AI-powered predictive maintenance has been on the radar for years, but for most facilities, it still hasn’t fully landed.

Chris sits down remotely with Colin Morris, Senior Director of Solution Consulting at MaintainX, the AI-powered maintenance and asset management platform built for the industrial frontline. Colin has spent eight years working in this space, long enough to have watched maintenance shift from an afterthought to a strategic asset across North American manufacturing.

They cover the real barriers to AI adoption in maintenance: unstructured data sitting across disconnected systems, outdated assumptions about what predictive tools should deliver, and the foundational steps most facilities skip before they’re ready.

Colin walks through what parts data to collect and why, how maintenance has evolved from cost center to cost saver, and where agentic AI is taking the industry next, including what scheduling looks like when an agent does the first pass and a human approves the plan.

In this episode, find out:

• Whether today’s manufacturers have the data infrastructure AI actually needs, and why having data and having usable data are two very different things
• The gap between what AI-driven predictive maintenance promises and what tends to happen when facilities try to put it into practice
• Why a predictive system that shows no faults can mean things are working exactly as they should, and how confirmation bias leads teams to misread that signal
• The foundations most facilities skip when digitizing, and why jumping ahead without them creates problems that are hard to undo
• What parts information every facility should have on record, why it matters more than most teams realize, and what happens when a critical component is not catalogued
• How maintenance’s status has changed over eight years, from a cost center most facilities avoided spending on, to a core part of a facility’s digital strategy
• What AI looks like across maintenance operations today and where it genuinely adds value versus where human judgment still needs to lead

Enjoying the show? Please leave us a review here. Even one sentence helps. It’s feedback from Manufacturing All-Stars like you that keeps us going!

Tweetable Quotes:

• “A lot of customers do have the data. The biggest challenge is it’s super unstructured and in different systems, so getting it into a format AI can actually use is still a huge challenge.”
• “People expect predictive maintenance to surface issues, but if an asset is running well, nothing’s going to happen. No insights are sometimes good insights. That means things are operating the way they should.”
• “Historically, about 60% of a technician’s time is admin work. If you can give even 10–20% of that time back, that’s a huge gain in actual wrench time.”

Links & mentions:

• MaintainX, helping industrial teams manage work orders, asset performance, parts, and labor with AI-driven insights that reduce downtime and boost operational excellence
• Nick Haase on Manufacturing Happy Hour, episode 206 featuring MaintainX’s Co-Founder and the company’s first appearance on the podcast
• Left Field Brewery, established in Toronto in 2013 and brews a series of baseball-inspired, distinct and full-flavoured beers

Make sure to visit http://manufacturinghappyhour.com for detailed show notes and a full list of resources mentioned in this episode. Stay Innovative, Stay Thirsty.

Mentioned in this episode:

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Most regions have pockets of manufacturing strength. Very few have a manufacturing ecosystem. Matt Bogoshian has spent 15 years trying to change that.

In this episode of Manufacturing Happy Hour, host Chris Luecke sits down remotely with Matt Bogoshian, Executive Director of the American Manufacturing Communities Collaborative (AMCC) – the nation’s only designated National Manufacturing Community of Practice.

Matt brings the on-the-ground experience of someone who has spent years helping communities across the US turn good intentions into real, durable systems change.

Together they dig into the Big Six elements that every thriving regional manufacturing ecosystem needs, the five steps to creating lasting systems change, and why trust is the one precondition that has to come before everything else.

Matt also shares the story of ‘What’s So Cool About Manufacturing’, a program getting middle school students inside real factories and changing how the next generation sees manufacturing careers.

In this episode, find out:

1. What it takes to build a regional manufacturing ecosystem of support, and why it requires more than any single organization or initiative
2. Why the ‘American project’ can’t succeed long-term without a strong base of manufacturing priority products, and what that means for every community in the US
3. The five steps to creating lasting systems change: relationship building, storytelling, strategy, activation, and the critical step most initiatives never reach
4. Why trust is the precondition for every other element of ecosystem building
5. What the Big Six elements of a thriving manufacturing ecosystem are, and why most regions are underperforming in at least four of them
6. How the Big Six framework helps diagnose where any region stands, and what coordination looks like when it’s working
7. Why the gap between regions that thrive and those that don’t is rarely about resources, and what it’s really about
8. How ‘What’s So Cool About Manufacturing’ is changing how young people see manufacturing careers, and why there’s no ceiling on where those careers can go

Enjoying the show? Please leave us a review here. Even one sentence helps. It’s feedback from Manufacturing All-Stars like you that keeps us going!

Tweetable Quotes:

1. “The American project is not going to thrive long term unless we have a strong cornerstone of manufacturing priority products.” – Matt Bogoshian
2. “Trust is the coin of the realm. Having trusted relationships is really a precondition to everything else.” – Matt Bogoshian
3. “There’s no ceiling on how high a kid could go in manufacturing.” – Matt Bogoshian

Links & mentions:

1. American Manufacturing Communities Collaborative (AMCC), representing a coalition of nationwide communities with the shared goal of revitalizing American manufacturing
2. The Buena Vista, opened in 1916, this corner spot in San Francisco serves its signature Irish coffee alongside American staples

Make sure to visit http://manufacturinghappyhour.com for detailed show notes and a full list of resources mentioned in this episode. Stay Innovative, Stay Thirsty.

AI is reshaping what it means to be a modern manufacturing professional.

When a 30-year veteran retires, decades of expertise used to leave as well. How they ran a machine, which feeds and speeds worked, and all the practical knowledge that separated good from great. Now, Mastercam’s AI co-pilots can capture that information and make it instantly accessible. The learning curve that used to take years can now be compressed into months, making manufacturing careers more accessible to the next generation.

Chris sits down with Russ Bukowski, President of Mastercam, to explore how CAM technology has evolved from manual G-code programming to AI-powered systems that are fundamentally changing manufacturing accessibility.

The conversation covers the business side of manufacturing transformation, why mid-size machine shops and tier-two suppliers are no longer at the mercy of large OEMs, the leadership lessons Russ learned from Walt Disney and why manufacturing salaries are starting at $80K+ for CNC programmers.

In this episode, find out:

1. How CAM systems act as a 10x multiplier for manufacturing professionals.
2. The evolution from manual G-code programming to AI-powered CAM systems
3. Why Mastercam's AI co-pilot is bridging the knowledge gap left by retiring manufacturing experts
4. How post-COVID supply chain vulnerabilities are driving companies to vertically integrate
5. The power shift giving mid-size manufacturers leverage in negotiations and exclusive supplier agreements
6. Why manufacturing needs to be promoted as a viable white-collar career
7. How technical expertise creates leadership credibility
8. The importance of visiting customers and talking to shop floor employees
9. What Mastercam's acquisition enabled in terms of investment, innovation, and customer relationships

Enjoying the show? Please leave us a review here. Even one sentence helps. It’s feedback from Manufacturing All-Stars like you that keeps us going!

Tweetable Quotes:

1. “AI's not a silver bullet. It's not going to replace a program or replace an operator, but it is going to enable them to do more and to move more quickly in the business.”
2. “CAM is really that enabler. Without it, the digital design to physical machine process is slow and error-prone. It removes the cognitive burden and makes complex manufacturing possible. It's that 10x multiplier for somebody in manufacturing, making somebody a 10x manufacturing expert because they're able to deliver results so much faster by using computing power.”
3. “I always like to ask myself this as a leader, if nobody was looking, if there were no repercussions, would I still make the right decision? From a sustainability standpoint, from an ethical standpoint, that's how I hold myself accountable.”

Links & mentions:

1. Mastercam, CAD/CAM solutions that are trusted to deliver superior and reliable machining performance with advanced productivity tools and AI-enabled CAM capabilities
2. Tree House Brewing Company, brewers of Julius and pioneers of hazy IPA, Tree House produces world-renowned beer in Charlton, Massachusetts

Make sure to visit http://manufacturinghappyhour.com for detailed show notes and a full list of resources mentioned in this episode. Stay Innovative, Stay Thirsty.

Mentioned in this episode:

Mfg Happy Hour's Rust Belt Renaissance Tour

Manufacturing Happy Hour is hitting the road this spring, hosting live shows Cleveland on 3/24, Rochester on 3/25, and Pittsburgh on 3/26. Get your tickets today.

There’s a commonly held belief in manufacturing: big ideas need big money, fast growth, and outside control to survive. But that playbook doesn’t work for every business or every industry.

Andrew Johnson, co-founder of HeavyTech and CEO of ShelfAware, joins the show from Everywhere Beer Co. in Anaheim, California, to talk through how he and his partners built HeavyTech, a hybrid and electric big machinery manufacturer, on their own terms. He shares the long road behind developing technology for hybrid and electric heavy machinery, and why, when it came time to scale, they made a deliberate decision to crowdfund and not follow the traditional VC path.

Along the way, we also get into why diversification within a single industry creates leverage most business owners miss, what it means to be fearless in business, and the struggles of connecting with other entrepreneurs at the same stage of growth.

If you’ve ever questioned whether the “standard” approach to funding actually fits your business, this conversation will make you rethink the rules.

In this episode, find out:

• Why timing is the most important factor in business success
• How crowdfunding gives you more control over your business and direct access to future customers
• Why diversifying within an industry is one of the smartest entrepreneurial moves you can make
• The importance of connecting with other entrepreneurs in the same position as you
• How HeavyTech invented its hybrid and electric machines for construction, farm and ranch
• What it means to be fearless in business
• Where Andrew sees the future of U.S. manufacturing going

Enjoying the show? Please leave us a review here. Even one sentence helps. It’s feedback from Manufacturing All-Stars like you that keeps us going!

Tweetable Quotes:

• “I think the inclination today is that you need to go raise a bunch of money with private equity venture capital. I believe that’s wrong. Crowdfunding allowed us to raise a bunch of money from individuals. Normal people who believed in the future vision of our company and would eventually become our customers.”
• “I think that’s the beauty of diversification. Each business is in the same industrial space. The products are different, but they complement each other. Sometimes I go into a meeting trying to sell ShelfAware, and I end up selling O-rings or end up talking about HeavyTech and leave with a new investor.”
• “Timing is everything in business. You have to be at the right place at the right time. You can have a great idea, but if the market is not ready, it won’t work.”

Links & mentions:

• HeavyTech, a manufacturing company designing and building hybrid and electric machinery for the construction and agriculture industries.
• ShelfAware, a manufacturing intelligence company providing real-time production visibility and workflow insights to improve efficiency on the factory floor.
• Everywhere Beer Co, an independent craft brewery based in Cleaveland, producing small-batch beers.

Make sure to visit http://manufacturinghappyhour.com for detailed show notes and a full list of resources mentioned in this episode. Stay Innovative, Stay Thirsty.

Mentioned in this episode:

Industrial Marketing Summit 2026

The Industrial Marketing Summit is the go-to gathering for marketers working in the manufacturing, engineering and industrial sectors. Built by Gorilla 76 and TREW Marketing, IMS delivers strategic insight, hands-on learning and true community. Whether you’re a team of one, or leading a scaled marketing department, you’ll walk away ready to market smarter, lead stronger and impact your business. Make sure to use the code "happy hour" at checkout for $100 off registration.

Industrial Marketing Summit 2026