Manufacturing Dive recently ran a roundup of industry leaders on where AI adoption actually stands. Two answers, back to back, tell the real story better than any survey stat.
Kathie Mahoney, president of MassMEP, on why small and mid-sized manufacturers hesitate: it’s a lot of “they don’t know what they don’t know.” Not resistance. Not cost. A gap in even knowing what question to ask, or what capability to look for.
Then Ali Miller, CEO of Furnace Record Pressing, on why her company isn’t investing in AI or robotics for final production: great records are made by great people, not great robots. She calls it a craft — an art that requires people, full stop.
Put those next to each other and you get the realistic assessment this industry actually needs: some companies are behind because they don’t know what’s possible. Some companies are exactly where they should be, because they’ve correctly identified that the thing they make depends on human judgment AI can’t replicate. Those look identical from the outside — both are “not adopting AI” — and they are not the same problem at all.
The mistake is treating every non-adopter as the first case. Mahoney’s manufacturers need education and a clear starting point. Miller’s business needs nothing — the craft is the product. Confuse the two and you either push AI onto something it will only cheapen, or leave a company stuck in “we don’t know where to start” because nobody ever gave them a place to start.
So what — when you look at the parts of your operation not using AI, which ones are “haven’t figured it out yet” and which are “correctly shouldn’t”? Now what — pick one process in the first category and name the smallest possible starting point.
Source: Manufacturing Dive, “5 manufacturing professionals talk AI and technology trends”
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