Great Question: A Manufacturing Podcast How To Get Smart About Manufacturing (American Machinist)
6 snips
Mar 18, 2026 Evan Kaiser, VP for Global OEM and Emerging Industries at Rockwell Automation, a smart manufacturing strategist. He discusses why smart manufacturing matters for small and midsized shops. He covers digital tools for training staff. He talks about practical analytics, reducing waste and energy costs, stepwise adoption to avoid paralysis, and cybersecurity basics.
AI Snips
Chapters
Transcript
Episode notes
Start Smart Manufacturing With One Clear Problem
- Do start your smart manufacturing journey by declaring a specific problem to solve.
- Evan Kaiser recommends leveraging existing infrastructure and focusing analytics on one clear goal to unlock value quickly.
Use Digital Tools To Uptrain Workers On Demand
- Do use digital tools to enable just-in-time training and fault diagnosis for operators and maintenance staff.
- Kaiser suggests automated guidance (e.g., fault 72 => recommended action) and AI/ML to shorten troubleshooting times.
Modeling And Context Make Analytics Work
- Insight: Analytics alone won't help unless you model processes and contextualize data across upstream and downstream systems.
- Kaiser stresses digital modeling and harmonized timestamps/definitions to avoid 'dirty data' and false conclusions.