Great Question: A Manufacturing Podcast

Joe Kuhn, CMRP, former plant manager, engineer, and global reliability consultant, is now president of Lean Driven Reliability LLC. He is the author of the book “Zero to Hero: How to Jumpstart Your Reliability Journey Given Today’s Business Challenges” and the creator of the Joe Kuhn YouTube Channel, which offers content on starting your reliability journey and achieving financial independence. In our monthly podcast miniseries, As...

High-profile raids of manufacturing facilities by federal immigration agents are likely just beginning, labor and immigration attorney Jorge Lopez said. Increased federal funding for Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents still hasn't hit the agency and won't have a measurable impact on staffing there for months.

So, expect site visits and raids to increase in Q4 of this year and especially in the first half of 2026, Lopez sa...

In this episode of Great Question: A Manufacturing Podcast, Scott Achelpohl and Almog Apirion explore why IT and OT often remain misaligned and what it takes to close the gap. The discussion highlights how digital transformation, cybersecurity risks, and regulatory pressures are driving the need for convergence. Together, they examine the role of Zero Trust, identity-based access, and secure connectivity in protecting legacy equipm...

In this episode of Great Question: A Manufacturing Podcast, Thomas Wilk and Maya Schwartz are joined by Ron Marshall, Frank Moskowitz, and Joe Ghislain to reflect on 25 years of the Compressed Air Challenge. The conversation explores the program’s origins, its evolution in training methods, and its impact on system performance and energy efficiency. The group also discusses shifting industry priorities, the role of end users and ve...

You may be good, but you can always be better. That’s the approach Coca-Cola Consolidated has taken toward workplace safety. The publicly traded bottling company started a new safety campaign in 2024, the First 100 Days of Safety. It was so successful that Coca-Cola Consolidated expanded to three safety campaigns in 2025 and has no signs of slowing down. Dennis Padgett, senior director of risk control at Coca-Cola Consolidated, dis...

We're a quarter of the way into this century, and a lot has happened. When we think about today's connected factories, in many cases controlled by tablets and smartphones, we should remember that virtually none of that was possible as recently as the turn of the century.

Throughout the past few weeks, editors at IndustryWeek have been publishing game changers stories, a look into the 25 events that have reshaped the manufacturing l...

In this episode of Great Question: A Manufacturing Podcast, New Equipment Digest's Editor-in-Chief, Laura Davis, explores the differences between wireless bridges and access points, and why most facilities will need both to keep operations running smoothly. Listeners will learn how each technology works, when to deploy them, and the real-world benefits they deliver across industries from logistics to oil & gas. This episode is ...

Joe Kuhn, CMRP, former plant manager, engineer, and global reliability consultant, is now president of Lean Driven Reliability LLC. He is the author of the book “Zero to Hero: How to Jumpstart Your Reliability Journey Given Today’s Business Challenges” and the creator of the Joe Kuhn YouTube Channel, which offers content on starting your reliability journey and achieving financial independence. In our monthly podcast miniseries, As...

In this episode of Great Question: A Manufacturing Podcast, Robert Brooks speaks with Denny Williams of Co-Line Manufacturing and Doug Wood of Hexagon Production Software about the intersection of workforce development and technology in manufacturing. The conversation explores how Co-Line fosters a strong culture to attract and retain talent, the role of apprenticeships in bridging the skills gap, and the ways automation and roboti...

Dave Blanchard, chief editor of Material Handling & Logistics and author of Supply Chain Management Best Practices, looks at how AI and other technologies are helping companies get smarter and more competitive with their supply chains. Learn what types of AI solutions retail giant Walmart is using to determine exactly what products its customers will want, and when they'll want them. You'll also find out why supply chain profes...

We love our human-shaped robots in pop culture. From Lieutenant Commander Data to C3P0 to Baymax. But, are they any good at making things?

At the Automate show this year, humanoid robots peppered the show floor, lifting boxes, walking around, picking up tools... slowly. Very, very slowly.

For all of the promise of lifelike robots that can replace human workers on the assembly line, one-for-one, they aren't meeting that promise yet....

In this episode of Great Question: A Manufacturing Podcast, Thomas Wilk is joined by Chris van den Belt and Berend Booms of Ultimo, an IFS company, for a conversation on the rise of agentic AI in enterprise asset management. The discussion explores how AI is moving beyond traditional copilots to become autonomous digital coworkers that enhance safety, streamline maintenance, and support frontline workers in dynamic environments. To...

There's more than a little bit of Tesla talk in Ford's announcement on Aug. 11, that it would invest $2 billion to retrofit its Louisville Assembly Plant to make a small electric pickup in 2027. It's a bold, ambitious plan that's equal parts going after Chinese competition, heating up leftover Tesla ideas and taking advantage of the scale of a massive global automaker. 

Pieces of the plan touch on multiple aspects of the manufactur...

When a forged part is labeled “capable of ASTM A388,” what does that really mean? And more importantly, what does it not mean? In this episode, we break down the difference between a part that could theoretically pass ultrasonic testing and one that’s actually been tested. We’ll look at why that difference matters in industries where safety and reliability are critical, explore common internal defects in forgings, and explain why p...