Business Operations

If you’re looking for insights on digital transformation, cultural change and what’s ahead for manufacturing, it pays to consult an industry leader. Dan Dwight, president and CEO of Cooley Group, fits the bill.

Dwight was named the 2024 Manufacturing Leader of the Year in the Manufacturing Leadership Awards, presented by the Manufacturing Leadership Council, the digital transformation division of the NAM. Additionally, Cooley Group won the Small/Medium Enterprise Manufacturer of the Year and the Manufacturing in 2030 Award.

Recently, Dwight sat down for an Executive Dialogue interview with the Manufacturing Leadership Journal to share his secrets to success. Below are excerpts from the interview.

What leaders need: When asked what qualities manufacturing leaders need in the digital era, Dwight says that they must be willing to undergo big changes, but must also keep their teams in the loop. 

• “Successful leadership in the digital era demands, among other things, a higher level of transparency,” he explained. “Your team needs to see the road map in front of them because successful and sweeping transformations are extremely time consuming with a lot of jagged edges that the leadership team needs to address.”

How cultures should change: As for the wider cultural changes that will help a company through its digital transformation, resiliency and adaptability are crucial, Dwight said.

• “Cooley’s digital transformation began with a cultural transformation built around becoming more agile and adaptable,” he noted. “Every decision we make places long-term resiliency and cross-functional collaboration as our operational North Star.”
• “Cooley decentralized our decision-making structures, eliminating hierarchal instruction and empowering team members to communicate transparently and more frequently,” he added.

Small manufacturers’ advantage: When asked whether small and medium-sized manufacturers are at a disadvantage in the era of digital transformation, Dwight says that Cooley has turned its small size into an asset.

• “Our longevity is built on using our size to our advantage. We are more resilient, more agile, more adaptable than our competitors who are often [much larger] because we constantly invest in pro-growth strategies regardless of the economic environment,” he explained.
• “Our investments in innovation generate consistent new product revenue of over 20%, and our investments in Manufacturing 4.0 digitization generate consistent, robust productivity dividends,” Dwight added.

What’s next? Cooley Group is looking ahead to further transformations, including in supply chain management, Dwight said.

• “Our business architecture and change management team leaders are working within their respective teams across the organization to build into our processes a more outward-looking focus,” he said.
• “For example, our M4.0 implementation leader has added supply chain resiliency to her leadership responsibilities. Her team seeks to build out Cooley’s end-to-end business resilience.”

MLC in action: Dwight says that Cooley Group has always been able to count on the MLC to find the insights that it needs for digital transformation and its Manufacturing 4.0 journey. As he put it recently, “When challenges do arise, the MLC can help us think through what the future might look like.”

Watch a full video of this interview for more insights.

Manufacturers are deluged by data. As companies adopt more advanced technologies, they are increasingly overwhelmed by the quantities of raw data that must be collected, analyzed and put to use.

Indeed, a new survey from the Manufacturing Leadership Council—the NAM’s digital transformation arm—reveals that 70% of manufacturers still collect data manually. Here are some highlights from the survey, which reveals where manufacturers need to improve, and how they’re planning to do it.

Exponential data growth: While the survey’s respondents report an explosion of new data, they also expect to keep on top of it over the next few years.

• Forty-four percent of manufacturing leaders have seen at least a doubling of the amount of data they collect in their organization today compared to two years ago.
• While many manufacturers still lack standardized data due to operating a mix of older equipment and systems along with newer technologies, more than half expect that their data will be in a standardized format by 2030.

Analytical improvements: How are manufacturers planning to use all this new data?

• Nearly 60% of respondents say they are focused on understanding their operations with an eye toward optimizing them in the future.
• While 30% of manufacturers say they are using manufacturing data to predict operational performance, another 60% say that predictivity will be a primary objective by 2030.

Better decisions: Manufacturers use data to make better, more proactive decisions, according to the survey. Today, these decisions are made at a relatively high level.

• Seventy-seven percent of respondents said that the responsibility to employ data in decision-making falls to plant leaders and managers.
• Only 33% said that factory floor employees held that responsibility—a percentage that might grow as manufacturers seek to empower frontline employees with greater decision-making ability.

Looking ahead: As artificial intelligence and other emerging digital technologies become more established, they will likely reshape many if not all aspects of manufacturing operations.

• Thanks to advanced sensors and robust data networks connecting equipment and machinery, manufacturers will collect copious data in real time and act on it almost as swiftly.

Read more: To get a deeper look at the current state of data mastery in manufacturing, download the full survey, Data Mastery: A Key to Industrial Competitiveness.

With a name that means “love of forests,” Sylvamo has a built-in dedication to sustainability. And the Memphis, Tennessee–based paper company, which spun off from International Paper in 2021, lives up to its moniker.

A holistic approach: “We use the whole tree in the manufacturing of our products,” Sylvamo Chief Sustainability Officer James McDonald told the NAM. “We use the fiber from the wood to make our paper, and all the residuals—think of the sticky stuff in trees—we capture and use to generate energy.”

• This process supplies the company with approximately 85% of its global energy needs, according to McDonald.

Planting the world: Sylvamo, which produces well-known brands like Hammermill, Accent Opaque, Springhill and HP Papers, is committed to restoring and protecting forests worldwide.

• “Our entire business depends on the sustainability of forests,” McDonald said. “It turns out your third-grade science teacher was right—photosynthesis does work. The more trees we grow, the more we can clean the air and protect the environment.”

Big ambitions: Sylvamo has conserved, enhanced or restored more than 37,000 acres of forestland to date. It has set the lofty goal of reaching 250,000 acres of forestland by 2030.

• To that end, the company is supporting the Nature Conservancy’s work to create a healthy, resilient and connected Appalachian landscape in the U.S. and the World Wildlife Fund’s work to restore Brazil’s Atlantic Forest, while also working with individual landowners to enhance forest management practices in France.

Diverse sources: Sylvamo primarily sources local fiber to manufacture its products in Europe, Latin America and North America, a strategy that enables a smaller environmental footprint, McDonald said.

• “Most of the fiber is sourced very close to [each] mill, which supports our low-cost assets in each region and this global footprint advantage in those markets,” he added.

GHG goal: The company is committed to a greenhouse gas reduction goal of 35% from a 2019 baseline across all three emissions scopes, an ambitious goal that demonstrates a commitment to improve Sylvamo’s climate impact continuously, according to McDonald.

• A quick refresher: Scope 1 refers to direct emissions, Scope 2 to indirect emissions associated with the purchase of power and Scope 3 to indirect emissions produced by a company’s value chain.
• Above all, “we try to be efficient with the energy we do use so that we can use less to produce our products,” McDonald told us.

A vital commodity: Paper and paper products continue to “play a crucial role every day in people’s lives,” said McDonald—and they are some of the world’s most recyclable materials.

• Some 68% of paper in the U.S. was recovered in 2022. In some parts of Brazil, the percentage is about 60%, and in Europe, it’s near 80%, he added.

The last word: “Just think about it: We use paper for education, communication, entertainment and more,” McDonald pointed out. “Our product plays a huge role in society and has a good lifecycle story.”

If you ask Henkel how it managed to cut its worldwide carbon footprint in half a few years ago, its leaders will gladly let you in on the secret: there isn’t one.

The impressive reduction is down to common sense and good old-fashioned effort.

Putting in the work: “One focus is on our own sites and production, and we’re continuously working on this,” said Henkel North America President Pernille Lind Olsen.

• By the end of 2023, the global adhesives and consumer brands manufacturer had fully converted 19 of its worldwide facilities to run on renewable electricity sources, a feat it achieved through on-site energy production including wind and solar, as well as direct purchase of green power from local utility companies.
• Henkel also entered into virtual power purchase agreements, financial transactions through which it buys renewable energy credits that serve to decarbonize geographically diffuse operations.
• In addition, the company hired energy-efficiency consultants to come into its most energy-intensive plants and tell it where and how to cut down on resource use and waste.

Exceeding goals: Thanks to these efforts, Henkel has reduced its carbon footprint by 61%, heading toward its 2025 goal to slash its carbon footprint (from a 2010 baseline) by 65%.

Sustainable personal care: Henkel is always on the lookout for ways to increase the sustainability of its 30-plus beauty and personal care brands, which include Purex and All laundry detergents and Schwarzkopf hair cosmetics.

• For example, the company keeps a formulation database of its more than 200,000 products. In the database, each formula is assigned a compact sustainability report, making it possible for the company to compare profiles “to optimize the impact of our footprint,” Olsen told us.
• Last March, Henkel reformulated and repackaged its Dial body washes in order to use bottles made from 100% recycled plastic.
• Henkel has also reduced the amount of virgin plastic in the bottles of Persil laundry detergent, replacing it with recycled content.

Less to landfills: Henkel isn’t done setting goals. It’s now aiming to send exactly zero waste to landfills by 2030.

• And it’s making progress: through partnerships with local waste management companies, in 2023 Henkel converted three of its U.S. sites to redirection rather than disposal of production waste from their operations—that is, they have established processes to keep materials out of landfills. Some of the ways they do this are to recycle or reuse items rather than throw them away.
• Meanwhile, some 82% of Henkel’s global facilities had already been doing the same.

A symbiotic relationship: Pursuing sustainable methods is both a business and moral imperative for the company, which will celebrate 148 years of business in September.

• “As climate change becomes a bigger challenge for everyone to tackle, it becomes increasingly necessary to prioritize sustainability as part of your business,” Olsen said.
• “And sustainability is good business for us and our customers. There’s a price benefit there. For example, when you lower the temperatures or reduce process steps at our industrial process customers, energy and material usage will be lower, maintenance of the equipment becomes less frequent and you can run longer without stopping, which saves money.”

Stronger together: “To make sure the planet’s resources can sustain us and our kids for generations, we will need to tackle the sustainability challenge of how to use less energy, fewer materials, less water,” Olsen concluded.

• “That’s a big challenge, and I’m a firm believer that it needs to be tackled collaboratively. I believe the business leaders of today play a decisive role in how we will do that.”

This story has been edited.

Manufacturers have always been on the cutting edge of tech development and integration—and it’s no different with artificial intelligence. Today, Click Bond, Inc., a manufacturer of adhesive-bonded fasteners for aerospace and industrial use, is finding applications for AI in the supply chain.

The challenge: Supply chain management is an inexact art, according to Click Bond Chief Executive and NAM SMM Vice Chair Karl Hutter, and technology like AI has the capacity to strengthen operations.

• “There are many spots … [where] a guess has to be taken or padding has to be put in because of the known unreliability of data,” said Hutter. “This is where technology has a big role to play.”

Improving efficiency: AI can break through these challenges, separating signal from “noise” and avoiding presumptions that can cause inefficiencies.

• “We need to have a better sense of the supply, the demand, the schedule,” Hutter said. “This is where those kinds of tools can fit in—so we as a supplier can optimize our production runs, meet our customers’ needs efficiently and be responsive to just-in-time supply.”
• “AI does that key job of finding what matters and correlating historic data and making predictions in a way a human can’t,” he continued.

Translating data: Because there is no single, industry-wide method for formatting data, it can be difficult for manufacturers to combine their knowledge. Happily, AI can help.

• “My data tables might look different than my customers’ and suppliers’,” said Hutter. “AI can understand the rules of data structure, and that of our customers and suppliers, and it can be a translator between them.”
• For example, Click Bond has supplied products to the Boeing Company for almost 40 years, contributing to every type of product made across its military, civil and space divisions. AI stands to take that collaboration to an even higher level.

Enhancing production: AI tools also help manufacturers during the production process by translating different kinds of data and pointing toward solutions.

• “[AI’s translation capability] applies to the technical data environment, too—how you go from a model and simulation to a produced part,” said Hutter. “It’s the same thing. How do you do technical data interchange confidently and securely? This technology [can help].”

Advice for other manufacturers: Hutter recently took part in a workshop on these tools, and he encourages manufacturers who are curious about the technology to find similar opportunities.

• “There is nothing that makes these concepts come to life [like] getting your hands on them,” said Hutter. “You can sit there and furrow your brow and read a bunch of articles, but the best thing to do is to find one of the many opportunities for some hands-on education—and you’ll start to understand what these tools can do.”

Manufacturers across the U.S. are taking new steps toward sustainability. For Foxconn—a consumer electronics contract manufacturer and solutions provider with U.S. headquarters in Milwaukee, Wisconsin—that effort is about to get a big boost.

The project: Foxconn is developing a massive field of 2,000 solar panels covering nearly eight acres of land around a retention pond at its Racine County campus in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin.

• The panels are expected to go live at the end of July, when they’ll generate approximately one megawatt of power, which will be used to manufacture data servers.
• “That’s about 1,200 metric tons of carbon dioxide saved every year and enough energy to power about 300 American homes,” said Robert Schlaeger, head of U.S. government relations for Foxconn.

The big picture: The project—a partnership between Foxconn and utilities provider We Energies—is part of a bigger initiative from Hon Hai Technology Group in Taiwan.

• Hon Hai already uses green energy for about 40% of its power consumption across global operations. It has pledged to run wholly on green energy by 2040 and to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.
• “This is really a top-down approach for the entire technology group under the leadership of our Chairman Young Liu,” said Schlaeger. “You can see how that trickles down to the things we try to achieve at a regional level and within those regions, down to the site level.”

The impact: In 2022, the technology group spent $75 million globally on 1,877 energy-saving projects. Schlaeger views sustainability projects such as the Foxconn solar field as an important signal of the company’s commitment.

• “As Foxconn grows and responds to market demand around the world or within the United States, renewable energies demonstrate the company’s commitment to environmental stewardship across supply chains—to our customers and to our communities,” said Schlaeger.

The business case: Investments like this one are important to the company’s long-term future, but they also matter to customers right now.

• “We have customers who want to know that they are employing contract manufacturers like us that are producing their product in a responsible manner,” said Schlaeger. “What type of energy are you using? Where does the energy come from? These questions are important to our customers—and we want to show them that whether you look to our aspirations as a whole, or down to the site, you can see our commitment to green energy.”

When Emerson’s first-ever Chief Sustainability Officer Mike Train talks about his company, his enthusiasm shines through.

• “What we do to enable our customers is huge,” said Train. “We have an important role to play—and I get a lot of energy out of that.”

An aggressive push: The technology and engineering company, headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, has been making big moves in sustainability over the past few years—beginning with a goal in 2018 to reduce some of its greenhouse gas intensity by 20% over 10 years.

• At the time, the goal was ambitious, and the company wasn’t quite sure how it would achieve it. But employees banded together and pulled it off.
• “We actually achieved the goal in 2022—six years early,” said Train. “But the act of putting out a goal and not knowing exactly how we’d solve for it … has been driving the culture of our company. Our employees are proud we put it out there, proud to have participated, and it’s activated thousands of people to get excited about what we’re doing.”

An inclusive approach: Since then, the company has applied a range of tactics. From “energy treasure hunts,” in which teams search for energy waste in facilities, to renewable energy procurement and collaborations with supply chain partners, Emerson is finding interesting and inclusive ways to make an impact.

• The company has gone from getting 3% of its power from renewables to getting to 49% from those sources. And it now has a commitment to use 100% renewable energy by 2030.
• Emerson is setting other big goals, too, from net-zero operations by 2030 to a zero-waste-to-landfill pledge, along with other water and biodiversity actions.

An effective framework: The company has a three-part approach to its sustainability practices.

• Greening Of Emerson involves the actions Emerson is taking to reduce its own footprint by minimizing waste and engaging its supply chain.
• Greening By Emerson involves the company’s activities to help a wide range of manufacturing customers improve their own sustainability, often through Emerson’s automation portfolio and expertise. This, according to Train, is where Emerson has its biggest opportunity for impact.
• Greening With Emerson refers to the company’s work with government and research organizations on policy and innovation, offering technical expertise and manufacturing perspective to help drive action.

A group effort: Train has seen the company coalesce around these goals—from the sustainability team he works with every day (“they bring a lot of energy and passion to what we’re doing”) to the rest of the company’s 74,000-person workforce.

• “The fun part of sustainability is everyone is learning it together,” Train continued. “You’re allowed and encouraged to borrow ideas from each other, so the collaborative part of sustainability is an awful lot of fun.”

A labor strike on the U.S. East and Gulf Coast strike would have dire consequences for the maritime supply chain, the NAM and partner organizations told the Biden administration this week—which is why it’s vital the administration intervene now to restart stalled labor negotiations between dockworkers and an alliance of port operators and ocean carriers.

What’s going on: “Earlier this month, contract negotiations broke down between the International Longshoremen’s Association and the US Maritime Alliance,” Bloomberg Government (subscription) reports. “The current agreement, which covers about 45,000 dockworkers at facilities including six of the 10 busiest US ports, expires Sept. 30.”

• The NAM and more than 150 other industry organizations on Wednesday urged the administration to “immediately work with both parties to resume contract negotiations and ensure there is no disruption to port operations and cargo fluidity.”

Why it’s important: Other global shipping-related setbacks and threats mean the U.S. cannot withstand another challenge, the groups said. Continued Houthi terrorist attacks on commercial ships in the Middle East have resulted in “congestion and lack of equipment at overseas ports, carrier capacity issues as they continue to divert vessels away from the Red Sea and increased freight rates.”

Precedent set: Last September, after 14 months of negotiations and several work stoppages and walkouts, West Coast dockworkers reached a labor agreement with the Pacific Maritime Association—following NAM-urged intervention by the Biden administration.

• “We witnessed a significant shift of cargo from the West Coast to the East Coast and Gulf Coast ports because of the challenges and uncertainty during the last West Coast port labor negotiations,” said the groups. “While much of that business has remained at the East Coast and Gulf Coast ports, we are starting to see a shift back to West Coast gateways, where a long-term contract is in place, especially as we enter the busy peak shipping season.”

Manufacturers across the U.S. strive to make their operations more sustainable. Many are also laser-focused on the equipment they produce and how it can support their customers’ sustainability endeavors.

At Hillenbrand—a global industrial company that provides highly engineered, mission-critical processing equipment and solutions for markets including durable plastics, food and recycling—sustainability is at the core of everything it does.

The intention: Hillenbrand President and CEO Kim Ryan shared that the company doesn’t have a stand-alone sustainability strategy, but rather has made sustainability “the way we do business.”

• Hillenbrand is a signatory to the United Nations’ Global Compact, Convention Against Corruption and Women’s Empowerment Principles.

• “Our sustainability journey is guided by our purpose, ‘Shape What Matters For Tomorrow,’ which was collectively established and is embraced by all Hillenbrand associates,” Ryan said. “Our recently released 2023 Sustainability Report demonstrates our continued commitment to this goal as it shows our progress and focuses on our industrial products that positively impact the world around us.”

The progress: Highlights of the 2023 report include a focus on product innovation, continued transparency through additional data related to key environmental metrics such as water and waste, and disclosure of three years of Scope 1 and Scope 2 greenhouse gas emissions data. They also include 15 Scope 3 categories.

• “With the release of our fifth annual sustainability report, our journey continues to evolve and improve,” Ryan continued. “‘Make It Matter’ is a core value at Hillenbrand, and we’re committed to seeking out innovative solutions that push us toward a more sustainable future.”

The angle: The company’s success in sustainability is driven by its leaders, who ensure that the value is deeply ingrained in day-to-day operations.

• “Secular and global macroeconomic trends are now driving the need to adapt and engage associates, customers and stakeholders more than ever,” Ryan told us. “Taking into account these trends allows us to continue working toward a more sustainable future by providing innovative solutions.”

The value: Ryan sees Hillenbrand’s sustainability efforts—which the company sees as being supported by the three pillars of people, products and partnerships–as a value add for everyone.

• For example, by designing more-efficient systems that produce more sustainable products, Hillenbrand is committed to creating industrial solutions that have a positive impact on the world.
• Whether it’s helping customers reduce energy emissions or using Hillenbrand’s technology to produce more sustainable packaging, customers can reap the benefits of this commitment.
• “For us, there has been great value,” Ryan concluded. “If you approach this as a cost center, that is what it’s going to be for you. If you approach this as something that could actually create value for you and your customers, then I believe that’s what it has the opportunity to become.”

Further reading: Learn more about Hillenbrand’s commitment to sustainability here.

Marvin, a window and door manufacturer based in Warroad, Minnesota, is looking thousands of miles south to fill job openings (The Wall Street Journal, subscription).

What’s going on: Marvin employs about 700 people at its Warroad location. With older-generation workers retiring at the rate of about one employee a week and a town population that hasn’t grown in decades, the company “came up with a recruitment plan called ‘The Path North,’ which aims to find workers in Puerto Rico and Florida willing to uproot their families and settle in a cold northern town”—but it’s proving a difficult sell, even with generous relocation bonuses and temporary housing.

• Unemployment in Puerto Rico and Florida is low, so Marvin is fishing for talent in relatively sparsely populated ponds.
• Of the 115 workers who came from Puerto Rico in the past eight or nine months, just 63 remain at the company.
• Marvin has 10 other locations throughout North America.

Why it’s important: Marvin’s challenge is emblematic of “manufacturing in America today. The U.S. population is barely growing, baby boomers are exiting the workforce,” many young people are unaware of the many advantages of working in manufacturing and “[t]here is little political will for lasting immigration reform that could fill workforce gaps.”

• If current trends continue, the U.S. will have 2.1 million open manufacturing positions by 2030, according to a joint study by Deloitte and the Manufacturing Institute, the NAM’s 501(c)3 workforce development and education affiliate.

Well worth it: Still, for those who come to Marvin, the rewards are significant.

• The company helps employees find permanent housing and is even an investor in a local apartment complex.
• There is job security, too. When orders slowed at one of its factories a few years ago, the company offered cash bonuses to employees willing to relocate to Warroad.
• Marvin has also helped Warroad schools hire Spanish-language translators to assist the children of new hires.

The final say: “Tapping into new talent pools is especially critical in rural areas, whether it’s done via relocation support, engaging second chance populations or participating in initiatives such as the Manufacturing Institute’s Heroes MAKE America program, which is building connections between the military community and the manufacturing industry by bringing in new workers,” said MI President and Executive Director Carolyn Lee. “We need to engage all talent pools to fill the 500,000 jobs in manufacturing today.”