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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
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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.
