304: How to Build a Manufacturing Company from First Principles with Supersede CEO Sean Petterson

RVs are homes that go 60 miles an hour. That changes everything about what goes inside them.

Chris sits down with Sean Petterson, CEO of Supersede, a company combining recycling and manufacturing in an unexpected way - turning recycled plastic into structural building materials. Supersede started with boats, where wood has an obvious problem - boats get wet!

From there, the company moved into RVs, where the materials face constant movement and thermal cycling, on a production line that can build an entire RV in a couple of hours.

Sean also explains the thinking behind Supersede's manufacturing model, including why he'd rather build 10 smaller plants than one big one.

In this episode, find out:

• How running production lines in mirrored pairs cuts the distance operators walk across the floor
• Why an RV, built to go 60 miles an hour, is a harder test for a material than a house that never moves
• How Supersede built its own ERP with zero software developers, piecing it together through Slack, Jira, and GitHub instead
• How a pre-sold capacity threshold - already dropping fast - decides when Supersede builds its next plant
• How embedding machine vision and LiDAR on the line replaces a QA machine that would otherwise cost far more
• Why Sean thinks manufacturers who didn't start using AI a year ago are already a decade behind

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Tweetable Quotes:

• "If you hadn't gotten on the AI bus 12 months ago, you're a decade behind." - Sean Petterson, CEO of Supersede
• “A big contributor to those inefficiencies is, frankly, just legacy that gets embedded.” - Sean Petterson, CEO of Supersede
• “In manufacturing, things can move slow, and we just have the unique benefit of making sure that we're investing effectively, but very efficiently.” - Sean Petterson, CEO of Supersede

Links & mentions:

• Supersede is a manufacturing company turning recycled plastic into structural building materials, starting with its Marine Board product for the marine and RV industries.
• Harmoni is a factory orchestration platform that connects what's happening on your shop floor with the systems you already use, from your machines and operators to your ERP, giving your team one real-time view of production.
• PTC's Industrial Newsletter - a quick hit of clarity on how design, manufacturing, and service data can work together for manufacturing leaders looking to modernize.

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.