In Episode 14 of the Acceleration Economy’s Growth Swarm podcast, John Siefert, Bob Evans, Tony Uphoff, and Scott Vaughan discuss the growth of the massive manufacturing industry and why cloud companies want a piece of it, as well as how technology — all from digital twins and the Metaverse to AI and image recognition — has accelerated this growth.
Highlights
00:01 — Acceleration Economy Co-Founder John Siefert welcomes viewers to another edition of the Growth Swarm podcast and introduces 3xCMO Scott Vaughan, 4xCEO Tony Uphoff, and Cloud Wars Founder Bob Evans.
00:46 — Industry Cloud Battleground focuses on industry-specific clouds. John criticized today’s discussion on the manufacturing cloud and the alignment of IT and OT.
02:30 — Tony, who recently wrote a story on the rise of the cloud industry and served as CEO of leading manufacturing sourcing platform Thomasnet, summarizes the reasons why there is so much interest in manufacturing on the part of cloud companies. “There are so many markets that are worth more than $3 trillion,” he said of the massive manufacturing market.
03:27 — Although many assume that all manufacturing happens offshore, manufacturing as an industry is growing both in the US and North America in general. This is due in large part to technological advances that are making lean and sustainable manufacturing “reshoring” a reality by both US and international companies.
04:29 — Tony cited some data to drive the point home: The July jobs report shows 528,000 new jobs, with manufacturing providing most of these openings. Demand in the last quarter for key inputs such as aluminum and steel, and services such as machining and automation, increased. Interestingly, “food production is absolutely booming now,” adds Tony. Cloud providers coming in and providing advanced technologies are helping to accelerate growth in manufacturing.
05:38 — John referenced Goya Foods CIO Suvajit Basu’s comments at June’s Cloud Wars Expo on the food and distribution company’s use of best-of-breed, multi-cloud tech to deliver advances in everything from supply chain to distribution chains.
06:37 — There’s a lot of talk about digital twins in the manufacturing cloud space, but what are they? John cited several recent articles by manufacturing CIO and Acceleration Economy analyst Kenny Mullican on digital twins, describing them as combinations of multiple enabling technologies — sensors, advanced analytics, cloud computing, AI, AR, VR, mixed reality — which companies can combine in custom ways depending on their needs.
07:15 — What distinguishes digital twins and makes them stronger is their ability to imitate human abilities, which facilitates faster and better decision-making, because something that a digital twin captures can be automatically updated in the physical world, John said.
07:47 — Bob recalls UC Berkeley Professor Luyi Yang’s comments at the Cloud Wars Expo on siled data between marketing and manufacturing departments, and why that needs to change. “The heads of the companies will sweep up the mess,” he said.
09:40 — John examines the connection between consumer demand and manufacturing operations, and how difficult it is, especially today, to accurately forecast and get the balance right. John asked Acceleration Economy’s “go-to-market expert” Scott to give his perspective on the alignment between demand creation and demand fulfillment in the context of the manufacturing industry.
10:46 — Scott says manufacturing is being redefined in part by AI and machine learning. Scott defined the role of co-creation in the industry, and how it leads to all kinds of new products and services. “It puts a lot more potential and reimagination of what manufacturing is,” he said.
11:45 — “When you co-create, you have to go to market together and do things differently,” Scott said. This will lead to a sea change in terms of breaking down the silos between supply chain, distribution, marketing, and sales in traditional manufacturing environments. “I think the playing field is going to change.”
12:38 — Bob says that leadership’s ability to break down old silos within their operations is critical in today’s environment. Otherwise, they will “sink your company.”
13:14 — Tony details selling Thomasnet to Zometry and the growing importance of connecting demand directly to supply through data.
14:56 — Referring to digital twins, Tony cited the example of how a jet engine manufacturer now collects more real-time data than the pilot of an airplane, and is able to simulate maintenance and repair for individual engines and future ones. version of that engine through digital twin technology.
15:50 — What role will Metaverse play within a manufacturing, not to mention digital twin, context? John examines how technology enables more seamless business operations and decentralized intelligence.
17:05 — John references fellow Acceleration Economy analyst Ronak Mathur, and his recent analysis of how image recognition technology is changing the game for manufacturers, allowing them to automate quality control and process control in assembly line or factory scenarios.
18:14 — Scott discusses co-creation in the Metaverse through shared data.
19:27 — Tony cites Formula 1 driving simulators as a prime example of Metaverse’s training capabilities, and envisions similar applications in other industries.
20:53 — Scott and Tony detail the massive manufacturing side of tech giants like Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft.
22:05 — Bob referred to ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott, who recently reported his company estimates how many business applications will be written in the next two years from 500 million to 750 million, roughly 1 million new application every day.
23:08 — John concludes with a discussion of reviews of the “intranet” and “extranet” concepts from many years ago and how they became the basis for Web3.
24:41 — The episode ends on a note on the impact of the cloud industry as a “reimagination machine.”