From Complexity to Clarity: Connecting the Digital Thread for Manufacturing Growth

Featuring:

• Ross Conner — VP of IT, MacLean-Fogg
• Nils Olsson — Chief Strategy Officer, Tacton
• Penelope Brown — Senior Content Director, Manufacturing Leadership Council

Products are getting more complex, because that’s increasingly what it takes to win. Standing out from lower-cost competition means matching what you build more precisely to what each customer actually needs, and that precision adds up fast: manufacturers reported a 20-point jump in product complexity this year alone. The companies leading the charge are figuring out how to manage it without eating into margin or delivery.

MLC’s Penelope Brown sits down with Ross Conner, VP of IT at 100-year-old manufacturer MacLean-Fogg, and Tacton’s Nils Olsson for a grounded conversation about getting your data foundation in order before, or alongside, investing in AI, where AI genuinely earns its keep in a manufacturing business, and how to bring people along so new tools and processes stick instead of stalling out.

Watch to learn:

• How to build a data foundation that’s actually ready for AI, without a full systems overhaul
• Where AI delivers real value in a manufacturing business, and where it’s smarter to hold off
• What shifting more work from engineered-to-order toward configure-to-order changes about what “having your data in order” actually requires
• Why siloed process changes tend to just move the bottleneck instead of removing it
• How to capture the troubleshooting knowledge walking out the door as experienced engineers retire

Duration: 50 minutes