In this energetic and information-packed episode, Lisa Ryan welcomes Tony Gunn, who leads global operations at his new venture TGM Global Services after a successful five-year run with MTD CNC. Tony has spent two decades on shop floors and in boardrooms around the world, traveling approximately 300 days a year to over 60 countries, giving him an unparalleled front-row seat to the technologies, trends, and people shaping modern manufacturing.

Tony shares his remarkable journey from mopping floors on weekends for minimum wage and learning to use basic presses, to mastering CNC machining through the mentorship of industry veterans who taught him line-by-line programming. His story exemplifies the power of workplace mentorship and the importance of taking skilled workers under your wing—lessons that continue to guide his mission today.

Tony lives by a powerful principle: "If you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room." He thrives on being the "dumbest person in the room," learning from experts across the manufacturing spectrum—from garage shops with three or four machines to CEOs of the world's largest manufacturing companies. This humility and hunger for knowledge informs everything he does in media and content creation.

His approach to sharing stories and technology stems from remembering his own starting point—when he was just learning to turn raw material into something of value. He's passionate about explaining concepts at a level that empowers everyone, avoiding the industry jargon and acronyms that can leave people behind. He never forgets the experts who gave their time to an amateur, and now pays that forward by putting others under his wing.

Tony candidly admits that even though it's his full-time job to know as much about the manufacturing industry as possible and share it with as many people as he can, he still can't keep up with how fast everything is moving. He can only imagine how difficult it must be for shop owners and operators whose day-to-day activities involve actually running their businesses.

From a global perspective, Tony sees shops still running machines that are 15, 20, 30, even 40 years old—machines that run good parts but can't complete a part on one machine, requiring five machines and much longer cycle times compared to modern technology. He draws a powerful contrast from his visit to the American Precision Museum in Vermont: 200 years ago, they were making micron parts, but it took two weeks. Today, it takes two minutes.

The conversation centers on what manufacturers are most hungry to understand and solve right now. Tony identifies the labor shortage as a critical issue that companies are trying to address through multiple strategies:

Inspiring the next generation through STEM - While crucial, this is years in the making and can't be the only solution

Adapting technology in the midterm - Companies must figure out which technologies are most affordable and provide the best ROI to minimize labor shortages while competing globally

Various forms of automation - From traditional robots and cobots to pallet systems and bar feeds, companies are finding ways to have one machinist run 10 machines instead of one, with processes running 24/7

Digital transformation - Tools like Datanomics and Fulcrum that take traditionally tribal knowledge and display it on screens, giving operators and management real-time visibility into what's actually happening on the shop floor—eliminating the need for all-day meetings filled with 80% truths and 20% fabrication

Tony emphasizes that knowing actual uptime, real capabilities, bottlenecks, and opportunities for improvement allows companies to create better...

In this thought-provoking episode, Lisa Ryan welcomes Bruce Vojak, a leading authority on strategic innovation with a unique combination of deep and broad experience. As a business advisor, board member, senior fellow with The Conference Board, and author of two highly regarded books on innovation published by Stanford University Press, Bruce helps mature companies in mature industries survive and thrive in an increasingly volatile, complex, and ambiguous world.

Bruce shares his journey from engineer and techie to innovation strategist, sparked by his fascination with remarkable innovators—not their processes or cultures, but the people themselves. This curiosity led him to decades of research exploring the question: "How do they know what to do?" His work focuses specifically on mature manufacturing companies, making his insights particularly relevant for today's industrial leaders.

Bruce clarifies a common misconception: innovation isn't just creativity or something new—it must have financial impact and marketplace value. While many manufacturers focus on lean implementations, Six Sigma, or equipment upgrades, true innovation changes the basis of competition in an industry. It creates advantages or protects against disadvantages in transformative ways.

He illustrates this with compelling examples:

1. The Carrot Evolution: From knife peeling to safety peelers, then to Oxo's ergonomic design and finally pre-peeled baby carrots that increased overall consumption
2. Moneyball: How the Oakland Athletics revolutionized baseball team optimization using sabermetrics instead of gut feelings

The lesson? Innovation exists in every industry, you just need to start looking for it by asking questions you didn't think you needed to ask.

For manufacturers at the maturity stage of their lifecycle, the biggest danger is retreating to familiar ways of doing things without questioning unarticulated assumptions. Bruce emphasizes that the real risk isn't making big innovation investments—it's failing to ask the right questions at all.

He frames innovation investment through two financial lenses:

1. Insurance: Protection against being blindsided by market changes
2. Options: Opportunities for future growth beyond the "bond-like" steady returns of optimized manufacturing operations

Both require relatively small initial investments, often just time and attention, but provide critical protection and opportunity.

With AI and other technologies transforming business at lightning speed, Bruce advises companies to focus on three critical elements:

1. Internal Alignment: Both strategic and tactical
2. Strategic: Are we really going to invest in innovation?
3. Tactical: What about this specific idea or problem?
4. Alignment failures can derail innovation even at individual contributor levels
5. Simple Processes: Especially for small and mid-sized companies
6. Don't need elaborate systems

In this insightful episode, Lisa Ryan welcomes Dr. Joshua Tarbutton—Chairman and Chief Innovator at Bravo Team, an engineering firm specializing in custom automation solutions for manufacturers facing tough challenges. The conversation tracks Joshua Tarbutton's journey from childhood curiosity with Light Brights and exposure to structural engineering via his father, through military service, academia, and ultimately into entrepreneurship and innovation in manufacturing.

The episode tackles the urgent push for automation in manufacturing, driven by rising costs, supply chain instability, and workforce challenges. Joshua Tarbutton reflects on how fear and control can impede leadership decisions, and points out the importance of moving beyond blame and understanding the deeper social and economic forces at play.

A major theme is reskilling the workforce in response to automation. Joshua Tarbutton highlights the pressures at the lower end of the labor pool—jobs that are tough to automate and have high turnover—and notes the necessity of upskilling those in roles most likely to be displaced by technology. He emphasizes a need for earlier cultivation of manufacturing interest and skills in young people, advocating for more proactive outreach beyond "manufacturing month."

For companies lacking robust R&D departments, Joshua Tarbutton suggests an experiment-focused, risk-decreasing approach—start small, test hypotheses, and find the right experts to guide implementation. He cautions leaders to seek out genuinely knowledgeable advisors rather than relying solely on titles.

AI and large language models are discussed as powerful tools for manufacturers at every scale. Joshua Tarbutton sees AI as both a knowledge accelerator and a supportive "smart friend," especially for leadership looking to execute better and maintain margins.

Both speakers explore workplace culture, emphasizing that even in an automated world, people and teams remain the heart of innovation. Creating environments where it's safe to fail and learn, and supporting open, honest communication across teams and departments, are crucial for successful transformation.

Joshua Tarbutton closes by outlining Bravo Team's approach: solving tough, high-value problems for clients through clever engineering and collaboration, supporting innovation from machine design to full product development.

1. Automate Strategically:
2. Don't rush into automation out of fear—carefully assess timing, ROI, and reskill your workforce to maximize benefit and minimize disruption.
3. Invest in People Early:
4. Start cultivating interest and skill in manufacturing at a young age. Partner with schools and programs for real hands-on exposure beyond industry holidays.
5. De-Risk Innovation:
6. Before committing big budgets, run small, targeted experiments to prove out new ideas. This minimizes financial and technical risk in automation and R&D projects.
7. Find the Right Experts:
8. The right solutions depend on the right people, not just credentials. Seek out advisors and partners who prioritize transparency and a proven track record.
9. Leverage AI for...