Manufacturing Culture Podcast

Ask most people to picture the future of manufacturing and they will describe a slightly better factory. Ask Sunny Han and he will describe a self-replicating machine you launch into an asteroid belt, go to sleep for a thousand years, and wake up to find has built a communication network across the galaxy. That is the altitude this conversation runs at.Sunny is the founder and CEO of Fulcrum, a manufacturing technology company that connects more than 700 manufacturers with the digital infrastructure they need to compete. He did not grow up on a shop floor. He was a kid writing code at seven, certain he would spend his life playing StarCraft, who drifted into building software for manufacturers and got quietly hooked on the depth of it. The more facilities he toured, the more intoxicating it got: the operator who can feel a microscopic burr with a fingertip, the single crystal of metal grown to survive supersonic speeds. He kept coming back to the well.But the reason to listen is what Sunny has worked out about AI and trust. He is one of the clearest voices on where artificial intelligence fits on a shop floor and where it does not. He explains why classical computers are deterministic and the real world is not, why these new probabilistic machines are a gift and a hazard at once, and why the answer is deterministic guardrails and a human who stays in the loop, because in a medical device shop that last one percent is the entire world. Along the way he reframes change management, argues that people love change they get to author, and lands on the line that named this episode. The future isn't science fiction. It's manufacturing fiction, and his whole job is turning it into reality faster.Key TakeawaysThe real world is probabilistic. Classical computers give the same answer every time. CNC machines and AI models do not, and understanding that difference is the key to using AI safely on a shop floor.Deterministic guardrails make AI trustworthy. Let the model generate options, but when the answer has to be exactly right, it looks up the feed and speed chart or the tool database. Creativity where you want it, certainty where you need it.Keep a human in the loop. Even at ninety-nine percent, the last one percent can be a twenty thousand dollar mistake or worse, so Fulcrum builds evaluation and judgment frameworks that flag what still needs human eyes.Infrastructure was the missing layer. Fulcrum set out to do cool things with compute and found the orchestration infrastructure under manufacturing barely existed. Build a good one and people plug everything into it.Chapters00:00 Welcome and the ask01:20 Meet Sunny Han and Fulcrum02:42 Icebreaker: life as a sci-fi movie03:28 Making parts in space, and von Neumann machines09:40 What culture means to Sunny12:20 Why a company needs a mission, not just values14:52 What he thought his life would be16:23 Stumbling into manufacturing22:29 What problem Fulcrum set out to solve26:40 Becoming the orchestration layer30:43 Breaking into a skeptical industry34:53 People don't hate change, they hate change they can't steer37:22 Deterministic guardrails, explained43:38 Why you still need a human in the loop45:12 Where manufacturing is headed47:45 Manufacturing fiction48:10 What makes him proud: perseverance49:47 Where to find SunnyFind SunnyLinkedIn: Sunny Han (Fulcrum)Fulcrum: fulcrumpro.comEmail: [email protected]

Every glass of water you pour, every jar of baby food, every energy drink you crack open ran through stainless steel pipe that somebody welded. And if that person did their job right, you will never once think about it. That is Steve Feamster's whole craft: being invisible in the best possible way. The weld that matters most is the one no one will ever see, on the inside of a pipe, so clean that nothing can hide.Steve is the founder and owner of Sanitary Welding LLC in Novi, Michigan, where for more than sixteen years he has built the ultra-clean stainless steel systems that food, beverage, and pharmaceutical plants depend on. He came up the way he hopes the next kid will. He was an entrepreneur before he was a welder, hustling odd jobs as a teenager, and he tripped into welding under a teacher who told him something that stuck: with wood, cut it too short and it's scrap, but with metal, you can always weld it back together. You can always make it right. This is a conversation about the pride in unseen work, about carrying the weight of knowing a single bad weld could mean contamination, and about a man from the middle who can talk to the shop floor and the boardroom in the same breath. Steve is honest about the hard parts, the apprenticeship red tape, the grind of scaling with too few hands, and the fine line between automation and craft. But the through-line is a message he wants the nineteen-year-old with a torch to hear: the door is open. Steve did it, and so can you.Key TakeawaysThe best weld is the one no one sees. Sanitary welding is judged on the inside of the pipe, purged clean and finished to food grade, so nothing can hide and nothing can contaminate.You can always make it right. The lesson that pulled Steve into the trade is also his philosophy on mistakes: be proud of them, pass your inspection, and keep going.The door from welder to owner is open. Steve bought his domain while still working under the hood and built his own shop. He wants the next kid to know the same path is there.Culture is treating a welder like a thinker. His twenty-first century weld shop pays people to think and treats the place like a second home, which is how he competes for scarce, high-care talent.Red tape is part of the skills gap. Steve is trying to hire and train through apprenticeships and keeps hitting bureaucratic roadblocks, a piece of the workforce problem that gets too little attention.Chapters00:02 The invisible weld, and what sanitary welding protects01:01 Meet Steve Feamster and Sanitary Welding02:33 Icebreaker: a boat and a sunset04:13 What culture means to Steve05:29 Finding welding: you can always make it right06:34 The high school apprenticeship at a five-hour energy plant07:22 An entrepreneur since thirteen08:00 The road home from California and the new shop11:05 What makes Sanitary Welding different12:06 Be proud of your mistakes13:34 Pride, grinding, and the line between craft and automation17:55 What sanitary welding actually is18:37 The weight of a bad weld21:39 Building a twenty-first century weld shop22:39 The red tape choking apprenticeships28:02 What keeps him going30:01 A Detroit point of view32:01 Where to find Steve and who he's hiring33:01 3D printing stainless and Project Diamond34:08 The message to the kid with a torchFind SteveLinkedIn: Steve FeamsterSanitary Welding LLC: sanitarywelding.com (careers: [email protected])Novi, Michigan

This episode was recorded as part of a paid partnership with Structify.Ronak Gandhi grew up in Fort Worth, where Memorial Day means fifty people in the backyard, dinner cooked by friends who brought their own coolers, and a clock that somehow reads midnight before anyone notices. He explains the difference between that and a New York Memorial Day, all brunch reservations and itineraries, and in doing so tells you most of what you need to know about why he built Structify the way he did.His grandfather came to this country in the 1960s, took his first job at a fish processing plant, stayed thirty years, and retired there. That story, and the values under it, loyalty, integrity, and showing up in person, shaped Ronak's decision to leave an isolating skyscraper job and build a company for the people he calls the backbone of the country. Structify helps manufacturers find real ROI for AI, lays the foundation to implement it, and captures the institutional knowledge that walks out the door when a key person retires. The promise is blunt: a path to ROI in sixty days or your money back.Recorded in person with Jim at ATD in Phoenix, Ronak and Jim get into why Silicon Valley gets manufacturing wrong, why you cannot serve this industry from a desk on the coast, why 65% of digital transformations fail, and why the problems on a shop floor are the most exciting part of the work, not the thing to hide. It closes on the line that could be Structify's whole reason for existing: he does not want the industries that built this country to get left behind in the next technological leap.Key TakeawaysAI fails without a foundation. Most digital transformations fail because people rush to the solution. Structify maps the business first, then finds where AI actually drives ROI.Capturing institutional knowledge is the real win. The workforce crisis bites hardest when a key person retires, and their knowledge leaves with them. Day one is about capturing it.You cannot serve manufacturing from the coast. Ronak lives on the road, and he argues every shop is different, so no off-the-shelf solution works for everyone.Change is not the enemy. People do not resist change; they choose it every day. Give operators the tools to build their own solutions and adoption follows.Relationships beat transactions. The values he learned in Fort Worth, loyalty and integrity, are what he says the coast gets wrong and what manufacturing gets right.Chapters00:00 Meet Ronak: two Memorial Days, Fort Worth vs New York01:47 The moment he knew manufacturing needed Structify05:01 The isolating skyscraper and why he left08:39 His grandfather's fish plant and the pride in making things11:30 Why build for a physical industry Silicon Valley ignores16:02 A hidden industry and what outsiders should know19:28 What Silicon Valley gets wrong about manufacturing22:45 The workforce crisis and two narrative battles26:21 The shop that detonates bombs to fuse metal28:03 Why 65% of digital transformations fail31:50 What Structify actually does33:05 How it differs from a consultant36:20 Why people actually love change38:22 Finding real ROI, not AI for its own sake40:17 What day one looks like43:56 The five-year vision: make manufacturing badass45:36 What he's most proud of, and why Structify existsFind RonakLinkedIn: Ronak GandhiStructify: structify.com