Swarfcast

“Rare earths aren’t actually rare, nor are they earths,” Julie Klinger told me. Julie is an associate professor at UW Madison and literally wrote the book on rare earth elements—Rare Earth Frontiers: From Terrestrial Subsoils to Lunar Landscapes. I interviewed her last week, the day after Trump signed a rare earths deal with China, which had been threatening export restrictions. I knew from all the hubbub they were important for US national security and our supply chain, but I didn’t realize these elements seem to pop up in everything, including a ton of the materials used in precision machining. ************* Listen on your favorite podcast app using pod.link.     .   View the podcast at the bottom of this post or on our YouTube Channel. Follow us on Social and never miss an update! Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/swarfcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/swarfcast/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/todays-machining-world Twitter: https://twitter.com/tmwswarfblog ************* Link to Graff-Pinkert’s Acquisitions and Sales promotion! ************* Interview Highlights China’s “Monopoly” Isn’t What You Think Rare earths comprise 17 chemically similar elements on the periodic table. Julie calls them “spice metals.” You add a tiny bit to glass, steel, or other alloys and they do amazing stuff. They make things lighter, faster, stronger, brighter. They’re in your iPhone, your car, your welding electrodes. Lanthanum-thoriated tungsten electrodes? That’s a rare earth element giving you arc stability. The conversation got really interesting when we talked about China’s dominance. I thought rare earths are like oil—a coveted resource that various nations hoard. But Julie explained that rare earths are actually all over the Earth’s crust. China doesn’t have a geological monopoly; they have a processing monopoly. Back in the ‘80s and ’90s, Western firms basically said “this stuff is too dirty and expensive to process here” and outsourced it all to China. Now China controls about 80% of global processing, and we’re worried they’ll cut us off. But Julie says that might actually be good for us in the long game. When China announced export restrictions, she said the Financial Times called it “a gift to Western industry.” Why? Because it drives prices up, making it economically viable for companies outside China to get back in the game. We’re Not in a Rare Earth Crisis Julie also shared how measured China’s approach actually is. They have business interests to protect too. Chinese companies and joint ventures want to keep selling. If China plays too much hardball, those businesses might just pack up and leave. It’s not the zero-sum game the news makes it out to be. We don’t need to panic about rare earth supply chains. The materials keep flowing because everyone wants them to. Also, we likely already have a decent amount in reserve, we just don’t know exactly how much. Any real restriction would actually accelerate innovation in substitutes and domestic processing, things we’ve already figured out but haven’t scaled because Chinese supply has been so reliable. What I found really interesting that many people aren’t talking about is that technology is already moving beyond rare earths. Julie told me that scientists have been developing rare-earth-free batteries and magnets for years. The solutions exist. They’ve just been sitting on the shelf because it’s easier to keep buying from China. If that supply ever truly gets cut off, we’d see these alternatives deployed almost overnight. It could be like when we restricted AI chips to China. Instead of crippling them, it pushed them to develop their own technology faster and more cheaply. Question: What materials in your shop do you worry about sourcing?

In part 1 of my interview with Bill Cox, owner of Cox Manufacturing in San Antonio, Texas, Bill talked about the power of his company’s robust apprenticeship program. But how does Cox Manufacturing get so many employee candidates, while most machining companies are dying to get any job applicants? Answer—the company has built a strategic recruiting program. Scroll down to read more and listen to the podcast. Or listen on your phone with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite app. Some of the company’s strategies for finding new employees are simple common sense, such as keeping good records of everyone who has applied to the company, which Bill says some companies actually fail to do. Cox Manufacturing also posts a large company sign advertising jobs available, which is visible from the highway to grab the attention of potential employees. The company also likes to find new employees via referrals from current employees who often bring in job candidates who fit the company’s culture. It offers bonuses to employees when their referrals remain at the company for one month, six months, and a year. Several years ago, Bill became the founding chair of an organization of manufacturers in his area, called the Alliance for Technology Education in Applied Math and Science (ATEAMS). Initially, the organization sponsored tours for students to visit the area’s manufacturing companies with the hope it would attract them to working in the manufacturing industry. After a short time, the organization realized that instead of giving tours to students, it was more effective to give tours to local high school teachers who could then promote careers in manufacturing to the students. Prior to COVID-19, the program had become so popular it had a waiting list. Bill says most of the teachers have never been inside a manufacturing facility before, so they often are amazed when they get tours of state of the art shops like his. I asked Bill if guidance counselors also come on the tours. He said unfortunately most of them have not been receptive to promoting careers in manufacturing but he hopes that will change one day. Bill said one of his employees who surprised him the most was a middle-aged woman who prior to working at Cox Manufacturing had spent many years in the health care field. She started at the company deburring and inspecting parts but then applied to its apprenticeship program. He said the company was hesitant to hire her because in the past they have not had the most success hiring people trained in other fields, but she persisted, so the company gave her a shot. As an apprentice she excelled and progressed much faster than a lot of her younger male peers. In 90 days she was setting up CNC machines.  Bill remains wary of people already making good money in other careers who apply to work at his company. In the past, the company invested in several employees who stayed there a little while, but left when more lucrative opportunities became available. Cox Manufacturing has a policy of not admitting candidates to its apprenticeship program if they are fully trained in a field where they can make more money and jobs are available. The aerospace industry often has a lot of layoffs, so in the past, aircraft mechanics came to work at Cox Manufacturing but then left when their more lucrative previous jobs again became available. The company has had similar experiences with employees who previously worked in the oil industry.  Bill’s advice for manufacturing companies who want to build their workforce is to think about their long term future. He says companies should develop in-house training programs and start recruiting young people even when they don’t need new employees. They should not hire employees out of desperation who are not compatible with a long term success strategy. As I do with many guests, I asked Bill what he thinks of when hears the word “happiness.” He told me happiness means fulfilling one’s God given purpose, which is why when his company hires a person it tries to make sure the job is aligned with who they are and who they are designed to be. Question: How do you make sure employees stay long term?

Unlike the majority of machining companies right now, struggling to find enough skilled people to fulfill demand, Cox Manufacturing in San Antonio, Texas, boasts a continuous pipeline of new talent. In fact, Bill Cox, the company’s owner, says right now the company has a stack of applications for shop apprenticeships, of which he will pick an average of one for every 50 candidates. Cox Manufacturing specializes in producing high volumes of turned parts. I’ve been to his facility several times and can vouch that it’s a treasure trove of some of the best European multi-spindle screw machines, CNC Swiss, and CNC turning centers. The company churns out 1.5 million parts every week, supplying sectors such as aerospace, firearms, defense, automotive and trucking, medical devices, and electronics. Scroll down to read more and listen to the podcast. Or listen on your phone with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite app. Bill’s father, William Cox Sr., started Cox Manufacturing 65 years ago. When he suffered a fatal heart attack when Bill was 12 years old, Bill’s mother took the lead of the company. After Bill attended college for a few years he came back to run the company with his mother. At that time the company had 18 employees, today, 45 years later, it has 185.  Twelve years ago, Cox Manufacturing put together an apprenticeship program that it registered with the Department of Labor. The program is made up of an education curriculum, much of it taken from the online platform Tooling U-SME, along with some proprietary content created by Cox Manufacturing. The other component of the apprenticeship program is “on the job training,” which today people prefer to call “on the job learning” or OJL. Cox Manufacturing’s apprenticeship program spans over three years. Each year the company maps out requirements for the OJL and academic components it chooses from courses offered by Tooling U-SME. The company has implemented software to closely track the apprentices’ skillset progress. Training coordinators and supervisors facilitate the training. Every time employees graduate from a year in the apprenticeship program they get a pay bump and a bonus week of vacation. Apprentices training to run CNC machines start at a wage of $15 per hour, while those training on cam multi-spindles start at $16 an hour. Bill says the company pays apprentices more money to learn cam multi-spindles because the machines are more complicated and less “sexy” than CNC machines. Even with the higher starting wage, it is a challenge for Cox Manufacturing to get people to choose the path of training on the cam machines. Bill says some people try to learn the cam machines but can’t get get the hang of them, yet then they try to work on CNC machines and excel. I asked Bill if the company likes to cross train people to run both cam and CNC machines. He said it is not the company’s normal policy. He likens running different types of machines to playing both the violin and the saxophone. But, he admits, anybody who can run a cam multi-spindle can run a CNC, just not always the opposite.   Apprentice candidates visit Cox Manufacturing three times before they are chosen for the apprenticeship program. They have to take a math test, which many people fail. It consists of 12 questions, including 2-place decimal addition and subtraction, along with three word problems. Candidates are also given an AcuMax Index personality profile to predict if they will work well in the company’s environment. Bill says in as few as 90 days apprentices can do basic setups on a 5-axis Swiss machine. They will know metrology, how to read blue prints, change tools, make offsets, and install tooling. However, 90 days is not enough time for apprentices to learn to set up cam multi-spindles because the machines have no computers to make automatic adjustments and have so many more moving parts.  Bill says that low wages is one contributing factor in young people not choosing manufacturing as a career, but the greatest reason for the shortage of skilled workers in manufacturing is that businesses haven’t invested enough in the development of their workforces. Question: Are cam screw machines sexy or ugly?

Last week another machinery dealer mentioned that being a family business was part of why she wanted to work with us at Graff-Pinkert. I don’t know if that was the deciding factor, but it reminded me that persuasion often happens before you say a word. This concept of convincing someone before you even start making your pitch was coined “pre-suasion,” by bestselling author Robert Cialdini, one of the world’s leading experts on persuasion. I often use his techniques in our machinery business. Some of it just seems magical. (More blog under the video) Check out the video I made breaking down the psychology behind this on my YouTube channel, I Learned It on a Podcast.   The 7 Principles (Restaurant Edition) To understand pre-suasion, it’s important to learn about Robert Cialdini’s seven principles of persuasion—the reasons people say yes. One good way to explain them is through restaurants. Reciprocity: There’s a great breakfast place in Chicago called Lou Mitchell’s, where they give you these great donut holes while you wait. You haven’t even ordered yet, but you already feel good about the place. Scarcity: My local deli, Bergstein’s, only serves chicken soup with kreplach on Thursdays. That makes me crave it way more than if they served it every day. Authority: When the menu says “Chef’s Favorite” or “James Beard Award Winner.” We trust experts’ taste. Consistency: Restaurant rewards cards. Once you start earning points, you keep coming back to stay consistent with what you’ve started. Liking: Good service, friendly staff. When the waiter notices your Cubs hat and says, “Hey, I’m a Cubs fan too.” You want to do business with people you connect with. Social Proof: “Most Popular Item.” If everyone else is ordering it, it’s probably at least pretty good. Unity: This is Cialdini’s newest principle. People want to do business with those they share an identity with. When a place says “Family owned since 1950” with walls full of family photos, it draws other families in. Pre-Suasion in Action According to Cialdini sometimes the most powerful influence happens before a conversation even starts. Researchers ran a study with an online furniture store. Half the customers saw a webpage with fluffy clouds in the background. The other half saw pennies. Same store, same products. The cloud group bought furniture based on comfort. The penny group focused on price. When interviewed afterward, customers had zero awareness that background images had influenced their decisions. Crazy, right? In college, my friend Ryan had the brutal job of calling alumni for donations. But Ryan understood pre-suasion instinctively, so he handled the task quite well. He’d ask alumni what they majored in and ask for advice on his own major choice. By asking for advice, he flipped the script. They went from being victims of a donation call to mentors. Your Setup Matters Before your next important conversation, whether it’s equipment negotiations, customer meetings, or personal conversations, think about the setup. If you’re designing a presentation or website, pay attention to the cues you’re showing. A single image or phrase can shape someone’s entire decision. That’s why I added “Family owned since 1941” to the top of our redesigned Graff-Pinkert website. Before meeting with someone, do your homework. Figure out what they value, what they care about, and bring that into the conversation before you even make your pitch. And a nice counterintuitive move: instead of trying to be helpful, flip it. Ask the other person for advice. You’ll be amazed how much that changes the dynamic. Question: What’s the weirdest thing that’s influenced a customer’s decision in your business?

On today’s podcast, we interviewed Aneesa Muthana, owner of Pioneer Service Inc., a CNC machine shop that features 26 Star CNC Swiss lathes. Aneesa shared her fond memories of being raised on the floor of a centerless grinding shop, M&M Quality Grinding, founded by her Yemeni immigrant parents. While other girls were playing with Barbie dolls, Aneesa relished learning to use micrometers and cleaning out oil tanks from Cincinnati centerless grinders. At 23 she left M&M, where she had once thought she would stay forever, and bought into Pioneer Service Inc. a Brown & Sharpe shop owned by her uncle. Aneesa shared her views on a number of topics, including how women are treated in the machining industry, her preference to work with Star CNC Swiss lathes over Samsung and Brown & Sharpe machines, and the significance of the hijab she wears. Question: Is being a woman in the machining industry an advantage or disadvantage?

Today I’m going to tell you how to get lucky. It seems like some people are always in the right place at the right time getting all the lucky breaks, while the rest of us watch from the sidelines. I often feel like I’m in that sideline category too. But as used machinery dealers, our business is fueled by luck, or as I like to call it, serendipity. So I’ve spent years figuring out how to make luck happen more often. (Blog continues below video) ************* Listen on your favorite podcast app using pod.link.     .   View the podcast at the bottom of this post or on our YouTube Channel. Follow us on Social and never miss an update! Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/swarfcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/swarfcast/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/todays-machining-world Twitter: https://twitter.com/tmwswarfblog ************* Link to Graff-Pinkert’s Acquisitions and Sales promotion! *************   Check out the video I made breaking down the whole story on my YouTube channel, I Learned It on a Podcast. Back in 2021, I was feeling sort of stuck. It wouldn’t be accurate to say I felt down on my luck, but it didn’t feel like I was getting the lucky break I needed either. Then one morning on my drive to work, I heard Christian Busch on The Next Big Idea podcast talking about his book The Serendipity Mindset. Here was a UCLA business professor explaining that luck isn’t random. It’s something you can actively create. Busch says serendipity is about seeing something in the unexpected and then doing something with it, turning it into positive outcomes. I was fascinated, but I was also excited that maybe this was the answer to being luckier, to getting more luck. I sent him an email asking if he would come on Swarfcast. He said yes. That conversation became one of my favorite episodes. But I didn’t realize at the time that the email itself was what Busch calls a “serendipity bomb.” Serendipity Bombs A serendipity bomb means casting a wide net instead of obsessing over one prospect. When I have an INDEX MS22-8 or a Doosan twin-spindle to sell, we try to contact lots of people who might be interested, even long shots. Most won’t respond, but we only need one buyer. Some people call this playing a numbers game, but lucky people do this all the time. It’s like throwing a Hail Mary. You only get the catch because you put the ball in the air. Serendipity and Creativity It was only a matter of time before I made an I Learned It on a Podcast episode about the podcast that introduced me to serendipity. For those new here, I Learned It on a Podcast is my YouTube show where I break down the best insights I find while listening to way too many podcasts. This concept has shaped how I approach business, relationships, and creative projects. So here’s the season finale, honestly, the episode I’ve been building toward since I started this show. In his book, Busch quotes Louis Pasteur: “Chance favors only the prepared mind.” That’s the key to creative serendipity: being prepared to see potential in accidents and unexpected combinations. This whole show exists because dots connected over time. Last August, feeling stale, my life coach Ginny suggested I get on YouTube. The I Learned It on a Podcast idea had been rattling around for years. I couldn’t find a co-host, so I made the first video on my own. Then I discovered AI could help write scripts, and my editor became a creative partner. All these separate elements connected into something I couldn’t have imagined a year ago. Six weeks ago, shooting late and struggling with camera framing, I stumbled upon a video about creators making short, unpolished videos several days a week. I thought to myself, “I could make short raw videos about serendipity, and hopefully it wouldn’t take all my free time.” So that night I shot the first serendipity video. In the end, I’ve realized the biggest luck was discovering Busch’s book in the first place and realizing that not only could I become a good practitioner of serendipity, I liked telling others about it too. Next time you listen to a podcast or read something or have a conversation where you learn something that could be important, be mindful. Think about it at the end of the day and write it down. Ask yourself: could this thing I learned today change my life, at least a little? If you believe it could, take action. Try using what you learned. Will there be another season of I Learned It on a Podcast? I hope so down the line. We’ll see where the dots lead me. But for now, I’m launching a new series soon. I think I’m going to call it Serendipity Diary. That’s just what my nudge is telling me. Question: What was a lucky moment that had a significant effect on your life?

My guest on today’s show is Kris Fugate, President of Revolution Machine Works, a prominent rotary transfer machine rebuilder, specializing in Hydromats. Hydromats can seem strange and overwhelming to those unfamiliar with them. Some say they their circular shape with 12 or 16 work stations reminds them of a UFO, and the machines can crank out complex turned parts like nothing else out there. ************* Listen on your favorite podcast app using pod.link.     .   View the podcast at the bottom of this post or on our YouTube Channel. Follow us on Social and never miss an update! Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/swarfcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/swarfcast/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/todays-machining-world Twitter: https://twitter.com/tmwswarfblog ************* Link to Graff-Pinkert’s Acquisitions and Sales promotion! ************* Interview Highlights How Rotary Transfers Work Kris started the interview explaining how rotary transfer machines, particularly Hydromats, function and why they are such unique productive machines. How is it possible that parts which require several multi-spindle screw machines, or have cycle times of 2 minutes on a CNC lathe, can run complete on a Hydromat in 20 seconds? Most Hydromats are configured in a rotary dial-like shape. Unlike on a screw machine, in which the bar of material rotates and the tools are stationary, on a Hydromat the bar remains stationary and the tools rotate. Each station (unit) of the transfer machine functions like a CNC lathe or CNC mill. Units can do work such as turning, threading, milling etc. Each station machines one operation and then transfers the part to the next station for the next operation.  Advantages of Hydromats over other Turning Machines Hydromats have individual feeds and speeds in each station, so they aren’t held captive to the slowest operation, such as on an Acme-Gridley or other traditional multi-spindle screw machine. They usually come equipped with an inverting unit, which removes a part from a collet, rotates it and places it back in the collet so it can be machined from the other side. This feature makes Hydromats ideal for machining double sided fittings.  Unlike a lot of other rotary transfer machines, which are set up with the stations vertically arranged in the trunnion style that resembles a Ferris wheel, most Hydromats are set up horizontally, more like a carousel. This enables modular units that can be easily swapped, making easy, quick changeovers.  Also, Hydromats are designed with a hirth ring coupling, which enables them to maintain tight tolerances part after part.  Revolution Machine Works Kris’s company, Revolution Machine Works, services and sells refurbished and rebuilt turnkey Hydromats, and also supplies Hydromat spare parts. They often do entire overhauls on the machines, stripping them down to the casting. They rebuild units, and equip the machines with new Fanuc controls. While the Hydromats that Revolution provides are the non-CNC hydraulic generation, the company sometimes equips the machines with individual CNC units made by the Italian rotary transfer machine company DM2. Revolution Machine Works also distributes new DM2 machines in the U.S. Hydromats are Tough Business Since I went into the used machinery business over a decade ago, I’ve spent a lot of time learning about Hydromat rotary transfer machines. I’ve traveled to Germany, Italy, Switzerland and Norway to find them because you can make a nice buck if you find the right customer. Still, it’s always seemed like we had to have 10 interested customers to sell one Hydromat. It can get frustrating watching the machines sit in the Graff-Pinkert warehouse for years. Why do customers hesitate to buy these machines that can crank out great parts by the millions. Perhaps its because they often cost a few hundred thousand dollars, and then a bunch more money to set up. Kris could relate to my experience. A rebuilt, turnkey Hydromat, has double or triple the price tag of one that Graff-Pinkert would sell, and the customers expect considerable service.  In the interview, Kris pointed out a lot of the other challenges Hydromat customers face. The machines take up a lot of floor space—perhaps large enough to fit three CNC machines. They require at least one expert to keep them running correctly, and it can take six months to a year to train a Hydromat operator. Kris says he and colleagues often joke that they picked the hardest way to make money. We both agreed that it’s much easier to sell a Hydromat to someone who already has them. They have units on the shelf, expertise, comfort, and enough work for the machines.  Yet Kris says his work is most rewarding when he is able to get a new client into the Hydromat business. A Hydromat can be a game changer for a company in the high volume parts business, yet a purchase comes with significant risk. Years ago, he ran Hydromats in his family’s machining company D & S Machine Pts. He says he can still remember how it felt when the company paid over a million dollars to buy its first new Hydromat, its biggest capital investment at the time. I can tell that being able to put himself in the shoes of his customers is helpful for Kris to sell machines, but more importantly, it’s clear that it gives him a sense of purpose. Question: Do you prefer to buy, used, rebuilt, or brand new machine tools?

What if I told you there’s a tool that can look at a photo of your weld and tell you exactly what you screwed up. The tool could also help you figure out that your machining problem isn’t your end mill, it’s actually your coolant, and it costs less than hiring one person? On today’s show, I’m talking with Adam Marsh, president of Ledge Inc, who calls his company an “AI integrator” for manufacturing companies. Think robot integrator, but for artificial intelligence. His company provides tools that can analyze photos for quality issues, plan purchasing schedules, and analyze where your leadership team is wasting time. We’re exploring how manufacturers can move beyond having “one guy using ChatGPT to rewrite emails” to actually deploying AI to transform their operations. ************* Listen on your favorite podcast app using pod.link.     .   View the podcast at the bottom of this post or on our YouTube Channel. Follow us on Social and never miss an update! Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/swarfcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/swarfcast/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/todays-machining-world Twitter: https://twitter.com/tmwswarfblog ************* Link to Graff-Pinkert’s Acquisitions and Sales promotion! ************* Interview Highlights From ISO Consultant to AI Integrator Ledge Inc has been a quality and management consulting firm for years, with Adam’s team of 10 industrial engineers providing ISO 9001 and AS 9100 services to over 300 manufacturers. But Adam’s personal interest in AI tools led to something bigger. “I was using it pretty heavily personally, and we were looking for how can we build these tools and build safe tools that we can actually deploy to our customers,” Adam explains. After years of seeing the same problems at manufacturer after manufacturer, he could build AI solutions for those recurring pain points. Now Ledge Inc offers both traditional consulting and AI integration, providing companies with secure platforms that give entire teams access to multiple AI models without the security risks of personal accounts. Real Tools, Real Training, Real Solutions For about $10,000 a year, companies can give 20 people access to secure AI tools across 49 different models. But the platform is only part of the solution. Ledge Inc provides both in-person and online training to help teams actually use these tools effectively. “We’re providing both types of training for folks. A lot of it is just how can I get my team comfortable with it so they can start to use it,” Adam explains. The training focuses on helping people see use cases within their own operations rather than just showing them features. The tools themselves solve real manufacturing problems: Adam’s weld inspection tool came from a beautiful moment of serendipity—of course I had to mention that. When either he or his dad broke his tractor (he’s still not sure which), Adam needed to weld it back together. He bought a $150 welder on Amazon, convinced his wife this was his chance to practice, and went to work on the steel bracket. After welding it back together, he took a photo and asked AI how well he did. It told him to immediately rework the weld and explained exactly what he’d done wrong. “I was like, you know what? My customers could be interested in an (AI) tool like this.” What started as a personal frustration became a business solution that lets shops upload weld photos and procedures for detailed feedback. His PPAP expert tool works similarly. “My goal is first pass on your first article and PPAP documentation. When you submit that to the customer, it passes the first time.” The AI reviews all documents before submission, catching everything from spelling mistakes to missing requirements. Other tools include contract review, material certificate verification, and purchasing planning that optimizes inventory levels and delivery timing. The Security Reality A recent study found that 4% of ChatGPT prompts contained confidential information. Employees are using personal AI accounts, potentially feeding company data into systems that learn from every interaction. Adam’s platform solves this by providing secure AI that doesn’t retain data. “I want to run a query, get an answer and get out. I don’t want it to take that data back to ChatGPT and train its model.” Making People Better, Not Replacing Them Adam’s philosophy is clear: “I’m not trying to eliminate them. I’m trying to make you faster, smarter, better.” That said, Adam and I both agreed that AI tools are threatening jobs. The rookie lawyer who checks hairy documents for abnormalities, the analyst who starts at a finance firm proofreading documents—those are already marginalized. AI is coming for the IT guy who troubleshoots people’s annoying computer issues. I marvel at all the problems I have solved on my PC, smartphone and email that would have tortured me for hours to figure out or wait for help. The Adoption Challenge Adam’s message is straightforward: this technology is spreading faster than anything we’ve seen before. “It took ChatGPT two months [to reach 100 million users]. The internet took 10 years.” But many manufacturers are stuck at the basic level rather than deploying AI strategically across operations. The companies that start experimenting now with proper tools and security will have a significant advantage. “This will hit everybody in the company, everybody from marketing to purchasing to receiving,” Adam explains. “When you look at the investment, your ROI is just through the roof.” Question: What task in your work do you wish you had AI to do for you? To assist you with?

Are you vaccinated against the Virus?  Is your computer system prepared for the inevitable attack? Today’s podcast discusses the scary reality that manufacturers are the number one target of cyber attacks around the globe. Manufacturing companies are at risk for ransomware and intellectual property theft. It’s even possible for hackers to take control of a factory’s machine tools remotely. I interviewed Drew Phillips, senior systems integration engineer at MxD (Manufacturing x Digital), a company that helps US manufacturers secure their facilities from cyber attacks. Scroll down to read more and listen to the podcast. Or listen on your phone with Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite app.     Follow us on Social and never miss an update! Facebook: https://lnkd.in/dB_nzFzt Instagram: https://lnkd.in/dcxjzVyw Twitter: https://lnkd.in/dDyT-c9h Main Points Hacking Methods In 2019, manufacturing was the 10th largest industry targeted by hackers worldwide, but in just three years it has become the number one target. Today it is easier to steal intellectual property than ever before because all of our sensitive information is located on central computers.  Often hackers use ransomware, with which they hold intellectual property hostage in exchange for money.  Even if a manufacturer is not hacked, it can still be harmed if another company in its supply chain is hacked. This makes manufacturing companies vulnerable and attractive targets for hackers. One of the most famous ransomware hacks was the WannaCry hack in 2017, originating in North Korea. It spread to 150 countries around the world, infecting more than 200,000 computers and stopping production at Nissan in England for several days. Hackers can control a shop’s machine tools remotely The most notorious example of a of hack taking control of a machine tool is known as Stuxnet. In 2010, a malicious computer worm, allegedly created by the United States and Israel, attacked Iranian nuclear centrifuges, causing them to tear themselves apart. Many people say this was the first known example of a hack specifically designed to take control of machine tool PLCs.  Drew says that the code for the worm still remains on the dark web. Cyber criminals could employ it or some other hack to take control of CNC machines anywhere in the world. Methods Hackers Employ Often Hackers use phishing attacks, such as getting people to open malicious links in emails, which then trick them into entering passwords. There are a myriad of other ways that hackers employ to steal passwords or entice computer users to accidentally download malicious files that can infect an entire network. Hackers even leave thumb drives containing viruses in parking lots, hoping people will pick them up and plug them into their computers.  Cybersecurity Best Practices Official best practices in cybersecurity is known as NIST, National Institute of Standards and Technology. NIST has a cybersecurity framework with five tenants; identify, protect, detect, respond, and recover.  Identifying is essential because you can’t protect what is on a system if you don’t know what is there in the first place.  It’s very difficult to detect a cyber attack, which magnifies its danger. The World Economic Forum’s 2020 global risk report said that the rate of detection of an attack was .05% in the US—only 5 of 10,000 cyber attack cases detected. MxD’s Assistance for Companies  MxD shares best practices that its own facility has implemented. It provides manufacturing companies with a questionnaire so companies can evaluate their cybersecurity standards. It also has a cybersecurity marketplace, in which it advises companies where to get cybersecurity solutions. Drew Phillips says MxD’s mission is to help  manufacturing companies improve and innovate in their operations.  The organization is dedicated to educating manufacturers about their return on investment in cybersecurity because being hacked is not a matter of if, but a matter of when—when cyber criminals find one moment of weakness Check out MxD’s booth at IMTS 2022, or go to their website to learn more. Question: How have you taken steps to defend your company against cyber attacks?

I highly recommend you watch the video version of this podcast. Click on the link to go to the video. I won a few big matches on my high school Tennis team, but I was never awesome. I never won the big tournaments. What killed me was that I always had more fun and played better in practice than in big matches when pressure made my muscles tight. For the last few months, I’ve been fascinated by a discovery a tennis pro made 50 years ago that’s revolutionizing how people perform under pressure. It started when I listened to “The Coach in Your Head,” an episode from Michael Lewis’s “Against the Rules” podcast. Check out the video I made breaking down the whole story on my YouTube channel, I Learned It on a Podcast.   We all experience this. Job interviews, presentations, equipment demonstrations. We “play tight” when stakes are high, performing worse at the very things we’ve trained for. Tim Gallwey figured out why this happens. In 1974, he published The Inner Game of Tennis, decades before today’s coaching boom. Like me, he was skilled but didn’t perform his best when it mattered most. While teaching tennis at a country club during summer break, he had a profound realization. Instead of giving a student technical instructions for hitting topspin, Gallwey stayed quiet and just tossed balls for 3-4 minutes. Suddenly, the guy was hitting perfect topspin shots. His next lesson, he told a complete beginner to shut her eyes and see herself hitting the ball. She executed perfectly, naturally doing everything he would have taught her. His realization was simple. Performance isn’t about more instruction. It’s about eliminating mental interference. This method became known as mind coaching. It helps people notice when thoughts create tension and worry, then redirects focus to what’s actually useful. Michael Lewis’s daughter Dixie, a competitive softball player, worked with a mind coach who transformed her brutal self-talk from “don’t screw up” to “loose and aggressive.” When she focused on that positive phrase, her muscles could work instead of being locked up by tension. I’ve started trying to apply the “loose and aggressive” mindset in my daily life. I think about it in my morning routines, content creation, and business negotiations. Recently, teaching my 3-year-old to throw a frisbee, instead of explaining technique, I demonstrated it to him a few times and said “just watch and do it.” In minutes he was doing it–of course in his own way with two hands, but he was really doing it, probably better than if I’d verbally instructed him Today mind coaches work with firefighters developing mental routines for emergencies, executives learning to compete rather than just manage. Perhaps this week, try to feel where you are playing tight. Maybe you’ll notice you’re so focused on not failing that you can’t access what you actually know. Or, if you’re coaching other people, you might ask what they noticed instead of listing what they did wrong. The big puzzle I find is to not let yourself get tight about trying to be loose. It just creates more of the same problem. Question: Do you perform well under pressure? What is your secret?