Manufacturing change, from tools to events.
Advanced Manufacturing Now is a working-industry briefing on the tools, people, and pressures shaping modern manufacturing. Episodes move between editorial roundtables, webinar recordings, event previews, and technical interviews on additive manufacturing, cobots, composites, AI, risk, and plant data.
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Advanced Manufacturing Now operates like an editorial desk for the manufacturing floor. It favors current industry problems, concrete technologies, and conversations tied to publications, webinars, and live events. The tone is professional, but not stiff. Episodes often begin with SME Media editors setting the agenda, then move quickly into a guest, a report, a trade-show preview, or a technical theme. Additive manufacturing is a major thread. The show contrasts large-format additive work for automotive applications with micro-3D printing, using scale as a way to make the breadth of the field feel tangible. RAPID + TCT coverage gives the feed a strong event pulse, especially around Boston, SME's anniversary, and reflections from people who remember earlier versions of the show. Automation appears through practical pressure. In the cobot episode, Matthew Bush connects Hirebotics to the labor shortage problem and talks through uses such as welding, machine tending, pick-and-place work, palletizing, and metal-forming automation. Other episodes shift into decision-making infrastructure. Webinar recordings cover manufacturing outlooks, higher costs, risk visibility, predictive modeling, Monte Carlo simulation, governance, workflow, and centralized risk registers. Data-driven maintenance also gets attention, especially around lubricant condition monitoring, gearboxes, powertrains, digitization, AI, and continuous monitoring. The show is not only about machines. Career-focused conversations, such as Rachel Thomas speaking with Brittany Rodriguez, bring in early-career engineering, advanced polymer composites, and the route from business studies into manufacturing. AI is handled as an operational issue rather than a futuristic slogan. The CADDI sessions frame tribal knowledge, duplicate parts, supplier history, drawing comparison, metadata, and engineering reuse as competitive problems. Advanced Manufacturing Now is best for people who want a grounded sense of what manufacturers are buying, testing, discussing, and worrying about now. It can feel closer to a trade briefing than a personality-driven talk show. That is part of its value. The feed keeps returning to the same central question: how manufacturing teams make smarter decisions when labor, cost, risk, data, and technology are all moving at once.
Made for: Manufacturing professionals, engineers, operations leaders, editors, suppliers, and technically curious business listeners who want practical context on advanced manufacturing trends. It especially suits people following additive manufacturing, automation, AI, industrial data, and production risk.
What sets it apart: The show blends SME Media editorial conversations with webinar recordings, event previews, and technical guests, so it captures both industry reporting and practitioner detail. Its strength is the mix of shop-floor applications, event context, and business pressures in one feed.
Welcome to the podcast for manufacturing professionals, powered by SME. Featuring a variety of guests from leading manufacturing companies, the Advanced Manufacturing Now podcast drives the conversation about making manufacturing smarter. SME Media is a leading source for news and in-depth technical information about advanced manufacturing in North America. To learn more about SME Media, visit us at AdvancedManufacturing.org.
A milling cutter becomes the weakest link on purpose, and suddenly your factory decisions make more sense.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A practical look at preserving manufacturing expertise with duplicate-part, supplier-history, and handwritten-note demos.
The webinar presents manufacturing expertise as something worth keeping within reach, not leaving buried in records. Aaron Loeber, Chris Cope, and Patrick Harrigan show CADI handling duplicate parts, supplier history, quality questions, and handwritten notes, with the broader…
A career pivot opens onto mentorship, large-format additive manufacturing, and composite engineering at Oak Ridge.
The conversation finds its strongest thread in Brittany Rodriguez's path from business into engineering. Now working with advanced polymer composites at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, she recalls discovering manufacturing in her second year of college and gaining confidence…
CMMS only pays off when technicians can actually use it.
Advanced Manufacturing Now treats maintenance software as a usability problem first: tools only matter when technicians can actually work with them.
STEM careers, told through human turning points.
Mining engineering talk with field memory.
Field notes from fluid power engineering.
Brian Christensen, CEO of Limbal, discusses why usability is critical for maintenance technology adoption.
Brittany Rodriguez, a technical professional at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and 2025 SME 30 Under 30 honoree, shares her career journey from business student to composites engineer.
Steve Plum interviews Megan Zimba about her August feature on CNC process consolidation for Advanced Manufacturing Now and SME Media.
Steve Plum, Brett Conner, and Tim Wilson assess the 54th North American Research Conference at Penn State University, which drew 180 industry attendees and submissions spanning six continents.
Advanced Manufacturing Live host Michael McConnell interviews Rockwell Automation Director of Technical Enablement Andrew Stumpf about findings from Rockwell's 11th Annual State of Smart Manufacturing Report.
Advanced Manufacturing Now host Bruce Morey interviews Ceratizit's Chuck Somerville about six milling checks: part design, workholding, machine capability, toolpaths, cutter selection, and cutting parameters.
The hosts discuss the upcoming April issue of Manufacturing, Engineering, and Technology, focusing on additive manufacturing topics like large-format applications in automotive and micro-3D printing ahead of the RAPID + TCT 2026 event.
This webinar-based podcast discusses the 2026 manufacturing outlook, focusing on how leaders are investing, adapting, and competing amid challenges like labor shortages and higher costs.
This episode previews the upcoming RAPID + TCT event in Boston, featuring SME Media colleagues discussing the trade show's history, SME's 94th anniversary, and personal experiences with the event.
This episode explores how cloud-connected cobots are solving labor shortages in manufacturing, featuring insights from Matthew Bush, CEO of Hirebotics, on their applications and industry impact.
This webinar explores how to transform manufacturing variability into visibility by managing interconnected risks, featuring insights from LumaVero's integrated tools for decision-making under uncertainty.
This episode features an interview with Brittany Rodriguez, a technical professional at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and SME 30 Under 30 honoree, discussing her career journey into composite engineering and manufacturing.
This webinar discusses Castrol's data-driven lubricant condition monitoring solutions for industrial applications, featuring insights from technical experts on digital transformation in manufacturing.
Rachel Thomas opens an SME Media webinar on preserving manufacturing expertise in an AI era, and Aaron Loeber frames the topic as turning tribal knowledge into competitive advantage.
This episode features an interview with Gary Shapiro, CEO of the Consumer Technology Association, discussing the history and future of CES, including AI and manufacturing innovation.
This episode features an interview with Silvio Memme, Head of Business Development at P1AI, discussing his background in mechanical engineering and venture capital, and how he joined the AI-based engineering startup.
This episode discusses the latest manufacturing trends in North America, focusing on the impact of tariffs, trade issues, and sector-specific performance, based on an annual benchmarking survey.