About this episode

The episode discusses the challenges faced on the shop floor and the role of AI in manufacturing, emphasizing the importance of investing in people and processes.

The Shop Floor Social came to Dallas, and the room was full of people who run the floors. Hosted by Jim Mayer and brought to the community by Hexagon, this live session of the Manufacturing Culture Podcast put three local leaders on the panel: Chase Auker, a quality metrologist at Firefly Aerospace who measures everything from rocket engines to lunar landers; Andy Mears, who leads intelligent factory integration at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control in Grand Prairie; and Fernando Castaneda, the quality leader at SPM Oil & Gas. The night started where every honest manufacturing conversation starts: what keeps you up at night. The answers came back fast. People. Speed and scale. Schedule. From there, the room worked through the question on everyone's mind: what AI really does on a shop floor today, and the panel was refreshingly grounded in it. AI is a sharp assistant and a strong learning tool, but it's only as good as the data and the people behind it. Garbage in, garbage out. The real skill, they agreed, is knowing how to ask. What makes this session worth the listen is where it lands. Under all the pressure of cost, supply chain, cybersecurity, and a shrinking talent…

People in this episode

Host: Jim Mayer

Guests: Chase Auker, Andy Mears, Fernando Castaneda

Topics covered

• manufacturing
• AI in industry
• workforce development
• quality control
• shop floor management

Keywords

• manufacturing
• AI
• shop floor
• quality control
• workforce

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Hexagon, Firefly Aerospace, Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, SPM Oil & Gas

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