Welcome to Manufacturing Minute!

I'm glad you're here.

Let's get to it.

But first, a word about doing more with less:

Are you stuck missing the production targets from 2 years ago while your budget hasn’t adjusted since COVID?

Most plant managers are sitting on 15-30% (maybe even 50%) untapped capacity, they just don't know where to look. At Axiom, we help you find it without buying new equipment, hiring more people, or waiting for next year's capital budget.

Ready to unlock what you already have?

Book Your (free) 30-Minute Strategy Call →

🚨In the News

The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) reported that its Manufacturing PMI dropped to 48.2 in November (below 50 indicating contraction), marking the ninth consecutive month of decline.

Factories cited slumping orders, higher input costs, and persistent drag from import tariffs as key factors.

However, amid this contraction, analysis from the Manufacturers Alliance and Oxford Economics highlighted nascent growth in aerospace, pharmaceuticals, electrical equipment, and agricultural chemicals.

IndustryWeek reported this uptick as a potential harbinger of wider recovery, driven by steady demand and investments.

Advanced Manufacturing noted construction spending in manufacturing facilities could rebound in 2026, bolstered by power generation projects.

I’m optimistic. Hopefully this ship is turning around.

🏭 Manufacturing Minute

When did we stop calling it what it is?

I don’t like the fancy marketing labels.

At the end of the day, this is all just digitally-enabled continuous improvement.

Evolution.

Few companies are actually “transforming”, and frankly the plant may never quite know when that shift happens, if it does!

Transformation is shaped by its societal and human impact, as implemented in the real world, and that is more of a steady march, a continuum, with occasional spikes of significant platform-level investment (unfortunately often consumed by ERP and infrastructure).

I40, I50, DX, GenAI Strategy… convenient boardroom level frameworks that often limit grassroots, plant-level adoption.

I was just talking to a customer the other day about change management and how unfortunately disconnected their corporate IT was… change management occurred as a line item in projects.

Why not plug into existing CI processes used naturally every day, shift from foreign-sounding buzzwords that are mostly disruptive and painful to plants… and turn into frontline-championed actions, using the terms they already know?

Even things like patching a server, rolling out updated drivers, deploying AI vision systems... reframe the conversation and these become just plant rhythm.

That's the drum to start beating.

As promised, tactical manufacturing in a minute,

Ryan