Since our first issue, the conversation around AI in manufacturing has continued to evolve, moving from curiosity to commitment. As organizations move from the "pilot phase" toward scaled adoption, the need for clear, actionable insight is only growing. That's why this newsletter exists: to help leaders like you navigate that shift with confidence.
Big Takeaways This Issue
Short on time? These are the most important insights in this issue.
AI budgets are shifting quickly. Take this quarter's pulse survey to share where your organization is focusing its AI investments and benchmark against your peers.
In this issue, we're shining a spotlight on the Alliance's new AI study, The Great Acceleration, which captures how members are moving from AI pilots to enterprise transformation. Here's a snapshot of what's driving results:
Members Are Seeing AI Deliver "Transformational" Change:
Naïty Jacel, Vice President of Digital Supply Chain Strategy at Lincoln Electric, has cracked the "holy grail" of change management: getting employees to not just accept AI, but to demand more of it.
"The more people learn, the more they’re demanding of the platform, the more we iterate on its capabilities. It’s been transformational for us to be able to have both the training and the delivery of impact," Jacel said.
Members Are Breaking Down Silos to Scale AI Across Operations:
Zakaria Siddiqui, Director of Artificial Intelligence at Southwire, has made cross-functional alignment the cornerstone of the company's AI strategy—grouping projects around logistics, production, and business functions so they advance together rather than in isolation.
“If AI simply told production to make more wire but logistics didn't know about it, that would be a mess. We just want to make sure that we are not focusing only on one side of this entire puzzle," Siddiqui explained.
Members Are Redefining What ROI Means for AI:
Erich Kaepp, Chief Operations and Supply Chain Officer at GALLO, is making the case to leadership to categorize their AI investments as "AI bets." Why? With the technology behind AI literally changing by the hour, coupled with its glacial rate of return, managing leadership expectations on AI's eventual payday is critical.
“We don't know whether or not there will be a return, but we're in an environment now where we need to actually take some bets. It's a different way of thinking," Kaepp said.
Members Are Building AI Assistants to Reimagine Customer Service:
Heiko Will, Chief Digital and Information Officerat MSA Safety, trained an AI assistant on the company's product manuals, giving customer service teams rapid access to product information. The approach was designed to scale from the start.
“We focused on areas that could scale. We avoided one-offs.That allowed us to take a more holistic view rather than looking at the ROI of an individual project.” Will explained.
The Bottom Line: Members who keep an unwavering eye on their organizations' strategic goals will achieve greater business gains and will see those gains extending well into the future. By 2030, many study participants expect AI to deliver even greater innovation and, as one member put it, "efficiency on steroids."
Manufacturers aren't struggling with AI ideas—they’re struggling with execution. While pilot programs multiply, scaling real impact across operations, finance, and supply chain remains a challenge. This conference is designed to close that gap.
An AI model solved a geometry problem that stumped mathematicians since 1946. The agent didn’t just find a solution; it overturned a long-standing assumption about what was mathematically possible.
Why it matters: This is one of the clearest signs yet that AI can generate genuinely new ideas, and not just analyze existing ones.
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