Speaker 0 00:00:00 Our products are becoming intelligent hyper-connected products and our processes becoming unintelligent hyper-connected process. And what that does is it speeds up the pace of change. It speeds up the pace of disruption. It speeds up the pace of innovation. And if you can't align to that reality, you increasingly fall behind. And I think there's, you know, folks who understand that, but, but there are still a lot of folks who don't comprehend the depth of the change that that brings in.
Speaker 2 00:00:33 Hello, everyone, and welcome to the robot industry podcast. I'm glad you're here and thank you for subscribing. My name is Jim Baretta and I'm your host. It's my pleasure to have Jim Carroll with me here today. Jim Carroll is one of the world's leading futurists trends and innovation experts with a massive blue chip client list. Over the last 25 years, Jim has shared his insight with more than 2 million people in attendance at his events. Jim's client list is extensive and covers virtually every industry sector, including world bank, Volvo, NASA, PGA of America, the Walt Disney organization, the world government summit in Dubai, the Swiss innovation forum, the wall street journal, national Australian bank, word skills, Microsoft J and J and hundreds more. And you can follow him at Jim Carroll on Twitter. Jim, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 0 00:01:23 Thanks for having me in. Hey,
Speaker 2 00:01:25 And it's my pleasure. As I said, Hey, I would be very interested to get your perspective on some of the conversations you've been having in the broad manufacturing industry, because almost all of your clients, customers are struggling with automation and robotics.
Speaker 0 00:01:38 Yeah. And let's, let's put it in perspective. Who's been bringing me in, I mean, as a futurist, I'm asked to come in and talk about what comes next, what are the trends that are impacting us? And I'm in the manufacturing sector I'm booked by essentially three groups, um, SME the society of manufacturing engineers. They probably brought me in, um, 10 plus times since, uh, 2009, a lot of regional manufacturing conferences, um, which are focused on how do we accelerate a region, uh, in terms of manufacturing capability. So I've done, you know, regional groups in Ohio and Pennsylvania. And then a lot of CEO led sessions where the CEO of a manufacturing company is faced with some big issues. They have a corporate meeting offsite, uh, need to bring their team together and need someone to kick off the session. So they find me and they, they bring me in. So a very good example of that is company called LA grant, which is, uh, a high tech company. They brought me in for an offsite in Connecticut with 250 of their top executives. In my role in all of these is to, you know, get on stage and hit the audience with the big trends of the disruptive ideas, the fast technologies, you know, the accelerated methodologies coming into the sector and what they need to do to align to this complex future.
Speaker 2 00:02:51 That's great. And is there a question that I can ask you about robotics? Is that something that you get from time to time in your, uh, in your,
Speaker 0 00:02:59 That's obviously a big part of it? I mean, I talk about out of the manufacturing and the acceleration of new methodologies and the industrial internet of things within
Speaker 2 00:03:07 The factory and the obviously robotics, a couple of robotics manufacturers have had me in along the way. So, so ask me, ask away. Yeah. So I'm particular interested in data, right? Uh, that's something that comes up time and time again on the podcast and what are some of these conversations around IOT and around collecting data and around using data?
Speaker 0 00:03:28 Well, very good example is Schneider electric had me in for a key customer conference and it was all around industrial internet of things. And, uh, you know, I think the issue is that engineers in a factory are faced with are several issues. Number one, when do they pull the plug? Uh, you know, when do you have the courage to commit to a big project, the skills issue? I mean, you can layer a lot of IOT within a factory floor, but if you don't have the capability to understand and parse and analyze the data that it's throwing off in terms of maintenance, reliability, or process automation, you're not really in the game, there's the skills issue. How do we, how do we get the skills to implement this very sophisticated process management technology within the factory? There's the budget issue? You know, how do we build the business plan, the business case for it.
Speaker 0 00:04:12 Um, and so what I find is a lot of manufacturing executives, you know, there's sort of three groups, you know, we're going to charge ahead, we're going to be bleeding edge. You know, we understand it's critical. We need to transform ourselves. Uh, then there's the group in the middle and they're probably the majority we're going to wait until everybody else does it. Uh, and then there's the group who will sit back and say, well, you know, we, we just think it's hype. You know, we're going to keep doing things just like we did in 1950, and that will hold this forever into the future. So everybody's at a different pace, a stage, you know, with what they're doing and what they're thinking and where they're going in. The same thing holds true with robotics technology and the factory floor or 3d printing or any other advanced manufacturing concentrating.
Speaker 2 00:04:55 And when we talk about innovation and manufacturing, cause you kind of hit on that, what are people doing? How do they become more innovative? Because I assume that's why they bring you in. They want to talk to us. They want to get a spark.
Speaker 0 00:05:06 Yeah. It's, it's, you know, the type of thing I do. I mean, I provide that spark, but that's why they have, for example, these corporate leadership meetings, there's a variety of ways to go out. I, one of my coolest, um, um, clients and they've had me in several times, his company called the Amistad and it started out with M step rail in St. Louis. They manufacturer rail bogeys, the undercarriage rail cars. And then they brought me back again for a larger scale event, which was, um, Amistad automotive, AMS at rail and several other divisions. And certainly they understand that additive manufacturing, 3d printing is going to be a big cost impact influencer for them in the future. They need to wrap their head around it. They understand that they've got to go down the path of advanced robotics. They understand that they've got to embed, um, internet of things, technology, not just on the factory floor, but in their products, they need to make the products intelligence.
Speaker 0 00:05:57 So they, they know they have a big issue to solve. And what I saw there were several things. Number one, a leadership team that understands that if you don't have a leadership team that understands, we need to evolve your history, you're toast, give up, shut down your factory. The second thing I saw was that certainly there's very much a generational aspect to this. And so what they, what they had, I thought it was really cool. I mean, in St. Louis, we're talking a 100 year old Foundry with molten metal, you know, coming out of buckets, but they also have what they called the Google room. And it was a, it was a high-tech room with three young engineers, 25, 26, 27 years old with a budget, with the money to go and buy all the toys, to explore all those areas and the attitude of the senior leadership team, you know, and they're 50, 60 is, was, we know it's important. We don't get it. You do figure it out for us. And I called that the X-Box room let's put in place an X-Box room. And I've seen a number of organizations take sort of that generational approach to trying to accelerate their efforts here.
Speaker 2 00:06:59 Yeah. That's very exciting. I love the idea of the, the Google room or the X-Box room.
Speaker 0 00:07:02 Um, it's, it's a key recognition that this is a generational thing that, that look that generation, they understand what it means to have massive connectivity and the factory floor. They understand what it means to analyze gods of data in real time, because I mean, that's what they're doing, you know, when they're, when they're playing video games and I, I mean, that's one of the most exciting things I happen to see happening out there. There's a whole bunch of things we can do, um, to try to accelerate this concept of innovation and manufacturing, because it, it, you know, in and of itself, it's sort of a nebulous concept
Speaker 2 00:07:36 And what about time to market? And that must be one of the themes that comes up in a lot of your conversations when you're talking to the manufacturer.
Speaker 0 00:07:42 Oh, huge. A company called Camorra's, which was a spin spinoff. I think of DuPont, uh, has had me in several times for senior leadership meetings and senior customer events. And, you know, I mean, take that sector, chemical manufacturing. I mean, th the reality is we need to ride the acceleration of chemical science to come up with new products where those products have not existed previously. We need to continually reinvent our revenue source for revenue, which did not exist. And this is a common theme I hit with every single manufacturing company, because product life cycles are collapsing products don't last, as long as they do, your competitors are continually coming out with new products, uh, on a regular basis. And so you've got to continually reinvent our, I actually coined the phrase. I think it was way back in 2007, I called it chameleon revenue. How do we continually change, you know, our colors so that we can come up with new product, which didn't exist previously.
Speaker 0 00:08:39 And I think that, you know, the bar that is set there is here's a stat I've long, used 60% of Apple's revenue comes from products that didn't exist five years ago. That's becoming the norm for a lot of manufacturing organizations. I mean, if you've taken on the automotive sector, uh, you know, the typical car today, I mean, the dashboard is obsolete within three years, who wants to buy a car with a dashboard from 2014? I mean, it's positively ancient. Uh, and so, you know, later this afternoon, I pick up my Tesla model three, well it's software upgradable. They keep enhancing it's a computer on wheels. So that type of, um, product focused innovation where it happens via software update is becoming the norm for a lot of products as products become connected and intelligence. So, I mean, there's just a billion things going on with the concept of product life cycle that renders of the concept irrelevant.
Speaker 2 00:09:33 So to that conversation piece, like the, I want to talk to you about innovation centers for a moment, and you're probably seeing a lot of this happen in your wife where you're seeing your customers are creating innovation centers have, are, is this something for you?
Speaker 0 00:09:48 I, well, I, you know, I think there's two types of innovation centers. It's, there's sort of the regional things. So, you know, certainly what we have going on in Canada with, um, Communitech in the Waterloo region where one of my sons lives, we've got to do that on, on a regional level to, you know, help people move along because the big issue in manufacturing, uh, I think his skills, how do we upgrade the skills I was with one robotics manufacturer? And they said, look, it's, it's almost as if the typical machinists today operate in advanced robotics. It's almost like they have to be able to do trigonometry in their heads because of the process has become so complicated. So we need to upgrade the skills. So there's sort of that regional basis, um, to help local organizations upgrade their skills and understanding of those skills, but then there's the corporate basis.
Speaker 0 00:10:34 And I think that's what the Xbox room concept is. Look, I went into a company called bison, trucking out, other Winnipeg, same type of thing. Trucks are becoming connected, intelligent, a lot of predictive diagnostics embedded within them as they become connected. And so what they created was sort of a innovation lab where these younger folks could work with the technology, understand the technology, build the business case, uh, you know, build the implementation process to make it happen. And I'm even seeing that with my, with my, um, 27 year old son, look, he works for a construction firm and they know the drones are important. They know that drone technology is critical. We can do a fly over of a facility for project management and get an understanding of that facility in ways we've never previously, it's quite a far lower cost. And so to a degree, he's like an incubator within this organization of a whole bunch of building project engineers twerking to help them comprehend the realm of the possible. And that's what I call it. That's a key innovation concept is the realm of the possible.
Speaker 2 00:11:37 And so now here we are just have a at the, hopefully at the end of our pandemic, where do you see the pandemic figuring on all of this? Because we've been working from home and we, uh, some of us are just going back to work. We're where do you see that hap factoring into the conversation?
Speaker 0 00:11:53 Well, I'm, I'm, I'm actually, I'm doing a lot of talks now to help organizations understand that. And it's sort of hitting on the theme of, of what were we talking about within industry before COVID hit? How has COVID changed our future in terms of those trends and what does that mean going forward? So for example, later today, I'm talking to a software company that is in the construction industry, and I'm doing that exact process. You know, how, what were we talking about in construction before? How has construction changed as a result of COVID and what does that mean going forward? And I mean, the same type of thing in manufacturing, if you think about what happened to manufacturing during COVID supply chains were busted. We had a lot of price inflation. Um, we had the acceleration, a lot of, uh, new methodologies. I mean, companies were using 3d printing to print nasal swabs and surgical masks, and all of a sudden CEOs were going, wow, this stuff is real.
Speaker 0 00:12:54 Um, we had a lot of acceleration of know of factory visibility initiatives because we had worked for us issues. We, you know, we had to, to align the faster partnerships because of e-commerce a lot of pack and ship and, you know, third-party logistics. So there was a lot of stuff that happened with COVID with manufacturing, and now we gotta think so what does that mean as we go forward? And the key thing is if we thought the future was fast before it's even faster post COVID, and I think we're going to, what we're going to see in the world of manufacturing is what I call what we call the chief resilience. Officer volatility is the new normal. So how do we manage that? We need, we need a top-notch executive to manage the new volatility. Uh de-globalization I mean, companies are talking about how do we pull supply chains back to a more local basis if we can at a cost-effective basis?
Speaker 0 00:13:43 Because I mean, when you get a ship stuck in the Suez canal, or you have COVID disruption, um, we got risky supply chains. Uh, how do we build in, you know, from that comes a lot of how do we build redundancy and agility into our manufacturing process? Uh, how do we deal with the new social distancing issues in the factory floor? And I think that's where we saw the acceleration. A lot of robotics technology robots came out of the cage, uh, you know, with COVID because they provided a pathway to deal with those social distancing issues. Um, uh, we got aligned in the fact that Amazon now owns everything about retail. So how do we accelerate our direct to consumer strategies? I mean, if you think about manufacturing and the concept of eventual post COVID, the trends are huge. And this is where I'm finding organizations are once again, you know, finding guys like me and bringing me in, because we got to open up our minds to what's going on here, cause it's gonna it's happening and it's going to happen even faster.
Speaker 2 00:14:39 I think one of the exciting things too, that's happening in manufacturing is, uh, artificial intelligence and machine learning. And this is something that we're just, it's just the tip of the iceberg.
Speaker 0 00:14:50 Yeah. And I think the way I describe AI is, um, I always like to put technologies like that on what I call the Gartner hype cycle. And if your listeners aren't familiar with it, they should be gardeners of the technology research for, and they said, look, any technology concept that comes to a world that goes through a curve, it appears we got the trigger, we have the peak of inflated expectations. Everybody's going crazy about it. And then we got the trough of disillusionment where they realize, whoa, it's going to take a while to make it work. And then we eventually hit the pothole productivity and AI and 3d printing and IOT, all these things, every single one of them has gone on the curve. And, you know, AI a little bit is, you know, been on the peak of inflated expectations, uh, you know, with the inevitable collapse of, um, expectations,
Speaker 2 00:15:37 You know, but, but there are real aspects of productivity, even product, um, quality analysis, analysis of welds, uh, analysis, automated analysis of, um, product quality as it comes out of the factory, uh, analyzing the scads of information that we might get from an industrial internet of things, process management, uh, project that we've pursued. There are very real issues and opportunities with AI in all of those areas. And it goes back to the same issue. When do we invest? When do we bite the bullet? When did we get involved? And I think a lot of, you know, leading edge organizations are pushing the envelope of that because they've, they've realized that it in, you know, in those particular areas, it has to become very, very real. Jim you've you we've kind of chatted before and I've listened to you talk at industry events. One of the, one of the things I'm wondering about is do you talk to farmers and agricultural industry as well?
Speaker 0 00:16:35 Yeah. And the same thing, the agricultural associations, uh, the egg companies have had me in to talk to farmers. Uh, I've gone out in, for example, the U S the United soybean board had me in to talk to 300 soybean farmers about the future of agriculture. And I must, you know, I do a lot of research and I really wrap my head around an industry and I must do a pretty good job at it because I remember one time I was with a group of 300 farmers and one fellow came up to me and said, well, how long have you been a farmer anyway? And tell me about your farm. Um, look, I'm a futurist. I'm not a farmer, but I certainly wrap my head around the industry and that the same type of thing, multiple trends coming in there from, you know, the, the final maturity of precision agriculture to the use of drones. Look, my son was out, uh, and is still out on occasion, um, on a private basis, find farmers fields for crop and disease analysis and poised your analysis and, uh, you know, same type of thing. There's so much opportunity coming into that industry that it's staggering.
Speaker 2 00:17:34 No, it's very exciting. And, you know, I appreciate you kind of got this very unique view on manufacturing and on retail. And these things are all connected of course, to our audience, which is a lot of people in the automation industry.
Speaker 0 00:17:45 Yeah. It it's it's if you think about the bottom line trend, which is at work here, and I tried to describe this on a webpage, I have disruption dot Jim carroll.com. And I go through, you know, 25 reasons why your company might die before you get old. I sort of explain the reality of what is going on. And I think the biggest trend that is occurring is every industry and every company is becoming a technology industry where the pace of change and the source of innovation is coming from technology. So it's, it's evolving at the same speed. Now, as Silicon valley, it's evolving at the same speed as technology companies. We are all becoming like apple. And if you take manufacturing, that's, what's happening in our products are becoming intelligent hyper-connected products and our processes becoming unintelligent hyper-connected process. And what that does is it speeds up the pace of change. It speeds up the pace of disruption. It speeds up the pace of innovation. And if you can't align to that reality, you increasingly fall behind. And I think there's, you know, folks who understand that, but, but there are still a lot of folks who don't comprehend the depth of the change that that brings in
Speaker 2 00:18:58 Jim, have we talked about everything? Is there anything else that you'd like to add that we haven't discussed?
Speaker 0 00:19:04 I think the key thing, and I always try to get across this when I'm, when I'm with a group of people, you know, from the stage or in a boardroom table, is we need to reframe that dirty word innovation. A lot of people don't comprehend really what it means. We all think it's new product design. We sort of conclude well that's for the people who are designing new products and doing cool things and inventing new iPhones. That's not me. I'm a process management engineer. Innovation is for you. And the way I've always described it, it's asking yourself three questions. What can I do to run this business better? What can I do to help to grow this business? And what can I do to help to transform this business? So if we think about robotics and AI, how can I use these advanced technologies to run the business better?
Speaker 0 00:19:49 How can I squeeze out cost efficiencies and cost savings and take costs out of the business by automated process? How do I help to grow the business? And that's, you know, what we're doing by designing new products that have intelligence hyper-connected intelligence built into them. So the smart thermostat is a very good example or the Tesla vehicle, which is a, you know, an iPad on wheels. And the third, most important pillar of innovation is transformed the business. How do we shift from being a manufacturer that bashes metal, um, you know, to, to make product, to being a manufacturer that uses additive manufacturing, 3d printing, uh, to construct products that are invented and reinvented on a continuous basis with embedded intelligence, um, or how do we transform our business process using all of these advanced, um, methodologies, you know, so that at the end of the day, we can compete on the global stage. That's what innovation is to me. And I think that's what the typical manufacturing robotics AI engineer needs to be thinking about when it comes to innovation.
Speaker 2 00:20:50 Thank you very much for this gym. And, uh, how can people find out more about you maybe find your books or whatever.
Speaker 0 00:20:56 I've got a pretty massive website. Jim carroll.com with two R's, two L's, and then a ton of manufacturing oriented insight at manufacturing, Jim carroll.com.
Speaker 2 00:21:08 Thank you very much, Jim, our sponsor for the episode is Earhart automation systems, Earhart builds and commissions turnkey solutions for their worldwide clients. With over 80 years of precision manufacturing, they understand the complex world of robotics, automated manufacturing, project management. They deliver world-class custom automation on time and on budget contact one of their sales engineers to see what Earhart can build for you. I would like to thank and acknowledge our partner 83, the association for advancing automation. They're the leading trade association in the world for robotics, vision and imaging motion control and motors, and the industrial artificial intelligence technologies visit automate.org to learn more. And I'd like to thank our partner painted robot painted robot builds and integrates digital solutions. They're a web development firm that offers SEO and digital social marketing, and can set up and connect CRM and other ERP tools to unify marketing sales and operations. And you can find
[email protected]. And if you'd like to get in touch with us at the robot industry podcast, you can find me Jim Beretta on LinkedIn. We'll see you next time. Thanks for listening. Be safe out there. Today's podcast was produced by a customer attraction, industrial marketing, and I'd like to thank my nephew, Chris gray for the music, Chris Coleman for audio production, my partner, Janet, our partners, a three painted robot and our sponsor Earhart automation systems.
