S. staff up?

• 05:44 “Good enough” risk: closure story & the moving-train analogy

• 09:50 Post-2020 winners: automation, flexibility, RaaS & easier software

• 12:45 Brownfield first steps: lighthouse plants & fail-fast culture

• 16:32 Brownfield vs. Greenfield: culture decides; skills are the bottleneck

• 20:04 Robots save jobs: U.S. case study + AI parallels

• 26:07 Security & trust: connecting OT → cloud the right way

• 32:42 Education pipeline & what Gen Z wants (FIRST Robotics)

• 37:22 Closing thoughts

🎧 Brought to you by Thing-Zero — Secure. Predict. Augment. Automate.

📌 Follow Jake Hall on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacobrhall/

📌 Follow Olivier Bloch on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/olivierbloch/

📌 Follow Ryan Kershaw on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryankershaw/

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- YouTube: YouTube.com/@Thing-Zero

- Linkedin: linkedin.com/company/thing-zero

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- Web: https://www.Thing-Zero.com

#IoT #OT #AI #PredictiveAnalytics #manufacturing