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Our mission really is to change that perception of the manufacturing industrial space away from it being dirty, obsolete, not innovative. That's absolutely dead wrong. When you actually see what's going on, you see the backbone of global economies, you see innovation, you see how it touches your life.
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B
Right.
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A
Thousands upon thousands of times and every single day. And you have a much deeper appreciation. Welcome to Supply Chain now the number one voice of Supply Chain. Join us as we share critical news, key insights and real supply chain leadership.
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From across the globe.
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One conversation at a time.
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B
Hey, good morning, good afternoon, good evening wherever you may be. Scott Luton and the one and only Mary Kate Love with you here on Supply Chain now. Mary Kate, how you doing?
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C
Hey there. Happy Friday.
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B
Happy Friday. Is it cooler down here in Atlanta than it is up there in Chicago right now?
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C
How about it? That never happens. We're at 86 degrees here which feels like that should be Atlanta.
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B
Man, I'm always jealous of Yalls weather and of course October is, is going to be gorgeous in Chicago, in Atlanta. But great to have you here making an appearance. Yes, once a quarter or so.
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C
Yeah, I pop in. I love it.
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B
Well, for folks you may not know, Mary Kate Love leads strategy and operations here at Supply Chain. Now she's got lots of experience in industry and it's a good thing because we're going to benefit from that. And a great special guest in just a minute on this very special show as we Celebrate Manufacturing Day 2025, the first Friday of October. Each and every year is set aside to celebrate this critical global industry. So join me, Mary Kate and our special guest which we're going to unveil in just a second today on Manufacturing Day 2025 as we shine a well deserved spotlight on the makers, builders and innovators that keep our world moving forward. From the shop floors to the smart factories, from raw materials to finished products, the manufacturing industry has always been the backbone of really the global economy and it continues to evolve at a pace like never before. Mary Kate, what a great show. We've got to up here today, huh?
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C
Yeah, super excited. Manufacturing and supply chain go hand in hand. So this will be a great show.
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B
No doubt, no doubt and super excited folks. That's a highly technical term. It means your 10x normal excitement levels I think. Mary Kate.
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C
Yeah, that sounds right.
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B
All right, Mary Kate, are you ready to get to work?
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C
Let's do it.
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B
I want to welcome in our special guest here today, really a longtime friend and someone I admire. Do a lot of terrific work in the content and and media creation Space Danny Gonzalez, founder of Optimum Productions and CEO and founder at Industrial Sage where they're, they publish wonderful content for industry leaders. And get this, he's creator of the upand cominging documentary American Makers, which we're going to touch more on here today. Let's welcome in Danny. Hey. Hey, Danny. How you doing?
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A
I'm doing well. How are you?
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B
Wonderful. Great to see you here. It's been a long time since I sat down and interviewed a couple times back in the day and we're thrilled to have you here.
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A
I'm super excited to be here and talking again about all things supply chain and manufacturing.
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B
That's right, Mary Kate, he's super excited as well. But first, Danny and Mary Kate, I've got a fun warm up question that's manufacturing inspired. So Danny, you're going to go first. You're going to be our Otis Nixon today. If you could spend one day working on the line at any, any factory in the entire world, past or present, what would you be making and why?
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A
There's so many choices, a lot of options there. But I'd have to say I'm a big fan of Big Green Egg, which is here in Tucker, GA and I.1 of the things that's interesting to me we've talked about from a supply chain perspective is that I believe this is true, that the ceramic that they use for, for the actual dome and for the structure is the same foundry that they had used. I believe it's in Mexico or New Mexico somewhere that they would use for the cone of the space shuttle because of the heat resistance that it had. And I just thought that was very interesting to me. And also other little fun fact is, every February, I believe it's not all of them, but there's a certain amount of green eggs. If you look on the back, there's a little heart shape, little heart that you can see.
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C
That is so cool.
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A
I just think it's kind of interesting little story. So I, I think it'd be interesting to kind of help put that together and see the behind the scenes.
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B
Danny, I'm gonna think of big green egg. I'm a big old space nerd and I love the space shuttle. So now I'm have to go out and get me one. So thanks so much.
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A
Yeah, you know, and I'm, I have not. I love the green egg so much. I have not. You know, I'm not being paid to say that.
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C
Yeah, right.
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B
Well, I'll tell you what, they have a massive following, so clearly a quality product. All right. So Mary Kate, that's gonna be tough to top.
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C
I know that was a cool one.
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B
Tie in the big green egg. But what's your one factory? What you were. You'd be making stuff.
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C
So when you first asked this, I was thinking, gosh, you know, something huge like a Boeing 747. Right when that was created. Right. That would be so cool to see that whole process. But then I really thought about recently Scott knows this summer I went to see the Beyonce Cowboy Carter tour in Chicago. And I found myself after googling and thinking about just purely the stage, where are they sourcing all these things? How are they putting it together, moving from city to city? And also the supply chain of. You guys might not be super into this, but her outfits were out of this world and changed every single night. So not like a normal concert where you know, the outfit is the same every night or changes once in a while. And you know, these outfits are made by top tier designers. So sourcing those materials, working with them custom, that kind of intricacy in the supply chain is super interesting to me. And the fact that all of this needs to be perfect, not one thing could be out of place. So that is just super interesting to me.
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B
Mary Kate, I love that. And it really your answer and Danny's answer, really, it shines a spotlight on. There's something for everybody across the world of manufacturing, supply chain, you name it, I'm have to switch. And I'm gonna go the negative. Really anywhere. You know, I've been in and out of over 300 facilities, manufacturing, warehousing, you name it, I love them all. Except I would not want to work on a line making hot dogs for a day. For whatever that's worth. I'll pass. I'll bypass that one.
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C
You don't want to ruin it for yourself.
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B
All right, so we got a ton of stuff to get to here today. Where are we going to start? Let's see. Let's start with some more level settings. We had some fun with the fun warmup question, but now I want to. Danny, for folks that may have missed our couple of episodes where I interviewed you probably four or five years ago, let's level set a bit. If you tell us about yourself and why you love the wide world of manufacturing. Great.
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A
Well, there's a lot of reasons why I love manufacturing. I'll kind of take it back to. I basically started a video production company or video marketing agency years ago. And we were looking at areas that we had the most success with different clients, and we looked at Manufacturing. And we had a lot of success with it. We really enjoyed it. There's a lot of interesting storytelling. It was amazing going into manufacturing facilities to see what happened with what's kind of going on behind the scenes. And we found that a lot of people, a lot of our peers just kind of, to be honest with you, look down on it. They wanted to work with the tech companies because they were more sexy and, you know, doing all this stuff. And the more that we kind of got into manufacturing, we were like, this is amazing. There is so much innovation here, There is so much creativity here. And we honestly really fell in love with it. We started Industrial Sage. This is probably 2017, 2018. And the whole point and the goal was to really share insights around sales and marketing for manufacturers and industrial companies. They were, from that digital transformation standpoint, they were a little behind the curve from a sales and marketing standpoint, arguably, maybe still a little bit now, but have rapidly caught up. And so industrial stage has involved or has evolved. We've had several companies come up to us and say, hey, this is cool. Could you guys do this with in lean manufacturing or could you talk about erp or could you talk about just digital transformation and automation in general? And so it's kind of evolved from there. And our mission really is to change that perception of the manufacturing industrial space away from it being dirty, obsolete, not innovative. That's absolutely dead wrong. When you actually see what's going on, you see the backbone of global economies, innovation. You see how it touches your life, right. Thousands upon thousands of times every single day, and you have a much deeper appreciation. And I think that when folks see that, even when they're working in this, they make maybe working in manufacturing, sometimes you kind of forget that impact that you have, right. When you see what that actually does, that drives more meaning and more purpose. And I think that's a key answer to the some of the labor challenges that we have right now.
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B
Yep, that's exactly where my brain went. We need to have more ambassadors, much like yourself, much like all of us here, that really tout the story of modern manufacturing. Because while there are still pockets that are I'll call traditional environments for manufacturing, right, Far and away, man, the manufacturing world has evolved so much, so much technology, latest and greatest technology, and there's so much opportunity which we're going to touch on in just a second. So, Danny, man, I love your passion. We got to hook you up to the national power grid. And we, we have city. We'd have energy for cities days. Mary Kate, similar question for you because a lot of folks may not know about your industry background. Why do you love manufacturing?
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C
I, you know, I was nodding along when Danny was talking about switching kind of the image that many people have about manufacturing. And that's how my whole entire career got started in manufacturing. When I was in school, I hadn't considered manufacturing as a career. And one of my first jobs out of college was in an innovation institute that was partially funded by the US Department of Defense. And one of the main goals of this institute was to highlight how manufacturing holds the jobs of the futures and how clean and tech driven manufacturing jobs are. So I worked at that institute and I quickly became enamored by manufacturing because I love to solve problems. And that's pretty much all you're doing in manufacturing and supply chain is solving problems in a variety of different ways. Right. And so I quickly was taken by the industry, met a lot of great people. We celebrated National Manufacturing Day every day and seeing students or every year, I'm sorry, not every day, but that would be, that'd be wild. Yeah, I guess we could, but we had students come every year and I could see them have the same realization I had years before, which is, wow, this is really cool. This is, I mean there's so many different jobs in manufacturing and the industry is only growing. Right. I think that's super important today and always honestly with how we view manufacturing and supply chain for that matter.
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B
Well, on that last, I love the story and of course again going back to what both of your different parts of your, both of your messages helping our kids now and the future generations have their own eureka moment about the sheer opportunities that are found and what I'll call holistic global supply chain where I include manufacturing as part of that larger global ecosystem. We're going to touch on it in a second. That's the key. That's the key, you know. So I've also, I've shared this maybe with both of y'. All. I heard it put one time and I stole it ever since is that parents are kids first consultant. And so we got to reach the kids, but we got to reach our parents too and change their perceptions. Yeah, it's incredible Industry our right. So we've level set with Danny and Mary Kate. Now let's do this. Let's walk through some of the current. Let's take, let's look at the current snapshot of both US manufacturing industry as well as a global industry. How's that sound? Too bad. You can, you can't disagree you can't disagree. Danny and Mary Kate. Let me get my visual up here. And we're going to walk through. First, we're going to walk through the US Manufacturing economy. So this is just a snapshot, right? Lots of moving trends. So, Based on the ISM Manufacturing PMI for September 2025, the US manufacturing in September showed some signs of a slight rebound. Hey, that's good news, huh? With the ISM Manufacturing PMI raising to 49.1 from 48.7 in August. Now, we've covered this index a lot for years. So you remember anything below 50 in that manufacturing, PMI still technically denotes contraction rather than expansion. Right? So a little bit of a good movement there. Now, even as overall PMI edged upward, new orders did slip, indicating ongoing weakness in demand. Factory employment, it remained weak. Rather than hiring many firms or relying on layoffs or simply not filling open positions, that's not good news. Supply chain pressures persisted. Supplier delivery times lengthen, which typically a lot of times. We'll point to bottlenecks. Right. And the prices paid by factories, they stayed elevated, but a little bit lower than they were in August. So maybe those input prices are coming down and not too overly optimistic because of tariffs. Right. Tariffs continue to burden what I'll call burden the sector a good bit. And there are new proposed tariffs. Heavy duty trucks, kitchen cabinets, furnitures, maybe even the kitchen sink, who knows? And that could further strain the industry. Let me take a pause right there. I've got a separate data set that we want to go through for the global manufacturing industry. But, Danny, when you hear that about what's going on in the US Manufacturing industry, what comes to mind? What are your thoughts there?
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A
Well, I think that's definitely what we're hearing from a lot of different manufacturers. A big kind of wait and see. The tariffs obviously have kind of paused everything. What I think is interesting, particularly about the PMI data, is actually if you kind of extrapolate that and look at it, I know we tend to look at it from a month to month, which is good. But when you look at it a little bit from more from a macro perspective, what I found interesting was that we've actually been sort of at this level for a while, kind of up and down a little bit. When you look at, I believe it was just before the tariff announcements were made where we were above that 50 percentile threshold that was in March ish or so. We've kind of ebbed and flowed since then. We're kind of. We're kind of quick back up to that point, a little bit. I mean, we're still showing contraction, but that rate of. Of contraction has slowed down. I think there's a. That to me shows, you know, still cautiously optimistic about what that future might hold. I think a lot of manufacturers are, to be honest with you, getting a little fatigued with having indecision because of the constant changing environment. You know, it's difficult when every day you turn on the news and there's a new tariff about whatever. But I think coming out of summer, typically you see this in a lot of different industries organizations say, we're getting into Q4, we gotta start making some decisions. And let's be honest, over the last five years, the only thing that's been consistent is inconsistencies. It just change what that looks like on the face and it's constantly changed. I think that they're starting to say, okay, we have a little bit more certainty on where things are going. At least you kind of have a little bit of an idea. We need to start moving a little bit. So that's when I'm hearing what I'm seeing. And, you know, we'll see what happens in the future.
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B
I can't argue with any of that. I think I generally agree with all Danny shared. And Mary Kate, you and I have talked here lately. Yeah, big points.
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C
Right.
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B
Things are good on the offense rather than playing defense. After all the uncertainty fatigue he's talking to, what are your. What comes to your mind? Mary Kate, what are you seeing?
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C
Yeah, I'm, you know, the same as Danny and Scott. You and I have spoke about just how we're observing kind of people coming out of this holding back. Right. This holding back or being nervous about the uncertainty. I think there's a little bit of what Danny said is we know that uncertainty is just what it is. And Q4 is a natural time for many companies to start to make decisions, like Danny said, move on things they might have been holding out on. So to me, I read this and I felt I would say optimistic or cautiously optimistic. So it seems like things are headed in the right way. Nothing crazy, but headed in the right direction.
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B
So we got some good news. What you are both pointing to. I hope you're. I hope we're all right. And I do hope again, fourth quarter is an interesting, interesting time as more decisions are hopefully being made and some of that decision making friction, getting the gum out of the works a bit. It'll be really interesting to see. I'll tell you, 2026, we say this probably every October about next year is going to be an interesting, but really 2026 from manufacturing and a trade policy standpoint, I sure am praying and hoping for more breakthroughs that actually get converted to real deals. That actually gets then converted to more certainty in the markets. We shall see. Okay, folks, we're not done. We're going to shift over. That's just, that's just some of our takes on the US manufacturing industry. Let's take a look at some global manufacturing thoughts.
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C
Now.
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B
This comes from the Global Manufacturing pmi, which S P Global reports each and every month. Now a little better news. The global manufacturing PMI was at 50.8 in September, so suggesting expansion. Right. That was down a little bit. Gosh, 0.1% August. I guess that's good news. Growth in production and new orders persisted, but neither was strong enough to prompt widespread hiring, at least not yet. That employment drifted a little bit lower. Globally, price pressures ease. That's great news. As factory prices rose at their slowest rate since January. Man. Now, as you might expect, industry performance varied significantly by region. India and Thailand, ASEAN markets showed solid expansion, which helped lead the global upturn. But Taiwan, Russia, Brazil and the United Kingdom all experienced deep production declines. Tariff dynamics is at play, as you might expect. And tariff dynamics, import timing may have temporarily boosted output in some economies. All that front loading of shipments, remember that? But of course that could lead to a pullback in coming months. So, Danny, what are your thoughts on the broader global manufacturing market?
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A
I think it makes sense on, on what we're seeing. I think it's also important to remember too that we are. Relative to, you know, this is going to be more supply chain speak, but relative to peak season, I mean, most of everything that's coming into the United States or shipping for, you know, getting into Black Friday sales and retail is on a boat. They're filling up warehouses right now. So I, I think that doesn't necessarily surprise me from an expansion standpoint. I think it'll be interesting to see what the final numbers will be. Reminds me a little bit about maybe two years ago when peak season, everybody was way oversupplied. Reverse logistics. Costs were through the roof. You would buy a. I remember a particular. We bought like a couch or something and we needed to return it because something was broken. They said it's too expensive, we can't take it. Just keep it.
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C
Oh my gosh.
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A
Yeah, that's crazy. I think that's maybe what we might be looking at a little bit there. But to be honest with you, I'm. I Was a little surprised still, given with all the talk of tariffs and again, that some of that. Those inconsistencies and uncertainty about what that future might hold. Yes.
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B
And all of it's. You know, I used the word Baskin Robbins at a conference a week or so ago, and it was a college conference, and I don't think anyone in the room knew what I was talking about with Baskin Robinson. You know, all those different flavors. Remember the ice cream store? Mary Kate, are you with me?
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A
Okay.
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C
We have a lot of those. Yeah, right.
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B
Well, I was talking about all the different layers and flavors of uncertainty. And that told me for the millionth time, I've got to update my references. Danny and Mary Kate. I got to update it, man.
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A
All right.
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B
So, Mary Kate, back to the global manufacturing industry. Any additional comments on your end?
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C
No, I'm concerned these college kids don't eat ice cream, though, because that's. That's concerning. No, I thought this was interesting, too. Obviously, the regional dynamics are probably more apparent to us because of kind of the tariffs distorting those dynamics. But it'll be something to keep an eye on and hopefully we'll level out in the future.
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B
That's right. And I should just point out, hey, at least the good news here is we're not. Remember these.
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C
Yeah, I know.
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B
Massive. And you know that you could see that blip on any chart of any. But I'm so glad we're past that, you know. Okay. We're gonna count our blessings here today on Manufacturing Day 2025. So let's do this. I know both of y'. All. I think we all kind of like factoids. I think that's one of our common threads between three of us. So when it comes to interesting manufacturing factoids about the current state of industry, any aspect of it, what comes to mind. And Mary Kate, I'm start with you.
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C
Yeah, I love this one. When I was preparing for this conversation. So supply chains represent two thirds of a manufacturer's total cost of doing business. So think about Danny's example with the couch, Right? Same thing happened to me. I ordered two couches, they sent me three. I thought I was going to get charged for it. I called them back, they said, keep it. I mean, that's crazy that, you know, that's so crazy that this is happening in supply chain that were being delivered couches that we didn't pay for. I am not shocked that it's two thirds of a manufacturer's cost, given those two examples.
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B
So what did you do with the third couch? Did you?
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C
I gave it to a friend's mom who was looking for a couch.
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B
Oh, that was nice of you. Oh, man. Okay.
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C
Yeah, so it worked out, but I was like, what am I going to do with a third? I ordered two. I don't need three. Oh.
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B
You know what's interesting, and both of y' all know this, I think we've talked about this before, is all of us, whether we like it or not, as consumers are getting. I'll call it a return score associated with our profile.
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C
Yeah.
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B
And not. Maybe not every retailer, but a lot of those, especially the very data analytics savvy ones. So they'll know whether you return something every day, every week, like maybe a member in my family.
- [23:09]
C
No, asos, a clothing brand, did that and they banned some people from purchasing from their platform because there were so many outrageous returns there.
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B
Okay.
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C
And I can see that. Right.
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B
Definitely. We all know. We all probably familiar with folks and abuse. And abuse return policies, but. All right, so, Danny, we're talking about interesting manufacturing factoid about where we are. Your thoughts?
- [23:33]
A
Yeah, so. Well, one thing I think is interesting is there's been a lot of talk about direct investment that's happening in the. Let's talk domestically, in. In the U.S. so we. What I thought was interesting, we started kind of tracking this, putting together a little bit of a database because quite honestly, I was looking for it, couldn't find it. So we said, let's just do it. So we're tracking right now over $1.5 trillion worth of committed dollars of US manufacturing investment in the United States. There's probably more out there. We're trying to continue to update this. We have it on industrial sage. It's called the US Manufacturing Investment Tracker. And what I think is interesting is over time, just to kind of see, I think it's easy to be able to say, yeah, we're going to invest 3, 3 billion in this or that, and let's see what actually happens. Because there's not necessarily is dirt really moving, but some of these, you know, we're seeing some of this stuff. I think some of the big trends, obviously, are semiconductors is a very big one as you look at data centers being built out to be able to help support AI. Apple, I think, is the. I think one of the biggest ones in terms of what they're doing. I mean, they're bringing back their. The glass production is going to be in Kentucky, I believe, with Corning. They're putting a lot of money in towards that. And so I think it'll be interesting to track to see what actually happens, where things are going. And I do think that relative to some of the PMI numbers that we're just talking about, that I do know for a fact that some of that is influencing where some of those new orders are coming from.
- [25:01]
B
Right.
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A
As you're seeing more near shoring and reshoring that domestic producers are getting tapped saying, hey, we're going to go ahead and start expanding and here are some of those new pos.
- [25:11]
B
Yeah, that's good stuff, Danny. And you're right. On various accounts, two quick thoughts come to my mind. Number one, I'm really curious and in some cases skeptical because I want to see how many of these announcements of these big investments are going to come to fruition and because some of them undoubtedly will take place like Rivian, which may still prove me wrong. But you know, they made a big announcement four years ago, I believe, and they broke ground for the second time just this past week after delaying now, hey, that could be the next next key in West Point. It may well be, but I'm just really curious to see how many of these investments come to come to fruition. And then secondly, I love that tracker and I'm going to be the number one fan of that tracker. I'm going to have to add that to the buzz, my buzz homework. But here in Georgia, I was just talking this earlier today. Danny and Mary Kate in Georgia. If you look at foreign direct investment from 03 to 2025, I wouldn't have maybe ranked South Korea at top. But it is and it's not even close. South Korea ranked number one with over $27 billion of foreign direct investment since 03, followed by Japan at number two with just over 8 billion. So a big gap between number one and number two. A lot of good stuff there that just tells us, Danny and Mary Kate, it's a global ecosystem, right? You make investments, other folks make investments. We gotta get along nicely in the sandbox. A couple of quick hitters. The global value of industrial robot installations hit an all time high of $16.5 billion in 2025. And China installed nearly 10x the amount of robots as a U.S. how about that? Here's another. When it comes to economics, which Danny and Mary Kate was not my strong suit in College. In Q1 2025, the US manufacturing industry contributed almost $3 trillion to the economy, nearly 10% of GDP. If you're one of the three people out there that may not know how important the manufacturing industry is to any country that'll tell you plenty there. And speaking of contributions, manufacturers in the US perform almost 53% of all private sector R and D in the country. Wow.
- [27:26]
A
Okay.
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B
So Danny and Mary Kate, I just talked about the robots and of course one of the big drivers there is the challenge of hiring top talent. Right. So let's talk about some trends, but more trends across the industry. So we sat down with Carolyn Lee, president executive director with the Manufacturing Institute. Now she pointed out a research that the US manufacturing industry is going to need 3.8 million workers by 2033. But the worst part is 1.9 million of those jobs may well stay empty. Man we'll talk about the opportunity in a second. But Danny, when you think of other trends, when you think of topics, issues, innovations related to this wonderful manufacturing industry, what comes to mind?
- [28:15]
A
Well, I think labor obviously is like the number one issue and that has been the issue before COVID but it got worse with it. And I think what is really interesting is when you look at particular like the unemployment numbers get looked at a lot of I think the labor participation rate is something that kind of gets overlooked quite a bit. And that number has been pretty low since COVID meaning that out of the amount of people that we have who can work and maybe arguably should be working, are not for whatever reason. And I think Mike Rowe, you know, from the guy from 30 Jobs, does a really good job with this and he talks about how I can't remember the exact figure on how many are basically sitting on the sidelines. These are able bodied, I think very in particular, men, young men who are not working. And I and it's a question of why what is going on? I think there's a lot of different reasons for that. And that's why I do think that part of this is going back to storytelling, going back to purpose and meaning on what we're doing. I think there's as we talk about the trends of we want to bring manufacturing back, right. Obviously the current administration has been kind of pushing that very, very strongly with stuff that's in the big beautiful bill, a lot of incentives to be able to bring manufacturing back, being able to expense all your R and D looking at bonus depreciation so you can have capital capex expenses having that written off. And I think that we have to solve that problem if we want to be able to bring back more of that manufacturing here. And I think that a big part of it is going to be technology. And I think that not only is technology going to be able to help to Solve some of that labor gap. I also think that communicating that, hey, maybe these aren't the jobs of your grandfather or your great grandfather that you know, you're going to be working with cobots or maybe you're going to be managing these fleets and it's going to be a little bit different than what.
- [30:13]
B
You might think that is. Man, we could make a whole series over your last response there, Dan. Lots of good stuff there. Mary Kate, get you to comment first.
- [30:24]
C
This is so easy to be passionate about. Especially I've seen it. Like I said, students have that realization that I honestly had as well. And one of the things that the innovation I I worked at and it's called Now MXD and it's in Chicago if anyone's interested in learning more. And we had created and they still have going, we call that a factory floor of the future. And really what it was is we carved up different sections on a factory floor and had something like eight to 10 different organizations that put together a working display of something they were creating or showcasing how manufacturing is done at their plant. So the idea was plants might exist in places where students can't get to. This was having 8 to 10 companies on the same factory floor were students or in quite honestly, a lot of times adults too. Right. And a lot of government officials coming through to understand what is, what is manufacturing now? What does it look like? And one of the things we addressed through that floor was that it was physical. Right. Like students could get in and physically put together an assembly that they were being shown on a screen that was watching their hands and giving them a check mark if they got it right. Right. Asking them if they got it wrong. And they just thought it was so cool and didn't know that that was considered manufacturing. Right. It's, you know, very tech driven and the floor was bright lights and very clean and everything. So I think that that changed a lot of people's opinions. But one of the issues, I think with this skills gap that we're identifying is right, that it's hard to teach these new skills at a pace that, you know, manufacturing is changing so quickly. And so it's not always, you know, not every school can respond quite as quickly as the industry is changing. And so having partnerships between universities and companies leading in manufacturing is super important for that reason because, you know, things are just changing so fast now.
- [32:31]
B
Mary Kate, excellent commentary there. Excellent commentary. The velocity of global business, not just manufacturing, is, will blow your way. I want to touch on something too. Access to energy. You know, a Couple years ago I was reading Site Selection magazine. They were ranking their top factors for what leads, greenfield sites and access to energy, I think was top three. That's going to be an interesting thing to watch because I don't have to tell y', all, but we all know as AI and other automation, you know, manufacturer already uses so much energy. Right. For variety of different reasons. But of course, the more pressure to use the latest and greatest technology. And AIs. AI is an energy addict. Right. And we already have infrastructure challenges in the country here in the US so whether it's unlocking nuclear power 3.0 whatever, or other solutions to that will be really important thing to watch in the coming years.
- [33:27]
A
Yeah, there's an interesting story that came out earlier this year with Dow Chemical and they were talking about their partnership with X Energy and essentially they are creating mini nuclear, basically power sites. Dow saying that they're going to be doing that at their new facility. And then I just saw yesterday or a week ago that GE Vernova is. They're doing. I'm going to get the acronym right. Maybe smrs, I think is the, the acronym for it, snrs. And I think we're going to be seeing that a lot more. I think that is probably the number one challenge that we're going to have relative to AI because of all the data centers that are going up and then all the manufacturing that is coming back in. They're big energy consumers.
- [34:10]
B
Yeah, so true. I had to look up that acronym to make sure I was right. The one you just shared, Danny. Smr, Small modular reactors. You're right on it. You're right on it. We're gonna have to watch that. Kidding aside, it's really going to be interesting to see if nuclear could provide, you know, nuclear, green and then, you know, some traditional. We'll see how things evolve. All right, I want to throw one more thing out there. Opportunity. Let's get down. Danny was talking some of the economics of manufacturing. I want to double click on that. Did you know, first off, it's undeniable. There's so much opportunity for workers from all sorts of pathways. Folks, if you don't think there's something for your manufacturing and or supply chain, think again. In 2023, manufacturing workers in the US earned almost 103k, $103,000 on average a year. And better yet, the Kaiser Family foundation found last year that 93% of manufacturing employees were eligible for health insurance benefits. And you talk about things that's only going up. Cost of health Care, right. To get a deal on your. On where you work as an employer employee. Yeah, good stuff. We should do this to Danny and Mary Kate. Big shout out to Carolyn Lee and the Manufacturing Institute for Creating, Promoting and investing in Manufacturing Day. Learn more about all the great stuff they're doing there@mfgday.com mfg is in short for manufacturing day dot com. Okay, we're gonna have a fast and furious finish. We're going to talk about an incredible project that Danny, his Danny's team is working on. I love it. I can't wait to share that with everyone here. But before we do that, Mary Kate, Danny, did you know we're sitting right beside rubbing elbows with the founder of National Supply Chain Dates.
- [35:57]
A
You know that I just finding the sub now and I'm super excited.
- [36:05]
B
Tell us, tell us a little bit what this is how folks can get involved and you name it.
- [36:11]
C
Yeah. So every year on April 29, we celebrate national Supply Chain Day. So much like National Manufacturing Day, which we were inspired by obviously with all of our experiences, we have National Supply Chain Day and it's meant to be kind of the celebration of all the people that connect the world, right. That get our products to our door, that come up with a technology that can track our products, everything. So we have this open right now for registration. If you want to learn more about National Supply Chain Day and or register, you can just go to supply chain now.comNSCD National Supply Chain Day. So we already have registrations coming in for April 29, believe it or not. So would love to see you all register and we'll announce more on who's joining us, who's kind of kicking off keynoting sponsors, things like that in the coming months.
- [37:02]
B
Awesome, awesome. Oh, you know, we're planners. That doesn't surprise me at all. You got registrations coming in. We're all planners there, right? Okay, let's do this too. So in this next project, Danny, I'm really excited about this. You shared this with us earlier, American Makers. And I'm gonna get. I'm ask you about it here in a second, but I love at the bottom, our goal is simple. To celebrate the makers building America's future. So with that, Danny Gonzalez, tell me more about this incredible project that you and the team have been creating publishing and you got so much more to roll out. American Makers. Tell us more. What, what create. What is it and what, what was your why for creating it?
- [37:43]
A
Well, I am super excited about this. So American Makers really is a vision that We've had for. For a long time. We really believe being our background, being deep storytelling and video, that again, to solve the challenges that we have in the industry, we need to leverage that power to be able to really share what's going on. And what better way to do that than storytelling? We could talk about things with live streams and different things all day long, but it's different when you actually get into the facilities and see what is actually happening. That's what we're doing with American Makers is to be able to share all kinds of things that are happening in your backyard that you had no idea about and how it's affecting your life. We're just very excited about it. We've had different series that we've done. We have another one called Industries of the Future that does something somewhat similar. But this one has been in the making for several years now so that we can go tell these stories across all the United States.
- [38:38]
B
Oh, Danny. We're going to amplify this from the rafters, from the mountaintops. I love this work you're doing. So let me ask you that first off, Mary Kate, how cool is that? How cool is that?
- [38:49]
C
That's something that's going to have direct impact. That's really cool to see.
- [38:53]
B
If I was a thousand miles from you, Danny, I could pick up on just a little bit of passion you got for this.
- [38:59]
A
Glad it's coming through a little bit.
- [39:01]
C
Yeah.
- [39:02]
B
So what about. I know you get out in the market, take the team, you know, meet the people, interview them, get some great shots. We're going to give. We're going to roll a trailer here in a second. But what has been. Is there one or two of your favorite moments from these journeys and these stories you're telling that's been one of your favorites?
- [39:18]
A
Gosh, there's several. But I'll start with the very first episode is with a company called blastech. They're in Cumming, Georgia. So it's in our backyard, basically. And what is interesting is I live probably three minutes from this place and I have driven by it. There's kind of a cluster of industrial buildings that I had driven by, I mean, for years, 10 years. And, you know, you kind of just don't pay attention to it. Just either some industrial build, whatever, and that we have that perception of that grimy dirty whatever. I don't know what's going on. We got connected with them. Go understand what they're doing in this whole world is unlocked. And even though we've been doing this for years, and years and years. That still gets me really excited when we go in this. I had no idea this was happening in my darn backyard. That is happening all across the United States all day, every day. And it's very cool to be able to do that. The other thing that I love, and we've seen this happen multiple times, is you go into a facility, you start talking with people, and they get really excited. And you see the passion come. They get excited because you're excited. And then we start hearing from leaders saying, and employees, frontline workers that are like, I didn't know other people, like, cared about this. And you guys are coming in here, you got cameras, you're doing all this stuff. And it's giving them a greater sense of purpose. They're saying, wow, I didn't realize that what I was doing was such a big deal. And it's kind of exciting me that you're excited about it. And so it kind of helps to kind of drive some more of this momentum. And so that's just exciting to be able to see the impact. And we haven't even. Hadn't even launched it. Just coming in and having people share their stories is driving a lot of value for them.
- [41:04]
B
Yeah, I'll tell Mary Kay. We'll get your reaction. But I got to tell you, the frontline workers across manufacturing, across supply chain, really any industry, those stories never get told. And Danny, I love that. That's an. A big element of this series, American Makers. And I can't wait to see the Blastech story. And then all that will follow. And we're going to get Danny Gonzalez and team out on a road trip. I see your. Your big bus. And no doubt we're gonna do it.
- [41:34]
A
Let's do it.
- [41:34]
B
So, Mary Kay, your thoughts? What you heard there from Danny?
- [41:37]
C
Yeah, I think the power of storytelling. We're probably three people who subscribe to, you know, knowing the impact that storytelling can have. And it's really especially an industry like manufacturing where no matter what you do, I think it's just human nature to be interested in that story behind how something is made and the people behind it. It's almost universal. It's just natural for us to be curious and want to know more. So I love to see that you all are addressing that right through kind of these efforts.
- [42:12]
B
Yes, well said, Mary Kate. Well said. And I, you know, how stuff's made is really cool, how it's made, I think this series. But, yeah, we all got a point. And tip the hat to way back in the day, On Sesame street. The one I remembered is the Crayola factory that they took us all to in that little five minute snippet. You know that pro. I bet, I bet how it's made the team that, that launched it. I bet they had that moment of watching Systems Street. So we'll see. And Danny Gonzalez, I love how you know you're going to be inspiring lots millions of folks with this new documentary series. So we've got the trailer that we're going to show here. Let's roll it. The tangible benefits of supporting American manufacturing are shorter lead times, banking deliverables, controlling schedules, adapting to disruptive changes in the supply chain, supporting our employees and their families, supporting our communities, supporting American growth and sustainability. It's basically helping to ensure that the American dream stays alive. One of my hopes for the future of the industry is that not only does it continue to grow, but to get more young people involved into the manufacturing industry here. More technical vocational education programs to help young people get exposure to manufacturing. Being able to produce something, being able to have a skill, I think is important and it's important to sustain that here in America to help our country grow and prosper. Dude, that is so.
- [44:14]
C
Oh, good.
- [44:15]
B
It makes me want to get out. I really wish I knew how to weld and do some other really good things. Amanda's got all the my hardware skills, but that is remarkable. Man. That's got. That's got to get send chills up your spine watching that little sneak peek, huh?
- [44:31]
A
Yeah. Glad you. Glad you like it and love it. I mean we get super excited about it as well. And hey, you know what? There's a lot of opportunities. You can go, you can go learn some welding and there's a lot of programs around here. We could do that.
- [44:46]
B
All right, so Mary Kate, respond. The trailer we were here and there, I guess from maybe the president of Blastech, Danny, was that. Who was that? The main narrator there? Is that right?
- [44:56]
A
He was head of operations.
- [44:57]
B
Okay, okay. We saw the employees at work making it happen. The beautiful front line, Mary Kate, that has me wanting a lot more. It's like that little.
- [45:05]
C
Yeah, that's a perfect trailer. Right? Because it's impossible not to be curious. Right. And want more of that and how authentic. Right. It comes through.
- [45:14]
B
That's right. That's right. So, Danny, the billion dollar questions. Where can folks go find the whole shebang?
- [45:20]
A
Great. Well, you can go to industrialstage.com and we've got it launched up there. And currently we'll be launching new episodes monthly. Eventually I want to scale this. I want to do stories every week all across the country. So what we're going to, we're going to start measured and continue on. And also we have it available on.
- [45:36]
B
YouTube, industrialsage.com we'll drop that link there. And Industrial sage over on YouTube. Is that right, Danny?
- [45:45]
A
Yes, that is. That is correct. I'll also add too, we have our headlines that we're going to be that we push out every two weeks and that'll be part, that'll be kind of part of one of the segments. In addition to that, what I haven't told anybody about too much is that we also have a series that's kind of connected to it called Workforce of Tomorrow. So several of the people that you saw in that teaser, we have a separate series talking with some of the young people who are working in manufacturing and asking them, why are you working in manufacturing? What gets you excited? What would you tell other people? And we want to talk, we want to be able to get that out there a little bit more. We think that having that peer to peer sort of connection will really help. We also want to talk to maybe those who have worked in manufacturing for years and years and automation or some new process has come in and they've had to retrain and retool or upskill on something. We want to, we think those stories are valuable too.
- [46:41]
B
Yeah, undoubtedly. Let's have more of everything you just shared there. So we're going to be following closely along. All right, so Danny Gonzalez, Mary Kate Love, I have one final question for you both. It's not a factory question where you'd spend one more day, although I'm tempted to circle around one more time for that. But I want to make sure folks know how to connect with you both. Daniel, on your end, American, American Makers, Industrial Sage, of course, Optimum Productions, all that stuff. Where can folks connect with you to learn more on anything you're involved in?
- [47:13]
A
Yeah. So I would say first, foremost, industrialsage.com, you can. We have all kinds of content you could subscribe to, including American Makers. We've got podcasts and all kinds of stuff as well. And then if you're interested want to connect with me, you can. LinkedIn's probably the best place to find me. Search Danny Gonzalez and you'll find me.
- [47:31]
B
Awesome. And I gotta say, Danny, we're gonna be together in a couple weeks at your world class studios and I think you and I are going to be in Vegas at a great industry event coming up soon. So look forward to.
- [47:42]
A
I think so.
- [47:42]
B
Looking forward to it. I am too. All right. Mary Kate, I am so glad. I love when you make an appearance.
- [47:48]
C
Yeah.
- [47:50]
B
Usually hard.
- [47:51]
C
Yeah. This was like a perfect. The manufacturing day. It brought me back to some of my past manufacturing days. It was awesome.
- [47:58]
B
Undoubtedly. And whenever we can get you out of the war room as your plotting strategy and leading operation, you name it. But how can folks connect with you on anything you shared here today, including National Supply?
- [48:11]
C
Yeah. So firstly for me, same as Danny, Find me on LinkedIn. My name's really easy to spell. You'll find me Mary Kate love on LinkedIn. And then for National Supply Chain Day, don't forget to go to supply chain now.comNSCD and you'll see everything there. You could even watch last year's episode too, if you want to.
- [48:29]
B
Outstanding. Outstanding. Please do all of that for both Danny and Mary Kate. You'll love adding them to your network and gaining insights and resources from them both. Let's see here. We've got Danny's LinkedIn right there. You want to click away from connecting and following Danny on LinkedIn where I'm sure you can learn more about all of the projects. We've got industrialsage.com which is the great resource he mentioned earlier. You can go there for American Makers and more. And then finally, you want to definitely connect with and follow Mary Kate love on LinkedIn as well. And folks, there'll be a lot more to come on both American Makers and National Supply Chain Day. You can bet your bottom dollar on that. Big thanks. Danny Gonzalez with Optimum Productions, Industrial Sage and the outstanding executive producer, creator of American Makers. Danny, thanks so much for being here.
- [49:23]
A
Thank you guys so much for having having me on here on National Manufacturing Day and being able to promote American Makers series as we go to really tackle this big challenge that we have. So thank you so much for your partnership and your support with that. We're very excited.
- [49:38]
B
We are too. We are too. And yet awareness, that's one of the big. The one, the one you're kind of applying to. We got to get the awareness out there. Manufacturing 2025 is so much different than it was in 1985, which was one of my favorite years. But glad we have continued to progress. And Mary Kate, founder of National Supply Chain Day, big thanks for you being here and all that you do for industry. Mary Kate.
- [50:01]
C
Yeah, thanks so much. Excited to see everyone again on National Supply Chain Day.
- [50:05]
B
We are too. Once more, tip of the hat to Amanda and Joshua behind the scenes helping to make production happen as always. And with that said, you got one piece of homework on this. At least here in Atlanta, it's gorgeous. Friday afternoon, you got to take one thing from Danny or, or Mary Kay. They shared a ton. Put it in action, share it with your team. Deeds, not words. That's how we're going to continue transforming the global supply chain manufacturing, global business world. And with that said, on behalf of the entire team here at Supply Chain Now, Scott Luden, challenge you do good, get forward, be the change that's needed. And we'll see you next time right back here on Supply Chain Now. Thanks, everybody.
- [50:43]
A
Join the Supply Chain now community.
- [50:45]
B
For more supply chain perspectives, news and.
- [50:47]
A
Innovation, check out supply chain now.com subscribe to supply chain now on YouTube and follow and listen to Supply Chain Now. Wherever you get your podcasts.