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Andrea “Andi” Rawl

SC Manufacturers Alliance

Title: Executive Director, SC Automotive Council
Years in the manufacturing industry: 1

How are manufacturers addressing workforce challenges, and what role do you think automation will play in the workforce?
Like many states, South Carolina’s tight labor market has created significant challenges for all types of employers in attracting employees. For manufacturers, this is especially true for higher-skilled occupations such as maintenance, engineering, welding, and production. We’re seeing more manufacturers engaging community resources available through the SC Technical College System, workforce agencies, and the local K-12 school system. At SCMA, our SC Future Makers initiative is proactive in assisting manufacturers in connecting with emerging talent throughout South Carolina. The workforce challenges we’re currently facing will not be solved overnight, so we continue to work diligently to encourage manufacturers to be proactive in their local communities, tell the story about the great careers they have to offer, and continue to actively recruit talent coming out of the high schools and college.

The adoption of more automation in the manufacturing process will assist in some aspects of addressing the current challenges of finding workers but is not a silver bullet for solving this issue. Yes, automation alleviates the need for many individuals to do certain tasks, but the operation, maintenance, and support required to sustain the function of this technology requires skilled individuals to be at the helm. That’s why it’s so important for manufacturers to tell and show the stories of the amazing technology they use every day, show the paths necessary to gain the skills required to excess in this type of environment, and be proactive in directly recruiting individuals to these great opportunities.

How will smart manufacturing affect the future of South Carolina’s manufacturing industry?
It is an exciting time to be in the manufacturing industry, specifically especially in the mobility market and industry. We haven’t seen such a drastic change in technology for a particular market since the development and introduction of the automobile. And the major changes aren’t just happening at the OEM level, the supplier network is having to adopt innovations that make their products lighter, stronger, and more environmentally sustainable. With the adoption of alternative fuels such as hydrogen and electrification, there’s likely going to be a greater need for R&D and production to work closer than ever. This collaboration is exciting because it will require a more advanced technology-driven approach to improve efficiency and the production process. Manufacturing has always been the industry that literally invents the future, and the work being done today in the adoption of new smart manufacturing processes will lead to the creation of products that will continue to improve our quality of life.

How do you manage a workforce that may be struggling with adapting to fast-paced change in the industry due to technology?
Manufacturing is continuously changing and adopting new technologies, so most individuals currently employed in this industry are very skilled and have the agility necessary to evolve with the responsibilities of the job. Many of the companies we work with have plans in place to provide upskill training to associates when needed, and if not, there are so many wonderful workforce programs available throughout South Carolina that can assist with training. What’s great about our state’s manufacturing and workforce communities is that we share best practices and have a great network of resources available to support changes in the workforce.

How do you unwind after a busy day of work? 
As a proud mother of two very active boys, I stay on the run with activities. Most days I am at the baseball field, football field, basketball gym, or golf course with one of them – so there’s little time to truly unwind, but I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything.

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Aundrea Wilson

Boeing

Title: Senior Director; 787 Manufacturing
Years in the manufacturing industry: 23

How have you addressed the manufacturing labor shortage, and what role does automation play in solving production challenges?
Boeing is always hiring, and I’m in thrilled that there continues to be interest among South Carolinians in the manufacturing workforce. Over the course of 2022, our workforce grew by nearly 1000 teammates. And thanks to great partnerships with schools like Trident Tech, we are able to employ high school and college interns and apprentices.

When it comes to automation, I wouldn’t say that it is solving production challenges. Rather our teammates work closely with automation to make the manufacturing process safer and more efficient. In our production environment, automation assists our teammates with strenuous and challenging tasks that would be tedious or ergonomically challenging for people to perform. In addition, most of our automation requires human intervention and wouldn’t be able to work accurately without our skilled teammates’ oversight.

How will smart manufacturing affect the future of South Carolina’s manufacturing industry?
At Boeing, safety, quality and innovation are at the forefront of everything we do. I believe technology will help the manufacturing industry become even safer, more effective and efficient, and make the business more agile. Data is already at our finger tips, and it’s just going to become more accessible as technology develops.

How do you manage a workforce that may be struggling with adapting to fast-paced change in the industry due to technology?
As I mentioned before, the pacing of change is important to a manufacturing workforce. However, it’s our current workforce and the future workforce that are steering the direction of manufacturing industry. Technology is helping manufacturing become safer and more efficient, and it is attracting an innovative workforce, making the jobs competitive.

What is the biggest challenge with developing a digital transformation strategy, and how do you overcome it?
In my experience, people, in general, are resistant to change. So, as the industry embraces new technologies, I believe it’s important to make changes at a pace that teammates are comfortable with, and in a way that they are able to see how those changes benefit them and the team. I consistently work to keep my teammates engaged and informed throughout the transformation process, and allow them time to adapt, one step at a time.

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J. Brett Bennett

Coastal Hydraulics, Inc.

Title: President and CEO
Years in the manufacturing industry: 20-plus

How have you addressed the manufacturing labor shortage, and what role does automation play in solving production challenges?
Our enterprise does not manufacture in the truest sense but provides hydraulic and pneumatic system reconditioning and repair services to the manufacturing and logistics industries. Correspondingly, Coastal Hydraulics’ approach to attracting and retaining technicians and machinists has been largely dependent on our existing staff members’ networks and sourcing promising candidates who are contemplating retirement from all branches of the military. In the fluid power category, automation is mostly about the specialty tooling and equipment that enhance troubleshooting, drive repair efficiency, and decrease downtime. Our advanced industrial coating technology – High Velocity Oxygen Fuel (HVOF) – is a leading example in that it allows us to complete repairs more quickly than through traditional processes and, even more importantly, provides our customers with a much superior solution.

What is the biggest challenge with developing a digital transformation strategy, and how do you overcome it?
Determining which digital solutions are most likely to deliver greatest value to our customers. Thus, we monitor and closely observe which digital tools and processes are adopted by similar industrial service providers, particularly those that gather and analyze data to yield greater insights into customers’ use of equipment and their reliability.

How will smart manufacturing affect the future of South Carolina’s manufacturing industry?
Smart manufacturing is essentially the integration of production equipment, computing, and data science and will be a requirement for success in the future. With leading manufacturers as well as university engineering programs within our region, South Carolina should be well-positioned.

How do you manage a workforce that may be struggling with adapting to fast-paced change in the industry due to technology?
We see less struggling than is often assumed. Instead, it’s often our technicians – particularly those who are at earlier stages of their career progression – who have greatest insights about new technologies and are most likely to experiment and embrace them. Thus, we encourage such adoption.

How do you unwind after a busy day of work?
My personal interests are in outdoor pursuits and the history of the American Revolution. Thus, afterwork time is typically devoted to historic preservation and related organizations, with the South Carolina American Revolution Sestercentennial Commission and Friends of Charleston National Parks among them.

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Brian Boan

Nexans High Voltage USA Inc.

Title: Director – Industrial Projects and Facilities
Years in the manufacturing industry: 12

How have you addressed the manufacturing labor shortage, and what role does automation play in solving production challenges?
Labor shortage is always a concern in the manufacturing sector. Education to the available workforce on why your company exists and what they are doing is the driver to addressing the challenge of recruitment in a tight labor market. Today’s manufacturing environment is highly technical with the need of a skilled work force to be successful. I think the bigger issue many times is workforce retainage. The amount of training and development that is needed, and the investment of time and money by a company in its workforce is substantial. You have to create a positive work environment, incentivize and recognize outstanding performance, provide and maintain competitive compensation, and drive engagement of the employees by inclusion and open communication.

From the employees perspective on automation, we are striving to change the culture of the workforce as a whole. By adopting digital and automation capabilities we are freeing up employees from doing manual or mundane tasks and thus allows us to take those employees and further train them in more meaningful and rewarding roles within the facility. By getting this buy-in from the employees to understand that its implementation is not job replacement technology, but job enhancement. This allows us to encourage their potential and we see with our workforce here at Nexans – they are eager to learn and take pride in what they are making knowing that what they are actually producing is physically changing the world we live in.

What is the biggest challenge with developing a digital transformation strategy, and how do you overcome it?
One of the biggest challenges to developing this kind of transformation is understanding and interpreting the vast amount of data that can be collected and how to use it. Nexans is a world-wide leader in the change to new world electrification with safer, sustainable, renewable and decarbonized transmission of power. Here in Charleston, the production of sub-marine high voltage cable is extremely complex, and the detail to quality that must be controlled is the upmost importance in the products that we produce. With the global demand for electrification, our clients are requesting more and more production capacity and turn-over of the product. To accomplish this our manufacturing processes have to remain efficient and streamlined yet not compromising quality in any way. We are working constantly on this data collection and analysis – allowing for data-driven decision making and a culture of continuous improvement.

How will smart manufacturing affect the future of South Carolina’s manufacturing industry?
Through the realization of smart manufacturing technologies and becoming proficient in these techniques – the industry here in South Carolina will attract even more investments to the state. South Carolina is already a leader in that so many high-tech manufacturing companies have invested, moved operations and expanding their footprints here. South Carolina has become a central hub both nationally and world-wide in the manufacturing sector. This allows for creating further innovations, providing both direct and indirect job opportunities and stimulates the economic growth both locally and statewide.

How do you manage a workforce that may be struggling with adapting to fast-paced change in the industry due to technology?
Heavy emphasis on development and training at all levels from the shop floor, to the engineers, to maintenance, the support staff and even management. Our industry is exploding and we are at the fore-front of emerging technology with the electrification and transmission of High Voltage power for renewable energy sources such as off-shore wind. We have created a matrix learning and training system where employees are trained on several processes and rewarded for their success. We utilize experts from our other facilities around the world to come in and share their best practices, to mentor, to transfer knowledge and work with them for months on end. But one of the keys to success here at Nexans is engaging the workforce, listening to them, and using their own critical-thinking and problem solving skills to tackle technology challenges. They are the ones that are making the products every single day. You can provide the best and most advanced machinery, but in our process, that is so technical, it is the “feel”, the confidence from experience, the spirit of continuous improvement, and the pride in which they operate – you cannot teach that in a classroom.

How do you unwind after a busy day of work?
I enjoy spending time with my Wife and three daughters, boating, fishing, and enjoying the beautiful natural resources Charleston has to offer.

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Jerome L. Kirkland

BASF Environmental Catalyst and Metal Solutions

Title: Site Manager at BASF in Converse
Years in the manufacturing industry: 25

How have you addressed the manufacturing labor shortage, and what role does automation play in solving production challenges?
We place a high value on community engagement at BASF in Converse, which means that we are always looking for ways to give back to the community, whether that’s volunteering our time at events like Breakfast with Santa at the Woodson Community Center or making donations to our partners such as the United Way, Converse Fire Department, Spartanburg High School Vikings, or the Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office. We know that being a part of the community is a great way to make our city a better place and to show potential employees what a great company we are to work for. We’ve also done a lot of work to promote our current employees in our advertising such as billboards, so that people can see we recruit diverse candidates from all different backgrounds, which has helped us our grow both our employee count and our leadership teams to include more females, minorities and people who previously hadn’t considered careers in manufacturing. We also launched an apprenticeship program where people right out of high school, veterans or people who have worked in other careers can attend college part-time at Spartanburg Community College and earn their certificate in Process Control Automation, while they spend part of their time at the site learning from our team. It’s all paid for by BASF, so it’s a great way to recruit new talent as well.

In terms of automation, it helps us solve production challenges by simplifying our processes. It makes our jobs simpler, easier, safer and more effective. I know some can be hesitant about automation, but our employees are happier after implementing processes that save them time and labor. Additionally, automation hasn’t taken away any of our jobs; in fact, we have more than doubled our employee count at the BASF Converse site over the last few years, and we are always looking for people to join our team. I have to give a plug here: check out www.basf.us/converse to see what roles might be a good fit for you or someone you know – pay starts at $19.50/hour, with more for experience (although no experience is needed), and if you join our third shift, the pay goes up to $20.50/hour.

What is the biggest challenge with developing a digital transformation strategy, and how do you overcome it?
It’s always a challenge to implement something new or different, so at BASF in Converse we work hard to get buy in from our whole team. We ensure everyone understands the scope of work, the reasons behind the change, and the benefits – being quicker, more efficient, more accurate, and most importantly, being safe. (We recently set site records for the longest period of time—more than 399 days—without a reportable incident.) Our site’s leadership team and I spend a lot of time talking with our employees in small groups or one-on-one and educating them to help them understand how this can help them be better at what they do. My team knows that my door is always open, so if they’re hesitant or have a concern, they know they can come to me to talk through it. That transparency plays a big role in our employees’ buy in.

How will smart manufacturing affect the future of South Carolina’s manufacturing industry?
Smart manufacturing will set us apart from other states and will help propel South Carolina forward, ahead of other states that are stuck in more traditional methods of manufacturing. When I grew up in Michigan and my dad was working in automotive manufacturing, everything had to be hand-built. Now, vehicles can be manufactured at a rate of 80-100 per hour, with a lot more bells and whistles, and with greater quality, so over the years I’ve watched first-hand as smart manufacturing has helped to produce better products, improve efficiency, produce more revenue, and made jobs easier and safer for employees. As we partner with Spartanburg Community College to train our future workforce, smart manufacturing is an important topic that we train our apprentices on so they’re able to jump right into the manufacturing environment and utilize it to succeed.

How do you manage a workforce that may be struggling with adapting to fast-paced change in the industry due to technology?
Management of change is one of the hardest topics. While we strive for perfection, we know that there are always opportunities to improve and evolve, and we make sure that employees have their questions answered, know how change affects them individually, know why a change is necessary, and know how we as a team can come together to institute that change for the benefit of all of us. In short, education is key.

How do you unwind after a busy day of work?
I love my job, I have a fantastic team, and some of them would say that I’m “always on,” but I know it’s critical as a leader to demonstrate work-life balance. When I’m not at work, I enjoy spending time with my wife, Alba, and my kids, Jerome II, Jadah, Taylor and Dajah. All of my kids are grown up, and two are in college, so now I’m getting those phone calls from them where they share what’s going on with them and ask for advice from time to time, so as a father it always feels good to hear from them and know they value their ol’ Dad’s opinion. I also really enjoy watching sports, whether that’s on TV or attending in person, especially college and professional football. And, I’m a people person, so I always love meeting new friends in our community.

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Justin Bintelli

Bintelli

Title: Founder and President
Years in the manufacturing industry: 23

How have you addressed the manufacturing labor shortage, and what role does automation play in solving production challenges?
Our industry (golf cart and LSVs) don’t have much available in the way of automation. As far as labor shortage, we’ve addressed it by making our staff and their happiness a focus of ours. We’ve increased our starting and average hourly pays, we’ve added significantly more benefits than we had even a year ago, and we truly do our best to make coming to work fun and enjoyable. Of course we need to get work done, but we can all do it while helping each other out and enjoying our time together. We’ve done a great job of hiring amazing people and when you have so many great people working for one company, that’s how we’ve weathered the “labor shortage” storm, even when in the last three years we’ve increased our staff size by 6X.

What is the biggest challenge with developing a digital transformation strategy, and how do you overcome it?
Our biggest challenge is keeping up with how fast everything is changing in the digital and AI world. It seems like every week you adapt to new technology, the next week offers a better option. We’ve been overcoming it by doing our research and using our vendor relationships to ensure that prior to beginning development of a new upgrade to our platforms, we’ve been diligent in comparing the available options and ensuring that the new development will truly improve Bintelli. Many companies get caught feeling like they “have” to keep changing things for the sake of changing or staying relevant and we don’t feel that way. If we’re going to make a change it’s because it will absolutely better our people, processes, or products.

How will smart manufacturing affect the future of South Carolina’s manufacturing industry?
It’s all speculative, but the smarter and more efficient we can all become, the better we can all be in weathering major hurdles such as labor shortages, port back ups, etc. It takes a lot of time and financial investment but those who succeed and continue to improve will come out the other end more developed and stable.

How do you manage a workforce that may be struggling with adapting to fast-paced change in the industry due to technology?
We don’t see many issues with our workforce struggling to keep up. Our staff has been tailored to include amazing people who understand from day one of joining Bintelli that we pivot fast when needed. We adapt quickly and are not scared to better ourselves. I am very proud of our workforce at Bintelli.

How do you unwind after a busy day of work?
It generally includes cooking a good meal, tending to our garden with my beautiful girlfriend, Lana, and diving deep into some of my favorite sitcoms! Our garden is the largest it’s ever been… we have close to thirty different varieties of peppers right now! To be honest though, everyone that knows me knows I’m a workaholic so there’s not a ton of unwinding during the week. Instead, I’ve focused more on ensuring I’m taking some days off each quarter and getting out of town a bit more than I did in the past… that’s when I’m truly able to unwind!

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Stan Brant

JW Aluminum

Title: CEO
Years in the manufacturing industry: 39

How have you addressed the manufacturing labor shortage, and what role does automation play in solving production challenges?
I believe we attract the very best candidates because we’re not looking for laborers per se. We’re looking for like-minded teammates to build a career with JW Aluminum through retirement.

Our open recruiting process includes behavioral interview questions to make sure the candidate displays a strong safety mindset and the target behaviors that are essential to our company culture. We can teach people the technical skills needed for most of our positions and support our teammates with a personal career development path based on their interests and goals, including tuition reimbursement and apprenticeship programs.

A large percentage of our new hires come from our referral bonus program. When a teammate refers a candidate to us, it’s highly likely that person will consistently demonstrate our cultural target behaviors. Cultural fit drives retention, and our culture of active and ongoing engagement creates an environment where teammates feel valued and respected. Automation is most useful when it’s used to mitigate safety risks, reduce non-value-added work, or collect data more efficiently. Overly automated systems can lead to complacency and do not outperform the ingenuity of our teammates. We use Lean Six Sigma to continuously improve our processes, including identifying where it makes the most sense to automate.

What is the biggest challenge with developing a digital transformation strategy, and how do you overcome it?
Organizational change is always a challenge. As part of our company culture, embracing change is the first target behavior we expect teammates to adopt. Our digital transformation strategy is ongoing and grown incrementally, so it complements our commitment to continuous improvement. We prioritize implementing new technology that improves efficiency and productivity and allows us to collect and analyze data in new ways.

We encourage teammates to act like owners and become a business of businesspeople. Giving our teammates the opportunity to engage with transformative technology accentuates those mindsets. We’ve invested hundreds of millions of dollars to implement new technologies across the organization and are planning new initiatives to support the growth and longevity of our company.

How will smart manufacturing affect the future of South Carolina’s manufacturing industry?
Smart manufacturing will solidify South Carolina’s position as one of the most attractive states to operate. We’ve seen an influx of global manufacturers coming into South Carolina and with that comes forward-thinking innovation, partnerships, and potential supply chain integration. It will bolster demand for technical training and attract the best talent to the state.

From an operational perspective, we’ve recently made investments in AI machine learning that improves quality and reduces downtime. Establishing ourselves as quality leaders is paramount as we compete on a global scale. South Carolina's manufacturing industry will be well-positioned to meet the demands of customers and other stakeholders in the years to come.

How do you manage a workforce that may be struggling with adapting to fast-paced change in the industry due to technology?
Embracing change is the first target behavior we expect teammates to adopt. We don’t just talk about “what” changes we’re making – we talk extensively about “why” we are changing, and how it will benefit them and the future of our company. That way, we’re not doing change “to” teammates – we’re changing together, “with” our teammates, encouraging active engagement in the business.

Many of our teammates are excited about learning new technologies, others are more hesitant. As a company, we’re committed to continuous improvement and developing our people. We provide training and support to help teammates learn new technological skills and welcome feedback as part of that process. We provide consistent and continual communication about change from all levels. All our actions are focused on creating a clear pathway to success for all of our teammates as individuals and as a team.

How do you unwind after a busy day of work?
I enjoy spending time with my family. We love the outdoors. We especially appreciate the many opportunities to visit South Carolina’s state parks for both history and recreation.

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Steve Potts

Scout Boats

Title: CEO / Founder
Years in the manufacturing industry: 34

How have you addressed the manufacturing labor shortage, and what role does automation play in solving production challenges?
We have adopted 5S to increase productivity and become creative with our work schedules to meet demand. Our 5-axis router helped us improve output in product development. Also, our methodologies for composite construction has created a cleaner and more desirable environment for employee retention.

What is the biggest challenge with developing a digital transformation strategy, and how do you overcome it?
The nature of our industry makes the process less repeatable and not as automated as most industries. It is labor intensive and doesn’t lend itself to automation. We do use some CNC technology to cut patterns for our fiberglass and core.

How will smart manufacturing affect the future of South Carolina’s manufacturing industry?
Currently the smart manufacturing we have been able to implement are the 5-axis router and CNC machine as I mentioned. Because robotics are so expensive and requires repeatable tasks to make it worth it, we are just not able to do that at this time. However, many high-volume industry manufacturers, such as automotive have already proven this is a much more efficient process. Hopefully it becomes mor affordable and we can implement more in the future.

How do you manage a workforce that may be struggling with adapting to fast-paced change in the industry due to technology?
The biggest thing that we must recognize is the changing attitude of the newer generations and workforce. They do not have the same work ethic that the older generations have. We have done a very good job at motivating and supporting work/life balance to help retain employees. Our HR team also does a fantastic job with events outside of work that helps build a good social environment for our employees and managers to bond with one another. We have also implemented a thorough training program for all new hires.

How do you unwind after a busy day of work?
I’m still passionate about boating and what the industry represents. Even though I spend my career in boat manufacturing, I still enjoy a good day on the water. .

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Suzana Cizmic

Bosch in North America

Title: Vice President, Commercial Plant Manager
Years in the manufacturing industry: 20

How have you addressed the manufacturing labor shortage, and what role does automation play in solving production challenges?
We have worked diligently to nurture a high-performance culture at the Bosch facility in Anderson to maintain the role of a preferred employer. We develop accountable leaders through mentoring/coaching, succession planning and conducting leadership training programs at all levels of associates to increase competencies. At the same time, we also form and retain strong relationships in the community, including local schools and universities, to foster mutual growth. We also believe that automation is a vital part of our success long-term as it provides efficient solutions to predominately manual processes. This allows our workforce to focus on value-added activities and processes that help us to continually improve our manufacturing efficiency.

What is the biggest challenge with developing a digital transformation strategy, and how do you overcome it?
One of the keys to success is generating awareness and creating the desire to leverage digital tools and approaches to enhance operations, culture and customer relationships. Ultimately, digital transformation is a highly people-dependent change. At Bosch, we have focused on preparing our associates with new data literacy skills. Bosch even has a program in North America called Digital Lab that builds skills in our associates, and we have sent members of our team to participate so they can bring back digital skill building lessons to our facility.

How will smart manufacturing affect the future of South Carolina’s manufacturing industry?
Ultimately, smart manufacturing is going to be a major enabler for what manufacturing can do. We pursue goals to make the Bosch Anderson plant best-in-class in Industry 4.0 because a smart factory is attractive for all generations of the workforce as well as for our customers. For our associates, data-driven insights and solutions save them time and effort so they can focus on the true value-added manufacturing activities.

How do you manage a workforce that may be struggling with adapting to fast-paced change in the industry due to technology?
My door is always open, and I’m always willing to share my time and expertise to help associates embrace change, apply new skills and drive their own growth. I work to instill confidence, empowerment, and accountability in every team member and nurture a culture of open and positive leadership, where we can succeed as a team with hard work and a lot of fun.

How do you unwind after a busy day of work?
I enjoy spending time with my family and friends, reading a good book or watching a nice move. When I am in a mood for a more active evening I go to a Zumba or a hip-hop class!

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Tom Hogge

Screwmatics Of S.C. Inc.

Title: President
Years in the manufacturing industry: 50

How have you addressed the manufacturing labor shortage, and what role does automation play in solving production challenges?
Go anywhere in the country and you will see that the skilled labor shortage is the largest hurdle in manufacturing today. The companies that best handle this crisis are the ones that will be at the “top of the food chain” so to speak. Automation is absolutely a tool to be used to combat this crisis. At Screwmatics, we have spent millions of dollars on automation in the form of Robotic and gantry loaders, as well as automatic bar feed machines with fire trace systems that allows us to run a lights out shift. Pre-covid our 2nd shift had about a dozen employees, post covid, we have zero employee on the second shift, but twice as many machines are running, all due to knowledgeable staff and heavy investments in automation and monitoring systems. But automation is to be leveraged, not to be “the answer” Skilled machinist, skilled Engineers, skilled tool makers. These are essential for the machining industry. The answer is to invest in education and to invest in your employees. You must incentivize. I believe in technical education. I taught Tool and Die at Florence Darlington Technical College for sever years before starting Screwmatics. I currently serve on the Area Commission for NETC, which is the governing body for Northeastern Technical College. The best strategy I see is to be involved with the local schools. Be present in the community. Not only advocate but educate. Manufacturing is a great way to make a living. It is rewarding and an industry that will always have demand for skilled labor. We have set up many programs through Tech and we have paid for dozens of employees to attend over the years.

What is the biggest challenge with developing a digital transformation strategy, and how do you overcome it?
That has for ever been the story of Screwmatics. When I formed this company 35 years ago, there were no CNC machines (computer numerical control). Everything was CAM and GEAR. We still operate over 60 CAM and Gear Machines today. Back in those days they were the “latest and greatest” and were called automatic Screw Machines. That’s how we got our name. But as technology changed, Screwmatics changed. We have always stayed ahead with technology, expanding our operations via utilizing the top of the line options out there. We have machinery now that has facial recognition cameras, tool life monitoring, anything you can think of that I would have thought impossible if you told me about it 50 years ago. The key is to never sit still. Constantly innovate and upgrade. If that is apart of your culture, it will become expected, the norm. Not the scary thing in the corner everyone is trying to avoid. We have developed custom and proprietary apps, we are in the process of networking nearly 200 machines together for OEE and production monitoring. All of our servers and ERP systems are cloud based.

How will smart manufacturing affect the future of South Carolina’s manufacturing industry?
One of the things I am most proud of about South Carolina is the IWT grants the state offers. For years we have been able to invest in advanced training and those state grants have really helped with that, as well as being a driving factor in taking the risk in that investment. Tech rapidly changes, new machining tools and machining methods come out every day. The fact that South Carolina does so much to help companies retrain their employees on new technologies really puts the state ahead of so many others. As long as SC continues with that mentality, I only see growth and success for South Carolina manufacturing.

How do you manage a workforce that may be struggling with adapting to fast-paced change in the industry due to technology?
It’s all about rolling your sleeves up and doing the work. You have to be hands and ahead in training your people. If you don’t encourage a culture of collaboration and training, you will always be behind in identifying people’s weak areas. Once you identify that weakness, you can focus on it and help give the support needed to overcome it.

How do you unwind after a busy day of work?
I enjoy fishing, hunting, gardening, and spending time with my grandchildren.

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Tony Moore

South Carolina Manufacturing Extension Partnership (SCMEP)

Title: Director of Operations
Years in the manufacturing industry: 27

How have you addressed the manufacturing labor shortage, and what role does automation play in solving production challenges?
SCMEP has developed a free of charge Workforce Playbook in tandem with our state partners that is a guide to attracting, retaining, and developing the talent needed to succeed in today’s competitive employment environment. It can be accessed for download through our website https://scmep.org/training-professional-development/workforce-development-playbook/

Automation is also a viable part of the solution to addressing workforce constraints. SCMEP has a network of automation focused experts that help evaluate and deploy solutions that can mitigate the labor required for production output, especially for jobs deemed dull, dirty, or dangerous. We are constantly engaged in hands-on outreach focused events to demystify technology, such as collaborative robots, with the goal to promote adoption and challenge manufacturers to explore use cases in the factory.

What is the biggest challenge with developing a digital transformation strategy, and how do you overcome it?
The main challenge for manufacturers of all sizes and industries is prioritizing which areas of the business will have the greatest impact when pursuing digital maturity. Digital transformation is intended to solve business problems and improve competitiveness. Investing in technology without a clear purpose of how key performance indicators will change for the better can lead to a waste of time and money. SCMEP just launched a new no cost Industry 4.0 Assessment to help companies better understand where they are on this journey, and how to gain clarity and create a digital transformational roadmap for the future that will drive tangible business results.

How will smart manufacturing affect the future of South Carolina’s manufacturing industry?
Cyber-physical relationships are becoming increasingly important tools that can manage complexity and improve responsiveness for decision making. Larger companies further along with smart manufacturing maturity are realizing the significant benefits of the technology and driving expectations for technology adoption through their supply chains. The result will be a raising of the bar for everyone and pressure for those that feel less inclined to change. The great news is that regardless of a company’s size or access to investment capital, SCMEP can help manufacturers develop and implement a customized smart manufacturing strategy aligned with supporting the changes needs of their customer base, workforce, and suppliers.

How do you manage a workforce that may be struggling with adapting to fast-paced change in the industry due to technology?
In short – training! South Carolina has many exceptional resources and educational institutions that work hard to evolve curriculum to stay current with the latest industry technology needs. The technical colleges and career centers lead this charge. SCMEP also has in-person and online training programs to augment workforce development across many key emerging tech trends.

How do you unwind after a busy day of work?
I have been playing acoustic guitar since my teenage years and still find it is a great source of “therapy.” Even if it is a few minutes or hopefully longer after a long day, it redirects my brain towards creating music and away from most everything else. It is a true source of joy!

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Wes Tucker

ACL Airshop LLC

Title: Chief Operating Officer – W. Hemisphere
Years in the manufacturing industry: 21-plus

How have you addressed the manufacturing labor shortage, and what role does automation play in solving production challenges?
We work at being a strong and caring employer. We always try to hire right. We provide training and mentorship, aiming to motivated and encourage our workers and staffs. As a result we have very low turnover compared to many companies in our regions. We are known as a good employer, fostering a true high-performance culture. Better production starts with people, but Lean Initiatives have helped us a lot in the past few years. We now have measurably better Materials Velocity in our new Manufacturing Center in Greenville SC. We have proprietary machinery there which are unlike anything else in the industry which causes products like Cargo Nets to be uniquely strong and long-lasting. And we invested in new machinery to reduce shrinkage and speed up throughput.

What is the biggest challenge with developing a digital transformation strategy, and how do you overcome it?
Actual adoption has been the biggest challenge in the air cargo sector. As an industry segment, we have been playing catch-up, behind the curve compared to other industries and even compared to the big airlines themselves. But now with digitalization moving ahead quickly, we see mounting results industry-wide. We are proud to have been one the first in our competitive field to adopt and field Bluetooth tracking & tracing of air cargo products, and we have been investing in related innovations ever since. Our award-winning free app called FindMyULD is the beginning of what aim to become the “Uberization” of air cargo ULDs. (“Unit Load Devices” such as cargo pallets and cargo containers).

How will smart manufacturing affect the future of South Carolina’s manufacturing industry?
The smart wave is sweeping across many manufacturing sectors, to do more with less, to adopt Lean initiatives, and use innovative technologies for prototyping. One of our best examples is the Bluetooth tag that we now make and attach to cargo equipment such as pallets for tracking & tracing. The first model was OK but somewhat clunky, suffered lots of breakage from forklifts. We used 3-D prototyping to slim it down, in concert with the engineering partner to downsize the electronics inside. After several iterations, we finally created a useful tracking tag that fits integrally into the narrow “seat track” at the edge of the metal cargo pallet. Smart manufacturing gives a company like ours better speed-to-market.

How do you manage a workforce that may be struggling with adapting to fast-paced change in the industry due to technology?
Plenty of training and leadership communications is the starting point. And soliciting good ideas during implementation from the technicians themselves. For example, we commenced our new worldwide “AARS” (“ACL Airshop Repairs System”) for all of our FAA-regulated shops for better uniformity, accountability, speedier throughput, and measurably higher quality. That’s a tall order? But our best suggestions for how to make our AARS technology better came from our technicians themselves.

How do you unwind after a busy day of work?
Almost every evening I enjoy cooking dinner for my family — I cook a lot. Family, friends, and even co-workers say I’m a pretty darned good cook. That’s why I also man the Barbeque for Company Cook-Outs. And I like to stay in good physical condition.

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Ramy Harik

University of South Carolina

Title: Professor of Mechanical Engineering
Years in the manufacturing industry: 16

How have you addressed the manufacturing labor shortage, and what role does automation play in solving production challenges?
As educators, we are continuously developing state of the art course materials that meet industry needs and are of actual importance. Recently we published the book “Introduction to Advanced Manufacturing” that is a departure from how typically manufacturing is taught. This book is now adopted in over 5 universities and is supporting students in their quest to learn about impressive manufacturing careers can be.

What is the biggest challenge with developing a digital transformation strategy, and how do you overcome it?
The biggest challenge is with how fast technologies are being developed. It is not equally hard for both brown field and green field industries to keep up with new releases in the information world. A facility, with equipment set up for decades that is operational, needs to unlock its potential with connectivity and data collection to have insight into affordable operational excellence. But it is incredibly challenging at times due to equipment not being set up from which to derive information. We are working on creating elements that can connect externally to existing equipment, so we would overcome legacy control systems that are not prone to information and data sharing.

How will smart manufacturing affect the future of South Carolina’s manufacturing industry?
It is the cornerstone of South Carolina. As a state, we are diligently doing our part in reshoring of American manufacturing, and we are doing it in an innovative way. Smart manufacturing is the intersection (or merger) of both operational and information technology. This will enable South Carolina to set up smart future factories and facilities that can actually meet the demand, and stay affordable to challenge competition from other countries, especiallythose that have labor rates that the US can no compete with. With the use of smart manufacturing, we coin a new term of affordable operational excellence, where quality would drive the profit.

How do you manage a workforce that may be struggling with adapting to fast-paced change in the industry due to technology?
Training is the cornerstone, but also knowing how to understand individual strengths and weaknesses. It is incredibly challenging to keep asking your workforce to learn new elements and new skills, and with a remarkably high pacing domain, it is even more challenging. The best method forward is training, and adaptive training.

How do you unwind after a busy day of work?
I love cooking for my family. I do three to four meals a week myself, and they are mostly creations. I open the fridge, see what we have, and we start. Of course, the cooking story in our Lebanese heritage household starts with peeling garlic and dicing onions … what comes next, is always a surprise to all of us!