The Manufacturing Executive

Founder and chief strategy officer of LeanDNA, Richard Lebovitz, will tell you that one of the biggest causes of part shortages isn't what you'd expect. It's failing to tell your suppliers what you don't need. In this episode, we dig into why supply chain teams get stuck firefighting shortages while executives chase working capital, and how those two goals drift out of sync. Richard makes the case for running a supply chain the way a good marketer runs a campaign: short, targeted and measured, then adjusted. You'll hear the difference between predictive and prescriptive AI, why the prescriptive kind is so much harder to get right, and the mistake he sees manufacturers make when they hand AI a decision it isn't ready for. Underneath all of it runs a simple idea he picked up early from the partners who taught him Lean: the point of any technology is to make the work easier for the people doing it.

CEO of Mint Innovation, Matt Bedingfield, will tell you there's a gap in America's reshoring push that almost nobody's talking about. We're rebuilding the muscle to make things again, but we skipped the raw materials those plants run on, and the country now faces a million-ton copper shortfall it fills by exporting scrap and re-importing the same metal refined. In this episode, we explore why a sovereign supply chain matters as much as the factories themselves, how the "urban mine" of electronic waste could become a national asset instead of a landfill problem, and why solving this takes an ecosystem rather than one company at a time.

Most manufacturers are good at planning a product and good at planning a project. Where launches fall apart is everything in between. Founder and principal of True North PMP Consulting, Richard Broo, will tell you that operations, quality, logistics and finance get left out of the room until it's too late. By the time manufacturing hears about a launch, the line's already booked out for months. In this episode, we dig into what Richard calls governance: getting every function aligned from day one, before anybody flips the switch. You'll hear why growth amplifies whatever's already broken, how to spot a project drifting off track while you can still fix it, and what it looks like when a team gets it right. Along the way, Richard shares real turnaround stories from decades in plastics, medical packaging and industrial manufacturing.

Leadership coach Chris Atwell, founder of Mindset Conquest, will tell you that 100 sales calls a month proves your reps are busy. It doesn't prove your business is growing. After two decades selling through and alongside manufacturers rep agencies, he's seen the same trap over and over: activity reports that look productive but never tie back to revenue.

In this episode, we dig into how manufacturers and their independent reps can build predictable growth together. You'll hear why tracking calls is the wrong place to start, how a shared revenue target and a real sales pipeline change the relationship, and what it takes to enable reps who already know your market better than you do. We'll also touch on the three pillars behind his new book, Momentum by Design.

Most manufacturers are bracing for the silver tsunami: the wave of retiring veterans taking decades of know-how out the door. Founder of Marzilli Machine and host of the Raw Material podcast, Jamie Marzilli, will tell you that's only part of the problem. In this episode, we explore the bigger piece most shops overlook: the tribal knowledge that slips away every day in what you don't write down. You'll hear how Jamie's shop already puts AI to work on the floor, why he's convinced AI will create manufacturing jobs rather than erase them, and what a machine shop looks like five years out.