Smart Manufacturing Mindset™

CESMII - The Smart Manufacturing Institute

Smart Manufacturing Mindset™, presented by CESMII - The Smart Manufacturing Institute & SME, is a monthly webinar where we challenge guests to think differently about manufacturing. We'll explore the nuances that hide in plain sight – behind the acronyms, techno-jargon and misinformation – to get to the truths that hold real value for real people in the industry.In partnership with the Department of Energy, CESMII was established as a primary advocate and resource for Smart Manufacturing, including networking, education and workforce development, funded research projects and a Smart Manufacturing Innovation Platform to enable your digital transformation.

  1. 3d ago

    Smart Manufacturing Mindset™: Why the Smartest Investment in AI Might Be a SM Roadmap Certification

    While vendors promise transformation and headlines declare a revolution, walk into most plants today and the story looks a lot different. In this episode of the Smart Manufacturing Mindset, Jeff Winter sits down with three people who have seen this gap up close and have been working to close it: Suraj Sriram, Digital Manufacturing Leader at Kimberly-Clark, and Jim Wetzel and Tim Stuart, the architects and instructors behind CESMII's Certified Smart Manufacturing Roadmap Professional program. Suraj led the deployment of a unified manufacturing platform across 70+ global sites, engaging more than 5,000 users and completing 300+ go-lives. What he found, again and again, was that the barrier was not the AI. It was everything that had to exist before AI could do anything useful: clean data, connected systems, standardized processes, and an organization aligned enough to actually adopt what got built: https://www.cesmii.org/from-pilot-to-platform-scaling-smart-manufacturing-across-a-global-enterprise/ Jim and Tim have seen the same pattern across dozens of manufacturer engagements. As the evangelists and instructors behind the CESMII Smart Manufacturing Roadmap Professional program, they bring the framework side of the conversation: why the CESMII methodology is vendor-neutral and business-first, what manufacturers consistently get wrong when they skip the assessment phase, and what it looks like when an organization finally gets the sequencing right. Together, the three guests offer something rare: a view of smart manufacturing transformation from both the inside of a global enterprise and from the practitioners who designed the roadmap to navigate it. If your organization is feeling pressure to move on AI but is not sure whether the foundation is actually ready, this episode gives you a grounded, practitioner-driven answer to where to start. Interested in building that same internal capability? CESMII's next Roadmap Professional certification cohort opens July 7th: https://www.cesmii.org/event/smart-manufacturing-acceleration-roadmap-professional-certification-course-07-07-2026/ © 2026 CESMII - The Smart Manufacturing Institute, A Program in UCLA, 520 Portola Plaza, MS 5308 – Box 95155, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1557, USA, (888) 720-8096

    39 min
  2. 12/02/2025

    Smart Manufacturing Mindset™: WEF Lighthouses — Lessons from the Leaders (Part 2)

    Part 1 of this special two-part series explored the journey of the Lighthouse factories. We looked at how global leaders from Foxconn, Johnson & Johnson, Schneider Electric, Unilever, and Western Digital navigated culture, scale, technology, and legacy challenges to reach world-class digital maturity. Now, in Part 2, we go deeper. This episode shifts from the “what happened” to the “what it takes.” Our Lighthouse guests share their most important lessons learned, the mistakes that shaped their thinking, and the practical advice they would give any manufacturer beginning or accelerating a digital transformation journey. From building trust and changing culture to defining business value and scaling what works, Part 2 delivers the insight behind the outcomes. These are the patterns that drive real progress and the guidance that can help any organization build its own path toward Lighthouse-level performance. Part 1 showed the destination (Catch up here: https://lnkd.in/gsmDcBYv) Part 2 gives you the playbook (Register here: https://lnkd.in/ggYEDZmw) Tune in to hear what the world’s most advanced factories wish they had known sooner and how their experience can accelerate yours. 🎙️Bart Talloen – Executive Fellow at World Economic Forum & Former Johnson & Johnson Executive 🎙️Anthony Loy – VP Industrial Digital Transformation Consulting Schneider Electric 🎙️Biswaranjan Sen – Global Chief Product Supply Chain Officer at Unilever 🎙️Jackie Jung – VP of Global Operations Strategy at Western Digital 🎙️Zongchang Liu – Rotating CEO at Foxconn © 2026 CESMII - The Smart Manufacturing Institute, A Program in UCLA, 520 Portola Plaza, MS 5308 – Box 95155, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1557, USA, (888) 720-8096

    37 min
  3. 08/12/2025

    Smart Manufacturing Mindset™: Technology Providers Powering Manufacturing’s Future

    Explore how today’s leading technology providers are shaping the future of Smart Manufacturing. This episode brings together leaders of some of the world’s great manufacturing technology providers, aligned around one critical goal: driving openness and interoperability to strengthen the U.S.’ manufacturing competitiveness. 🎙️ What to Expect: We’ll hear from three distinct categories of technology leaders, all of whom are active CESMII members: 🔹 Established Market Leaders in control and information systems, with decades of experience in industrial automation. 🎙️ Cyril Perducat, SVP & Chief Technology Officer, Rockwell Automation 🎙️ Andre Marino, SVP Industrial Automation Business, Schneider Electric 🎙️ Del Costy, President, Siemens Digital Industries 🔹 Cloud Hyperscalers bringing advanced data infrastructure, AI, and scalable platforms into the manufacturing space. 🎙️ Dayan Rodriguez, CVP Global Manufacturing and Mobility, Microsoft 🎙️ Joseph Rosing, Worldwide Head of Smart Manufacturing, AWS 🔹 Born-in-Industry 4.0 Innovators – companies built from the ground up around digital transformation, smart manufacturing, and AI-ready architectures. 🎙️ John Harrington, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer, HighByte 🎙️ Colby Clegg, CEO, Inductive Automation 🎙️ Doug Lawson, CEO, ThinkIQ Whether you're a manufacturer, integrator, or technology provider, this is your chance to see how collaboration across these domains is accelerating Smart Manufacturing adoption – and how your organization can play a part. © 2026 CESMII - The Smart Manufacturing Institute, A Program in UCLA, 520 Portola Plaza, MS 5308 – Box 95155, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1557, USA, (888) 720-8096

    52 min

Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
2 Ratings

About

Smart Manufacturing Mindset™, presented by CESMII - The Smart Manufacturing Institute & SME, is a monthly webinar where we challenge guests to think differently about manufacturing. We'll explore the nuances that hide in plain sight – behind the acronyms, techno-jargon and misinformation – to get to the truths that hold real value for real people in the industry.In partnership with the Department of Energy, CESMII was established as a primary advocate and resource for Smart Manufacturing, including networking, education and workforce development, funded research projects and a Smart Manufacturing Innovation Platform to enable your digital transformation.