Episode #52: From Pilot Purgatory to Digital Transformation: AI in Manufacturing, with Bryce Carpenter of Conexus Indiana
U.S. Manufacturing Today features Bryce Carpenter, Chief Operating and Strategy Officer at Conexus Indiana, discussing why AI and automation efforts in manufacturing often stall at pilots and how to scale them into operational results. Carpenter explains Conexus as an industry-led nonprofit working with 130 Indiana manufacturers and public and education leaders to accelerate solutions by aligning stakeholders early. He argues adoption fails when companies lead with technology instead of clear problem statements and when cultural buy-in and workforce communication are missing, fueling fears of job loss. He notes small and midsize manufacturers can have advantages due to low AI cost barriers and fewer data-standardization challenges, but many lack connected equipment and usable data. Conexus is launching Industry Exchange Workshops and building an AI use-case inventory to improve ROI confidence. The episode also highlights flexible labor models, faster micro-trainings, and technology’s role in boosting U.S. competitiveness amid reshoring and tariffs.
Links
- Conexus Indiana
- Bryce Carpenter on LinkedIn
- Veryable Is Revitalizing U.S. Manufacturing
- Sign Up on the Veryable Platform
Timestamps
- 00:00 AI Adoption Reality Check
- 01:12 Meet Bryce Carpenter
- 02:26 What Conexus Does
- 03:34 Ecosystem Bridge Building
- 06:54 Escaping Pilot Purgatory
- 10:44 SMB Edge in AI
- 13:15 Roadmap and Grants Lessons
- 15:46 Automation Upskilling Workers
- 19:19 Training and Talent Access
- 22:46 Flexible Labor Partnerships
- 24:27 Data Foundations for AI
- 28:27 Market Maturity and ROI
- 33:36 Reshoring and Competitiveness
- 36:00 Resources and Wrap Up
- 37:18 Final Takeaways and CTA
Episode Transcript
Matt Horine: [00:00:00] Welcome to US Manufacturing Today, the podcast powered by variable, where we talk with the leaders, innovators, and change makers, shaping the future of American industry, along with providing regular updates on the state of manufacturing, the changing landscape policies and more.
Today's episode, tackles one of the most talked about and often most misunderstood topics in manufacturing right now, which is AI and automation adoption. There's no shortage of. Pilots, proofs of concept and experimentation happening across the industry, but far fewer companies are successfully turning those efforts into real scalable operational results.
Our guest today has had a front row seat to that challenge. Bryce Carpenter is the Chief Operating and Strategy Officer at Conexus Indiana, where he works across manufacturers, educators, and public sector leaders to help companies adopt new technologies and strengthen their workforce. Price brings a unique perspective, especially into how small and midsize manufacturers are navigating AI automation and digital transformation, where the opportunities are real, but so are the barriers.
We'll [00:01:00] talk about how partnerships, including innovative models are helping manufacturers bridge the gap between experimentation and execution. Bryce, welcome to US Manufacturing today.
Bryce Carpenter: Well, thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Matt Horine: We're excited to have you on, and we'll just jump straight into it.
We'd love to learn more about your background and share that with our listeners. Can you start by sharing, you know, how you, how long you've been with Conexus, and what led you into manufacturing and economic development?
Bryce Carpenter: Absolutely. I joined Conexus in 2016, kind of the beginning of that year and always had a passion, believe it or not, for the logistics side of things, and had long dedicated work history in, in with the Indiana Department of Transportation and other logistics adjacent organizations, and knew of Conexus, Indiana and, and the work and the mission and believed very strongly in it.
Had a, a good friend that worked there as well and I was switching careers at that at that time. And, you know, part of being with a nonprofit is fundraising. We, we, we know that, we love that. We accept it. And that was kind of my [00:02:00] transferable skill was I actually brought the fundraising side from my previous work into the role at Conexus and then have spent the last 10 years sort of head down learning as much as possible, learning from our partner companies, um, learning from elected officials and policy makers about all of the dynamics behind what makes advanced manufacturing and logistics such a powerful force for the state of Indiana?
Matt Horine: It certainly is, and it's, you know, right there in the heartland in the Midwest. And just for the benefit of our listeners, you know, what is Conexus Indiana and what role does it play in supporting those manufacturers across the state?
Bryce Carpenter: We're a very unique organization 'cause we, it, we throw a couple terms that are consistent, usually considered as in opposition to one another. Uh, we're an industry led nonprofit right there. Makes us unique. We are part of the CEOs of Indiana Corporate Partnership, which is an umbrella organization that covers the state.
Our focus, as you've mentioned, is advanced manufacturing and logistics, but we are effective because of our industry partners. [00:03:00] We have worked with 130 industry organizations, small, medium, large, throughout the state. Everything from. Cummins, Eli Lilly sort of world leading manufacturers to just as important second, third generation small family businesses that have been passed down from one generation to the next, um, that are very much empowering companies like a Cummins in order to be successful here in the state.
Matt Horine: Yeah, you're absolutely spot on with that. I mean, the small, medium size manufacturers or the backbone of the economy and certainly played their role in, in helping all those larger ones do their work. You mentioned that you work across industry education, public sector leaders. How does that vantage point, shape your understanding of the challenges manufacturers are shape or facing today?
And you know, primarily we hear a lot about that on, on the public policy side. You've got a pretty unique vantage point.
Bryce Carpenter: We have a, a front row seat for sure in how complicated all of it is. And I think what makes it challenging for us is what also positions [00:04:00] us to be uniquely successful is a lot of organizations can bring together a group and work through what that organization or that group of people needs in order to be successful.
Take that to the other parties involved and then begin to see where the challenges arise. What makes our organization unique is that we have, you know, superintendent of public education. We have the Secretary of Commerce, we have the presidents of these companies all working together at the same time to help accelerate that process.
So we're not coming up with a solution that has 15 roadblocks that we don't even know about yet. We're going to find out later. So that's, that's the unique value proposition of our organization is by bringing everybody together from the beginning. We're able to work through improvements, processes, opportunities, challenges a lot more quickly.
Matt Horine: Yeah. That really does help bring it all together. I, you know, we've had some recent guests on this show that have talked about some of these elements, right. [00:05:00] That you see at the state level and at the national level. They were talking about meps, manufacturing extension partnerships. And other organizations navigating the, the environment we're in and where sentiment converts to action.
How has Conexus built that bridge? And, you know, full disclosure, our organizations have partnered before, but feel like that could provide some context on how this looks in action.
Bryce Carpenter: Yeah. Again, we, you know, Conexus the name, right? Like our, our challenge and our value proposition is to bring all of these organizations together.
You, you mentioned an MEP, an MEP is a very crucial step in the process. For a company who may not be able to afford, maybe not want to go out and hire a consultant or bring that expertise in house, right? Like it's incredibly important for a small manufac, small to mid-size manufacturer to be able to go to the MEP and say, okay, here are my challenges.
What are the solutions? How do I integrate this into my facilities? I viewed specific to that example, I view Conexus role is impressing [00:06:00] upon the companies the importance and the opportunity of digital adoption so that they may then go to an MEP for that next level of expertise. Right. Is we have a, we have a role in saying, okay, A ML is the driving force for the economy in the state.
Here are the opportunities, here are the headwinds it faces, here's how you overcome those headwinds. And then there are key actors throughout the ecosystem that are able to, you know, sort of work with those companies and then take them to the next step. And the MEP is, is a crucial member of that value chain.
Matt Horine: It's really well defined because I think a lot of people hear these names and then bringing it all together makes a lot of sense just because most don't know where to start. Most are actually just really good at their jobs, right? They own their firm, but they want to grow. Growth is always top of mind in this environment, margin compression, those types of things.
But you did hit on something really interesting there. You're talking about how to adopt technology, and that's a nice transition to, you know, this part of the show where we [00:07:00] can talk about that a little more. There's a lot of excitement around artificial intelligence and automation. But many companies struggle to move beyond pilots, and you have a great phrase for it.
Why does adoption seem to stall on these kinds of endeavors?
Bryce Carpenter: There are a number of things, but they usually tie back to companies that lead with technology, not with problems. You, you said it before, like these, these companies are just really good at what they do and they and many times are doing a digital adoption and AI project in addition to their daily work.
And when it becomes, uh, nice to have or something that can be easily abandoned when order volumes get up or there's downtime on a machine, it has to be addressing a crucial challenge within the organization in order to have. The resources, the, the, the commitment throughout the organization to make it successful.
So that's where a lot of companies we see get stuck is they go after a [00:08:00] technology that they think is neat. They think it's promising. It worked for a buddy of theirs. You know, they had a consultant that introduced it, but they're not tying that technology back to that core problem. So their attention inevitably shifts back to solving the core problem.
And then the Ai, the digital adoption project, it was nice to have gets abandoned and then you get into this purgatory cycle.
Matt Horine: You know, we talked about that a little bit, you know, just prior to this show, the concept of pilot purgatory, which, you know, if, if we, you know, as a, as somebody who's operated in manufacturing as somebody who's worked on solutions for manufacturers, it's a very common problem.
How often do you see manufacturers really get stuck in it? Not just with artificial intelligence, which is, you know, kind of the, the most recent thing to happen, but just general technology adoption and are these challenges more technical, organizational, cultural? What's your perspective on that?
Bryce Carpenter: We see it happen quite often, and I would say it ties back to the cultural side, right?
Like it's [00:09:00] the acquisition of a machine and the lack of. Commitment to it causes a lot of problems, and it just becomes this thing that's over in the corner collecting dust. When these projects work the best, you see a company with a clear problem statement, a clear connection, okay, here's the problem.
Here is the technology, that's the solution, and then how are we going to empower the team members at all levels of the organization to either understand the value of this investment, to approve the value, you know, to approve the resources to make the investment. And then are we doing the work culturally so that the current employees, right.
Don't get scared by, okay, are this company is now going to invest in digital technologies, automation, ai, and all of a sudden they're gonna go from a well-staffed organization to, to a lights out facility that's just machines running, right? Like there is, there are, there's that leap that team members make.
So it's [00:10:00] important. That the companies talk about how it, how whatever the investment is, is strategically aligned to company growth, into empowering and enabling the team members that are in these facilities to grow within their roles and to get new skills.
Matt Horine: That's a really well said statement because I think what we've seen time and again is that specifically with artificial intelligence, we're seeing it build skill sets and increase productivity around the worker rather than replace the worker.
And it's very easy to, you know, fear that at the outset of anything. But I mean, we've been through enough of these cycles now where, you know, outside of just like straight up outsourcing and labor arbitrage, these things don't tend to happen the way that that. You know, people think they do. You did hit on something really interesting there, and you've worked with a lot of different size organizations in the state of Indiana.
It's always interesting to me because larger companies have the, the quote, you know, resources to bring on technology and you think they might be fast and loose with it, or they [00:11:00] may be really good at driving that, that adoption. Smaller mid-size manufacturers often have the drive in the initiative because they're purchasing something really big or they are investing in something, so there's a lot of ownership.
Do you think that smaller or mid-size manufacturers are at some kind of disadvantage, or do they actually have some advantages to the adoption process?
Bryce Carpenter: I think they have a lot of advantages, and the nice thing about AI versus a piece of machinery is the barrier to entry from a financial resources perspective is very low.
I mean, we have seen one of the companies that is on our advanced industry council, they had a production scheduling problem. They wanted to make their goods more efficiently. They got a $20 subscription to chat GPT and had it rebuild their production scheduling process and have saved thousands and thousands of dollars and optimized the process.
So the barrier to entry is so low that, again, that was their problem. And yes, large companies, they have tremendous resources. They have [00:12:00] tremendous expertise in an organization like Conexus benefits because the AI experts, the digital adoption experts from Cummins share their knowledge with. Our small to mid-size manufacturing partners.
But what small to midsize companies don't have is the challenge of standard standardizing data amongst a global footprint of hundreds and hundreds of facilities, right? Integrating legacy systems that have been built in, in, in operation for 70 years at different stages across like global footprint. So, you know, large companies will, will really struggle with data cleanliness, data standardization, small companies will.
Struggle with getting started, feeling confidence in making the investment, but the financial barrier should be not a barrier at all when especially considering ai.
Matt Horine: Yeah, I think that's really been the experience of most over the past couple of years. I saw a great, you know, joke online about [00:13:00] four years ago.
You know, it was doing your homework for you, you know, or helping you do your homework, and now it's moved into the workforce. But people are really finding ways to harness AI and basically to say, you know, make no mistakes as you enter in a new prompter or do those types of things. I do think that the, the practical roadmap here for this type of adoption, when the, when a manufacturer is evaluating it, or when you've seen manufacturers evaluate this type of technology, automation, analytics, labor platforms like variable, what should the decision making process look like?
You know, and I think we stick to probably small, medium sized manufacturers because they're, they're the ones looking for, for that kind of process and plan out there.
Bryce Carpenter: Yeah. And the, the decision making process, you know, this conversation's well time, because one of the things as Conexus. Looked at its strategy, um, going into 2026.
It had historically, alongside the state of Indiana, we had run something called the Manufacturing Readiness Grants Program. And that was a really great program and what it did. Does it help companies with a [00:14:00] matching grant acquire digital technology? And it was very important. 'cause there's a, there's a subset of manufacturers that would not be able to make investments into technology, but for funding assistance.
But what we took a step back is that program didn't continue. What we learned is there's a larger. Percentage of manufacturers that have the resources but don't have the confidence, don't have the ROI information, don't have the long-term roadmap of if I pick this piece of equipment, what is it gonna do?
Three problems from now, you know, it's called vendor lock-in, right? Like am I choosing a manufacturer that has a diverse enough portfolio that I won't end up with one machine that can't talk to the other machine? So. The process, you know, for a small to mid-size manufacturer is, and we're gonna, we are going to begin at the end of the month hosting these called the Industry Exchange Workshops.
The first of which is focused on how to start your digital adoption journey. And it's really helping companies understand, define the problem, define the root causes, and then work [00:15:00] through the decision making matrix to make sure that you are looking both. Short term towards fixing your problem, but also towards the long-term strategy of, okay, this first digital adoption investment's going to be successful.
So what's the fifth? The seventh, the ninth. How do you have a plan to modernize your operations so that when you're making the decision on where to make this first investment, you have clear long-term line of sight for the full. Digital adoption strategy,
Matt Horine: that's a really important point, that full line of sight because people often, you know, as you've seen and as you've described, adopt technology and the, you know, the technology gets shelved because it didn't accomplish what it was set out to do, or it does something completely different that maybe, you know, was outside of the original intent.
I think that brings some focus, you know, especially to another part of what Conexus works on with workforce automation, job evolution, the automation, upgrading roles and upgrading workforce. Versus [00:16:00] eliminating them is a very timely talk topic is there's still that perception out there. What are you seeing in reality? And especially in Indiana?
Bryce Carpenter: In Indiana, you know, the, that perception is still out there. It's, it's out there hanging alongside the perception that manufacturing is, the manufacturing from the fifties that's dirty and dark and dangerous. Like there are those manufacturing perceptions that we need to shake.
But we see, and I can't stress this enough, we see the complete opposite. We see manufacturers that are automating low skill, low wage roles, upskilling their employees into higher paying, higher skill roles. Uh, we have one large automaker, and this is a little bit of a dated example, but it, it's still very much what we see consistently.
They had 600 manual welders in the facility. They made the decision to, uh, go into robotic welding. All 600 welders stayed with the automaker. They were upskilled, they translated into new roles. Um, there's a small manufacturer that we [00:17:00] work with who just did their first digital adoption project, and I talked before about, uh, always start with the problem.
This is a little bit of an exception to that, but it's a good, it's a good example nonetheless, is they knew they made it needed to make an investment because of the scarcity of people. So they worked with their team members and they said, what is your least favorite role within our manufacturing operation?
And it was palletizing at the end of the production line. So they made the decision that they were going to automate the palletizing process and moved those people into different roles that were upskilled within their manufacturing operations. So they started with the workforce side of it, which is, okay, what's the.
What's the position that we have the hardest time staffing, and then how do we automate that so that people that we do have access to, that we can bring into the company are in higher skill, higher wage roles. I can't sort of underscore that point enough. Manufacturers are fighting to get people into [00:18:00] these facilities.
They are not looking to jettison anyone based on a digital adoption because they, yes, they might not need that person that was welding, but they have 35 other roles that they need people for. Like one of the reasons that Indiana is such a dominant advanced manufacturing and logistics state. We have a legacy of multiple generations of supporting manufacturing in the workforce.
These people all have critical roles to play regardless of how digitally adopted a company is or isn't.
Matt Horine: That's spot on. I, you know, a number of years ago, I toured the Peterbilt Plant. You know, we can, we can mention them by name and. They'd invested in all kinds of technology. It's a great, you know, factory tour because it's a, you know, it's lean, it's, it's, it's an American name.
You know, Peterbilt, everybody knows him. But something they said really stuck with me there. They said every technology investment they'd ever made and every piece of automation or anything they did never replaced a person. That was never the intent or the design. Or [00:19:00] maybe, you know, if it was, it was to upskill, but everything, that process or.
Or component that it did replace, it moved that person into the next skillset, or it moved them along in their work journey to, to grow with a company. So it's really good to hear that that's validated across the board. I think that there's, you know, a couple of other things that. That stand out on the workforce side, and we, we see it often companies talking about, you know, the people side and the investment and the, from, from that perspective, do you see companies making that investment rather than depending on, you know, government entities or training institutions to provide people?
Or a pipeline rather than, you know, that company investing in building themselves and putting their, their skin in the game on, on building their talent pools. So that's been something we've seen a little bit of divergence. We say, you know, people will say there's a worker shortage. We don't believe there's a worker shortage.
We think it's probably more of an access shortage. But curious to see what your experience has been with that.
Bryce Carpenter: Yeah, and I would say that. Something that's even happened within the last 18 [00:20:00] months is academic institutions have become much more nimble. So we work with Ivy Tech and what Ivy Tech is doing, we work with a number of institutions.
But what Ivy Tech is a great example of is what we're hearing from all our manufacturing manufacturers and logistics providers, is they need upskilling, they need their workers to be trained. You know, for every AI adoption, digital adoption project, there's a manufacturing engineer. It didn't exist before.
So about, okay, for some of these companies, it's about how do you hire this position the first time you've ever hired it? Right? And we see that a lot of times in the logistics side is they make an investment into automation and all of a sudden they're having to hire for this position they've never hired for.
So they don't know how to, to scope for it, to identify key skills to to set the salary. What advanced manufacturing and logistics companies are telling us is they need upskilling, but they need it quicker. This old model of a semester training or a night class, [00:21:00] it doesn't work. The speed at which they're having to move.
So in Ivy Tech and others like that, and I know Purdue has some modules out on ai. It's shorter term sort of micro trainings, five days, seven days. Very flexible. To make sure that these companies can get their workers the skills that they need at the timeline that they need them. So are companies taking more responsibility?
Absolutely. They are taking more control. Um, you're right, it's work or access. There is no magical pipeline. So these companies need to create partnerships. They need to, to provide the skill sets, they need to create the collaboration so that they can get access to the people that they need. And then once they have them, they need to use them in the hot, in the most productive way possible.
Which again, kind of goes back to the misconception around digital adoption, eliminating jobs. It's okay, we have this precious resource of people. How do we use them with, with their greatest impact [00:22:00] on the organization and automation AI can do the other things.
Matt Horine: You hit on a really key point there, because oftentimes the first stumbling block is utilization.
You'll go to a manufacturing plant and you look, you look at a manufacturing plant of 600 welders, average time under the hood for a welder, from what I've heard is like 15 to 25, 15 to 20% of their time. And I, I had a guest tell me that, and I guessed way higher and I was extreme, extremely wrong. You know, so the utilization factor for them is one thing.
And you know, the second there is no magical pipeline. And companies oftentimes, you know, we'll get feedback that says we have this machine, but. They have to know how to use this machine. It's like, well, to a certain degree. I mean, everybody has those types of machines, but they need to learn your process.
And so that fast adoption and fast injection. Curious, you know, on the labor front, just because we've, we've, you know, our organizations have talked before, do you think that flexible labor models and partnerships, including platforms like variable or on-demand labor. Play a role in helping companies validate and scale these [00:23:00] types of investments that they're making in technology.
Bryce Carpenter: Absolutely. And you know, we were, we were touching earlier just kind of on some of the outcomes of the pandemic. Um, manufacturing and logistics providers want to meet people where they are from a workforce perspective, and that's why, you know, taking more of the mo more ownership of it. They're, you know, providing in-house training, right?
They're, they're, they're making these investments in upskilling within the facility. That they normally would not have, but access to people and being flexible in order to, to gain that workforce that these companies rely on, means that they have to be as flexible as possible and platforms like what you're talking about, do a great job.
And again, providing access to people, providing access to skills. And, um, very rarely nowadays do you see a, an HR department with just kind of a one size fits all talent strategy, right? And the these companies that you see are successful is because they're able to optimize all [00:24:00] of these different channels to generate the workforce that they need.
And variables a great example of the ability to access a labor pool. In a sort of unconventional timeline in order to keep manufacturing operations, logistics, operations, moving and growing within the state of Indiana.
Matt Horine: You know, Indiana is one of our, our, our larger markets just because of the, the footprint of manufacturing that you know, so well.
I mean, it's, it's a home to a lot of manufacturers. You know, something else that you did mention and kind of pivoting back to big companies and the data sets. Connecting data equipment, artificial intelligence manufacturers have those things. They're not connected systems. How important is the data infrastructure side in unlocking the real productivity?
And you've, you've worked with some, some pretty big names there in Indiana, but curious how you're seeing that play out?
Bryce Carpenter: The data is critically important, but what we would wanna make sure we impress upon our small to midsize manufacturers is it shouldn't be. Viewed as a roadblock. There are sort of low.
[00:25:00] We've, um, one of the things that Conexus has done as we're getting into these educational workshops, if we've created this AI framework and it's kind of okay for the small to midsize manufacturers, what sort of low cost, low data, and by that we mean the low, you know, on the lower end of the data complexity of collections.
And so there are, are definitely lower costs, lower data need, ways to improve. Your manufacturing and logistics operations through digital adoption and ai. But as you go more enterprise wide, within a large to, in many cases international companies, AI is only as good as the input. Uh, digital adoption of machine is as only as good as the way that it's being utilized.
So. Just as we have seen where some of these digital adoption projects have gone wrong over the years is, you know, they under hire. They undertrained. They understaff, so they therefore don't get the full utilization of the robot, the cobot, the [00:26:00] piece of equipment that they've, that they've purchased. It just becomes something that's gener, you know, only using about 10% of its potential.
AI is a similar way, like, you know, bad data in bad information out, and the complexity again on these. Global large manufacturing and logistics companies, they have, you know, they have similar challenges around cultural and leadership buy-in, but they inevitably have a much longer track record of integrating new technologies and making it work and having it with ingrained within the culture so.
If a Cummins or somebody does an AI project, it's not their first time they've been through this, but what they do have again, is all global manufacturing facilities, different legacy machines, and getting all of that data sort of harmonized so that they can be able to use it in a productive manner. Now, conversely, we talked about earlier about our small to mid-size manufacturers at a disadvantage or in an [00:27:00] advantageous position as it relates to ai.
They don't have this data standardization problem, but what we have to remember and what I, everyone has to sort of keep in mind is they might not have data. So we would be shocked. You know, there's all this conversation around Industry 4.0 as we, you know, there are a lot of small to midsize manufacturers that are at 2.0 and 3.0.
So as they're talking about being able to capture the benefits of ai. They might not have the equipment and the connected machinery in order to fully leverage the power of their data. They might not be collecting it, they might not be standardizing it. They might not be centrally storing it. They might have a lot of data and don't know what any of it means.
So they still have these issues. But that's why, you know, digital adoption equipment is still critical in all of this, because that's where you extracting your data. It's going to be able to be leveraged through AI tools and other, and [00:28:00] other ways to, to improve your operations. It's, yes, there are some examples of low, low barrier data AI solutions, but that's not a digital adoption strategy unto itself, right?
So you have to have the equipment in addition to the AI investments to really transform your operations.
Matt Horine: That does make a lot of sense because there's been a lot of buzz around these types of endeavors and a lot of things that, that people, you know, kind of opine on. But from on the ground, you know, what you've seen in Indiana and maybe, you know, across the country.
Do you see a turn out of this kind of early transition, or are you starting to see some maturity in the market about it? Or where are things kind of standing today versus where they were a year ago?
Bryce Carpenter: So, with respect to ai. One of the things that we're seeing that we're kind of just wrapping our heads around from a programming perspective is small to large companies are really in this kind of experimentation mode.
And we talked about this, you know, we have a board of directors and we had a a, a pretty in-depth [00:29:00] conversation about this is how are companies impressing upon their employees, the opportunities, the importance of ai, and sort of shifting it from, am I gonna get in trouble to using it to, why aren't you using it?
And what a lot of companies are doing is just sort of creating this sandbox and encouraging their employees to try new things and then sort of elevating best practices. And, um, you would, you would think that, especially at the large companies, that'd be sort of a top down strategy of here's the AI strategy, here's how we're going to use it, here's what we can do, here's what we can't.
We're, we're seeing a lot of larger companies where they're saying, okay, like our AI use case of the week, um, somebody's using it to do this. Somebody, you know, it had, it had this benefit. Okay, let's take that and now let's scale it enterprise wide. So I still think we're at the early stages. Companies are still trying to see, and it's not gonna be a one size fits all, like the AI solutions [00:30:00] within HR versus finance versus the manufacturing operation.
Obviously you have less. Flexibility within your manufacturing operation to sort of get into the sandbox and experiment. But most companies are doing something which we're very excited about. 'cause for years, Conexus, we, we harped upon the importance of digital adoption. We needed investing in, in equipment.
And that was hard to get in info return information back. So, okay, these, these informations. We just had our, our conexus, advanced Industries council meeting Q1, and we had a, an in-depth peer led discussion of logistics companies, small manufacturing, global Andersen Hauser was one about how they're all using AI and the, I would say the exciting takeaway is they're all doing something.
A lot of it seems to be helping team members be more productive day in and day out. Larger companies are, you know, taking bigger swings. And then we are seeing a, especially, you know, I mentioned the company that [00:31:00] sort of did the survey and said, okay, palletizing is our least favorite job here. Let's automate that.
There's a logistics company we work with that they book, uh, truckloads. And it's a very manual process. There's a bunch of different databases, so their big AI project is to take the job there where somebody clicked on three different screens all day long, and to simplify it into one sort of load looking portal.
And they've had to work with those employees to say, you are not losing your job. It's just. You're gonna get a better version of it because we're automating some of the manual stuff that you didn't like doing anyway in dealing with all of these disconnected systems. So the takeaway is even the small to mid-size manufacturers, they're all doing something.
They're all experimenting, and that's gonna set us up years down the road where we will have tried and gotten feedback and been able to demonstrate value on a whole swath of AI projects. Companies will be able [00:32:00] to do, and one of the things that we're trying to do within Conexus is because we have this unique vantage point of the 130 companies we work with, we're just inventorying small to mid-size large companies.
What are you doing with AI right now? What's the ambition? What's the solution? What's the technology? What's the expected ROI? We're creating this inventory and then what we'll be able to do is as companies are finishing projects, we'll be able to get better ROI and impact data. And then as they do their next one, what we wanna do is we wanna use this database to help companies understand the art of the possible, and then also identify which projects to prioritize based on need, and then demonstrate an ROI.
'cause the ROI side of it right now is still really hard to demonstrate. So trying to help provide those resources for companies to, again, make more informed decisions. And to make more confident investments.
Matt Horine: That's, I, I think a really critical point is like the confident investments, the confidence seems to have caught up.
People want to do it. It's [00:33:00] shifted from what you said there about, you know, we're getting in trouble for using ai, which is probably like, you know, students in college a couple years ago. Yeah. You are getting in trouble to, if you're not using it, you're making a big mistake because of the real productivity gains.
But measuring those productivity and the ROI on it. I think I saw a survey somewhere, maybe it was on, you know, X or LinkedIn or somewhere that said 95% of AI programs had failed to demonstrate ROI as of yet. Which, you know, if you're working with it in your daily life, it's making a change for you. You know, there's, there's real personal changes that you can, you can measure, but it's, it's difficult to do organizationally.
I think you also hit on something there about the future. We talk a lot in this show about reindustrialization and reshoring and the potential to bring. Um, a lot of critical manufacturing back, but also those small, medium sized businesses that just need the, the space to, to do what they do. And, you know, what gives you optimism right now about the future of American manufacturing?
And do you see this technology adoption fitting into this bigger picture?
Bryce Carpenter: Yeah, I think the timing [00:34:00] of it couldn't be better, right? We, we, we know for a fact and, you know, tariffs, we use the T word tariffs have been very positive for some, and, you know, uh, very challenging for others, but. We are, we are seeing manufacturing coming back to the United States, uh, particularly in the automotive sector.
We have, uh, some tier one and tier two automotive suppliers that are struggling to keep up with the opportunity for new business right now. And what is exciting is whether it's digital technologies, ai, it is going to allow American manufacturing to compete more on cost. Because it is going to improve efficiency.
Right. And that's, that's kind of the name of the game is I think people would have always wanted to keep manufacturing here if the delta between the costs was small enough. And as these US manufacturing operations are able to, to become more efficient, they will be able to compete more on cost and they'll [00:35:00] be able to continue to capture more and more of the reshoring opportunities that are coming back.
'cause the economics, like, you know, I'm not, I'm not an economist, that's, maybe that's a different episode, but like the economics have to work. And in order for these companies to truly turn this in from. From like a, a one-off fad or an opportunity they have to be able to operate more efficiently and investing in technology, investing in ai, whether it's, you know, a chat GPT subscription to help you, uh, optimize your production, scheduling an AI project to figure out how to reduce scrap in a, in a metal smelting operation.
Like all of those things that eliminate, reduce wasted costs. Help American small to midsize manufacturers become more competitive, to continue to bring more and more of the manufacturing back.
Matt Horine: Really well said. And American manufacturing competitiveness is what it's all about and it's an exciting time.
And you're doing, your organization's doing great work in [00:36:00] Indiana. Where can our listeners go to find out more about you, about Conexus and, and get involved?
Bryce Carpenter: Yeah, Conexusindiana.com is our website and we have a great bunch of information and I will encourage folks to say, you know, once we get these educational workshops, I mentioned the industry exchange resources up and running here at the end of the month.
We're going to have all of that information stored on our site, like we're definitely transitioning from Come Learn about Conexus to here are educational resources for small to mid-size manufacturers on how to start their digital adoption journey, how to overcome barriers to integrating AI into their operations.
It's going to be. A, a very big hub of all the educational content that we're able to generate peer information from our partner companies. So we're hoping it becomes much more of like a week to week resource than just sort of a one time. We'll go see what they do and oh, that's nice, and move on. So connects us indiana.com to learn more about the organization, then again, continue to access these [00:37:00] resources.
Matt Horine: That's great. We will be sure to link that in the show comments And, uh, on on socials. Bryce, thank you so much for coming on US manufacturing today.
Bryce Carpenter: Matt, thank you very much for having me. I appreciate what you all are doing, talking about manufacturing and how critical it is and the how it's evolving to meet these times, so thank you.
Matt Horine: One of the clearest takeaways from today's conversation is that technology alone does not transform manufacturing, but as always, execution does. AI, automation and data all have enormous potential, but the companies that win will be the ones that move beyond pilots, align their workforce strategy and build systems that actually deliver results on the shop floor.
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