Industrial Talk is talking to Vick Vaishnavi, CEO/COO/GM/President at Octave ETQ about "Pulse of Quality in Manufacturing Survey". If interested in being on the Industrial Talk show, simply contact us and let's have a quick conversation. Finally, get your exclusive free access to the Industrial Academy and a series on “Why You Need To Podcast” for Greater Success in 2026. All links designed for keeping you current in this rapidly changing Industrial Market. Learn! Grow! Enjoy!

VICK VAISHNAVI'S CONTACT INFORMATION:

Personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vickvirenvaishnavi/ Pulse of Quality Survey:  https://www.octave.com/newsroom/press-releases/2026/pulse-of-quality-in-manufacturing-2026-survey-reveals-surge-in-ai-adoption Company LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/etq/ Company Website: https://www.octave.com/products/asset-performance-management/reliance

PODCAST VIDEO:

https://youtu.be/YS-JBiTzfCg

THE STRATEGIC REASON "WHY YOU NEED TO PODCAST":

OTHER GREAT INDUSTRIAL RESOURCES:

NEOM: https://www.neom.com/en-us Hexagon: https://hexagon.com/ Arduino: https://www.arduino.cc/ Fictiv: https://www.fictiv.com/ Hitachi Vantara: https://www.hitachivantara.com/en-us/home.html Industrial Marketing Solutions:  https://industrialtalk.com/industrial-marketing/ Industrial Academy: https://industrialtalk.com/industrial-academy/ Industrial Dojo: https://industrialtalk.com/industrial_dojo/ We the 15: https://www.wethe15.org/

YOUR INDUSTRIAL DIGITAL TOOLBOX:

LifterLMS: Get One Month Free for $1 – https://lifterlms.com/ Active Campaign: Active Campaign Link Social Jukebox: https://www.socialjukebox.com/  

Business Beatitude the Book

Do you desire a more joy-filled, deeply-enduring sense of accomplishment and success? Live your business the way you want to live with the BUSINESS BEATITUDES...The Bridge connecting sacrifice to success. YOU NEED THE BUSINESS BEATITUDES!

TAP INTO YOUR INDUSTRIAL SOUL, RESERVE YOUR COPY NOW! BE BOLD. BE BRAVE. DARE GREATLY AND CHANGE THE WORLD. GET THE BUSINESS BEATITUDES!

Reserve My Copy and My 25% Discount

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Manufacturing, Quality, AI adoption, Automation, Analytics, Compliance, Tariffs, Supply chain, Product recalls, Workforce shortage, Skills gap, Onshoring, Business drivers, Industrial automation, Enterprise software

00:00

,: 2027

02:04

Welcome to the Industrial Talk podcast with Scott MacKenzie. Scott is a passionate industry professional dedicated to transferring cutting-edge, industry-focused innovations and trends while highlighting the men and women who keep the world moving. So put on your hard hat, grab your work boots and let's go!

02:22

Boom! As always, thank you very much for joining Industrial Talk, the number one industrial-related podcast that celebrates you, industry professionals all around the world. You're bold. You're brave. You dare greatly. You innovate. You collaborate. You continue to solve today's problems in industry each and every day. That's why this platform is here for you. It is you that are being celebrated on this podcast. You are the heroes. And speaking of, here's the deal. I like surveys. I like just checking the pulse of what's taking place in here. Vick, Octave, they have a survey, and it's pulse of quality in manufacturing survey. Yeah, we're going to be talking about that. We're going to be we're going to just start to go deep into the information, the details of that particular survey, and and everything out on industrial talk. Get it, chew on it, study it. We need you to succeed. We need you to be there because, well, it's important. All right, let's get Cracking, yeah. A long time ago, I used to do a lot of surveying, specifically in the world of utilities and and TND and power generation, and see what they were doing back then. What what's causing problems? You know, standard survey type stuff, and one after another, and and I got to tell you, it always it it always delivered. It delivered insights that maybe maybe you're not thinking about, and maybe it's like wow, I didn't know that. I didn't know everybody. Anyway, from the perspective of let's say sales and marketing, technology development, and everything in between, it's it's it's pretty keen. And this particular report, this survey, definitely did not disappoint. And Vick did a great job. We just just I had the I had the survey right there. The survey just you know what about this? What about that? Yeah, it's always great. I I I was able to broadcast from their Octave Live event, their first ever, and what always strikes me as as it's just exciting. It's an exciting time, and and companies like Octave and others, they're really. Trying, and they're doing their best to to look at how technology is impacting and how it can be leveraged in a way that allows you to succeed. And they just constantly think about it. And I know, I know, and for me too, being in the trenches, I know that sometimes it's hard to just constantly being inundated like that, you know. Constantly like drinking from a fire hose. Can I? Can I drink around? You know. Anyway, it's it's challenging, but it the market demands that. And Octave, if you go out to Industrial Talk and look at where you know Octave has had a lot of change, but man, it is being led by incredible people like Vick and and others, and it's exciting. There, that's my plug, and it is. It's exciting having these conversations, seeing with technology they're just rolling out over and over again, and and how it's it's gonna improve quality. Quality's Ed, you know as well as I do, quality has been improving. I expect a certain level of quality when I am buying something, you know, and it's all out there on the internet. Is it four stars or five stars? It's just it's it's ingrained. It's it's it's it's a part of our decision making process. All right. One last little plug for Industrial Talk Medium. Again, we have a big heart. We love Octave. We love companies that are just truly trying to make an impact, disruptive but in a positive way. Companies, but you have to tell your story. Nobody just just you need to tell your story. Industrial Talk Media is here for you. We have marketing. We have PR. We need to get your voice out there. We need to be able to amplify it. We need to do everything that we possibly can to definitely help you succeed. But the other component, the other half of that that we are really passionate about is that inspiration, that story that inspires the next generation of industrial leaders. You, as seasoned professionals, need need to step up and and deliver this information so that we, just as a whole in industry, have more people to just say, yeah, that's cool. We need to inspire. That's what we're all about.

07:25

We're working with a lot of organizations right now to be able to do that, to be able to pull all that information together. Right now, it's like herding cats, and and it's all fragmented out there. That message, but it's exciting nonetheless. But we want you to be a part of that. So if you get on Industrial Talk, you are contributing. You're contributing to that mission to be able to inspire, deliver information, and and solutions to a marketplace that needs to be inspired. That's what you. That's what you are. You you deliver that. There. Go out to industrial talk. Talk to me. I have a team of people. Yeah, absolutely. I have a team of people that are just passionate about what you need to do, and then we will, we'll, we'll make you look like a rock star, if that could be in the world of industry. Yeah. Well, I have a story to tell about that, but not on this show. All right, let's get on with the conversation again. the the The email says Octave Reliance Quality in Manufacturing Survey, and then I go into the body of the email, and it says Pulse of Quality in Manufacturing Survey. The bottom line is quality, and how quality is improving. What are we talking about? Where where are some of the little challenges, and how do we you know what's what's causing me you know anxiety? What give me a percentage of information? That's what we're talking about. Vick is phenomenal. Met him in at Octave Live. He's a great guy. Yeah, you need to reach out to him. All his contact information is out on Industrial Talk. Let's get cracking with the conversation. Enjoy, Vick. Welcome to Industrial Talk. You have to understand. I was looking forward to this conversation. I get, I get all giddy. I don't know why. I'm not sure if it's good for me, bald guy with the great beer getting giddy, but it it is sounds like sort of like Santa. How are you doing today, Vick?

09:28

Good, good, Scott. It's good to be back.

09:30

Yeah, I agree with you 100% I I I got to tell you, the highlight of my year this so so far was that Octave live. Nice,

09:38

nice. Well, we appreciate you coming over.

09:42

It's exciting. It

09:45

is really exciting.

09:46

How do you and I see right off the bat? I'm I'm going right into it. There is a lot coming after people. You know, let's say I'm a manufacturer. I'm a industrial guy, and I and I'm out on the world wide web and. I'm looking at stuff that's happening in that world, and it's flying past me. You know what I have a hard time with, and I'm in the trenches, Vick. I'm in the trenches doing this, and I can't keep up because of people like you, Vick. You guys are constantly thinking and innovating. That's that's a problem I have. Anyway, before before we get into the conversation of the survey that I have on my screen, right to my room, sure, whatever. We need to know a little bit about Vick. What's your background? Nothing big, bullet point type.

10:34

Well, I think if we do the Reader's Digest version, three decades in enterprise software.

10:43

You started at years.

10:45

I I started at 10, maybe. Yeah. And last 15 have been in enterprise SaaS. You know, cloud cloud based platforms. Yep. Have been in different markets ranging from cloud infrastructure to cybersecurity to GRC to infrastructure management to application management to business process orchestration to risk intelligence to critical event management all kinds other than consumers I probably have done pretty much everything, and the the latest one here is in industrial automation.

11:28

There's a lot. That's thank you for that, and thank you for making me feel insignificant in my professional career. Jeez, that's you've touched everything. I'll give you an example. I was with Price Waterhouse. I was this managing director with Price Waterhouse. We were implementing PeopleSoft. That's a long time ago.

11:53

That's a while back.

11:55

Yeah, that is a while back. Yeah, and and it was it was not easy. That was some heavy doggone lifting. Yeah, it wasn't a fun implementation, but such is life. All right, let's talk a little bit about this survey because this is interesting. As I indicated, I indicated that there's a lot happening within the world of manufacturing. There just is. Again, if I was a manufacturer and I'm manufacturing, you know, widgets, that's my yeah, that's my focus. I want to be able to do that, but then I want to maintain some sort of competitive advantage. I don't want to let this this technology juggernaut pass me by and not be able to take advantage of that. What was the premise? As I look over here, the premise behind, and what was the reason behind this particular survey? Just sort of lay that foundation. Why is this important?

12:55

So we we kind of did a formal survey, and it went to more than 750 manufacturing firms across U.S. U.K. and Germany, and the primary reason was to understand the state of quality in manufacturing, identify some key trends, some key challenges, and quite frankly, what are some of the business drivers that are manifesting themselves in manufacturing when it comes to people's focus on quality? Quite frankly,

13:32

so is this particular report for the listener out there? Did you when we say manufacturing? That's pretty broad. I can be manufacturing tires, and I and then I can be manufacturing liquids and whatever. It-it is it just across the board, or across the board strategically? Just sort of say, okay, you know, what was the criteria for the 750 around you know the world?

14:00

Well, these were these were all 750 firms that essentially were all enterprise class. You know, you could think of that as a basic of you know billion dollars in revenue and plus north of it. So people who, if you think of it in terms of cohorts, people who have global operations are building some kind of a widget. You know, as you said earlier, yeah, they could be discrete manufacturers, they could be OEM manufacturers, they could be process industries, but anything where the net result of what they do is they produce some kind of a widget, and but the widget only sells if it has good quality. Quite frankly, so understanding you know what is the state of quality in manufacturing, what are the key trends in how people are looking at quality, what is impacting quality, what is driving quality, what are the challenges. In delivering good quality, perhaps those types of things. So it wasn't any particular vertical or particular market segment. The idea was, hey, you are big enough that you have a global footprint, you are scaled enough where you know you have a significant revenue tied to ensuring that you maintain quality, and then try to ask you questions about different elements that impact quality. See, this

15:27

is an interesting, and as I again, I'm looking at the survey. I see the five, you know, five key findings of the survey, which is pretty interesting.

15:37

Yeah,

15:37

when you approached these Manufacturers, how many questions? How did you dive in? What was the analytics behind that to come up with the key findings? Like, how did you position these questions?

15:54

Yeah. So, so first of all, you know, the survey was hosted by a UK-based company called Census Wide, so we didn't kind of orchestrate it ourselves because we wanted an independent authority to kind of do this, so that the data was not perceived to be contaminated or you know biased or or anything like an

16:17

infomercial. Look at us, we're great. It's

16:19

not an infomercial. Yeah, the idea was not to be an infomercial. The idea was to be, you know, independently verified data that would tell us what the the findings were. I think they had they had different segments of questions. Quite frankly, I'm not sure exactly specific count of how many questions they asked, but the key categories that they talked about was around how quality or focus on quality from an investment's perspective is a priority. Now that was one area. AI or the use of AI was a second area. Compliance and challenging tariffs, essentially as headwinds, was the other one. Product recalls was another area, and then, quite frankly, you know, worker skills shortage or worker shortage was another area. So, wanted to really identify, you know, how these things are impacting global manufacturing certainly because these 750 that we went after are all firms that are independent firms and they have global footprint. So to understand a sense of sample set of 750 to say hey, what's going on when it comes to quality?

17:40

See, are they saying? And and I and I see the number one is like AI adoption in quality operations and reaching. I I see that topic,

17:50

right?

17:51

And here's the challenge that I, and maybe it's it, maybe it's me, maybe it's you know my misperception, but but it seems like this tsunami of information from AI is hitting everybody, right? And it's changing. It's like one day we were talking about AI. Wouldn't it be great to be able to? And then some switch flipped, and then all of a sudden it's like that is open. Now we're running. It is happening fast.

18:21

Yeah, yeah.

18:23

Are you finding that manufacturers see it? They're in it. They're you know it's happening. How do you prioritize? What what was their sort of effort to say? I see it, but this is more important

18:37

than right, right, right.

18:38

Typical. So

18:40

if you yeah so if you think about AI you know the the observations and what we learned is AI went from being looked upon as artificially intelligent if I can use that word to growing to become almost intelligent to now, where it's awesome or awesomely, if there is such a word, awesome intelligence.

19:08

You can have that. I'll put it on a bumper sticker. Awesomely.

19:11

There you go. Awesomely intelligent. So the the definition of AI has kind of evolved and very fast, mind you. Four, three to four years back, people thought about it as like, well, maybe you know we'll we'll figure it out. But now it's like mainstream, and not to mention, if you look at the public companies in this space and you know the equities market, it's booming. You know, you could call it whatever you want to call it, but it is they are they are on a roll. The one thing that kind of told us that AI had kind of AI is real and it had matured was just the fact that how many of the respondents from last year, as a percentage, pay that we are currently using AI went up last year. That was about 33% Last year, a respondent said, "Yeah, we're using AI. This year, it was 47% I'm pretty sure if I had to guess for next year, it'll be, you know, in the 60s or 70s. If I had to guess, yeah. But we all

20:15

go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead.

20:16

And then the other piece also is, you know, you have to also ask yourselves how many plan to actually use it? In other words, the commitment level, and that's almost 43% for us. You know, within the next two years, which is what leads me to believe that that 47% is going to jump to be in its 60s. The other question you asked was, you know, where are they using it? You know, how? You know what are the use cases? I I really look at AI at a more macro level. What we have seen is what I like to dub as three A's. You know, three A's. The first A is automation. So can I use AI to drive more and more automation? Things like document processing, core process automations, things of that nature. The second A is analytics. You know, can I use AI to drive analytics? Meaning, can you predict future trends? Can you spot defects on the manufacturing floor? You know those types of things. And the third A is awesomely intelligence, like I call it, you know, awesome intelligence, which is can I use it to improve my staff. Can I improve the knowledge that my shop floor, you know, the worker that's on the on the floor, actually on the manufacturing floor, can I can I make them smarter? Can I make them better? Can I get them to become more productive? So if I think of the three A's, that's really where AI is being kind of leveraged in those three scenarios, and if you think about what they hope to get out of it, is I dub as 3e's: efficiency, effectiveness, and finally economics. So efficiency, because you're going to automate things, it's going to take less time. Effectiveness, if you train your AI systems properly and they take time, you can become very effective and efficient. And then the byproduct of that is your economics or unit economics can improve by default as a as a byproduct, if you will. So invest in the three A's, and you get the 3e's back, is kind of the theme that we are seeing in terms of what manufacturers are dubbing as hey, we're now beginning to see the proliferation of AI into mainstream manufacturing operations.

22:58

How how does one and I get it, and just like any technology, I always want to gravitate to how do you determine success? We have the 3e's, but there's got to be some quantitative feedback saying we did the A's, that's why we did it, and we got the ease, and these are the quantitative results, right? That to me is how do you determine success?

23:29

Well, it's it's interesting, Scott. You asked that question because one of the findings was just the sheer elevation and the scale of investment that's going on in quality as a core business driver. You know, why are they investing? If you look at the results, one of the interesting things we looked at, and I'll talk about your, you know, how do you measure this?

23:56

Yeah,

23:56

the respondents in last year,: 2025

25:21

you're pulling on a lot of strings on that one, that whole supply chain. That's a, and then your your vendor quality, correct. That's a that's a tough one, man. That's a big one.

25:34

It is, and if they screw up by default, you are impacted. So if you if you can strengthen your supply chain and improve their quality and make it more predictable by by by association, your quality kind of strengthens as well. And then, last but not least, is just you know the the unit economics, costs and risk. You know, so if you bring those down, then your 3e's across the board from revenue to compliance to supplier quality to cost to risk, all those are reflective of your 3e's. You know, improving across all three dimensions versus the three A's that you're investing in.

26:15

Yeah. See, this is interesting because I when we start talking about quality, and now we're looking at manufacturers really committing to improving that quality, all the metrics associated with it, and tracking it. It's just sort of amazing how how it wasn't a big deal a couple years ago. It's just it's a different mindset now. All of a sudden, asset uptime, quality rejection, all of the all of the touch points have to to achieve because it's a it's a competitive advantage as a consumer. Me, that's pretty doggone good. I like that. You know, I'm going to buy it, you know. Anyway, that's just me. Talk to us a little bit more. We've we've sort of hammered on the AI and how that sort of begins to to how does how does this what what are the things happening within compliance that's that's changed because me being a manufacturing some time ago, it was always a compliance. Nobody wanted to do it. Nobody wanted to talk about it. Nobody wanted to crank out the paperwork for compliance and regulatory, you know, obligations. But the reality is, is that it's it's a dynamic market. It just is. I mean, there's no other way of getting around

27:48

it. I I think when you think about compliance, if we look at the survey, and by the way, we had about 20 questions that we we pushed out to to the respondents because you asked earlier. I was looking at how many questions did we do. It's about 20 questions we did. So not not a whole lot easy easy to do. Coming back to compliance, there's a couple of things that that the survey kind of told us. Number one, the sheer amount of external compliance or regulatory requirements have gone up. You know, to your point, the scrutiny meter has gone up, no doubt about

28:25

it.

28:26

Whether it is driven by safety standards or quality standards, but what is important is if you ask what is the biggest driver, a lot of it is quality standards have increased. People's expectations have gone up. So, to your point about as a consumer, hey, I want better quality each time. If you're going to charge me this much amount of money, you better have meet my standard of certain quality, or else I'm, you know, I'm going to somebody else. I guess, you know, for lack of better words. See,

28:56

here, here's just I'll sort of, you know, go off on a tangent real quick. It's it's like the Amazon mindset, right? Because Amazon, if I get online, I order something, it's there next day, right? And and and that's that's the standard, and that sort of you know promulgates through my whole expectation is like, hey, I ordered that seal. Where is it? You know, I want higher quality. Yeah, I'm being trained that way. I'm used. No, no, no, and I don't like it if it doesn't come the next day.

29:31

It is, you know. Imagine, you know, same same way. And if we take an analogy, you know, you you buy a new vehicle. You know, these days you don't you don't get anything good good quality. I would say, you know, for less than 30 to $40,000. Yeah, anything below that, you know, you're you're if you're paying that much money for something, you expect it to work. And if you end up being in the shop every now and then, you're upset. You know, as a company. You're like, hey,

30:00

not happy, not

30:01

happy at all. So, if you think about, you know, the price points, etc. are going up. The general feedback that we picked up is 65% of our respondents said, listen, compliance with quality standards have gone up. You know, so we have to deal with it. The other thing, which is interesting, and I'll tie it back to the supply chain comment you made earlier.

30:24

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

30:24

A lot of the it is what it is in some ways. I guess the geopolitical situation in the globe these days has driven a lot of these trade tariffs. Right? Whether you like them or you hate them, it doesn't matter. But they're there. You know, they didn't exist a few years back, but they are there now. So when you think about if you have to deal with a trade tariff, you are forced to either raise your price, you know, to compensate for your obviously your rising costs. Yep. But here's the part: what you cannot compromise is quality, because if you're going to raise prices and not deliver the same or better quality, you are just about to lose those consumers or customers that you assumed were there in your back pocket, based on the original tariff model, I guess, or whatever. And

31:20

try to get them back after you lose them. Try to get them now.

31:25

So, so a lot of the folks, essentially from a compliance and tariffs perspective, are looking at what I would call as workarounds, right? So, for example, we found that 56% of the respondents basically said, "Hey, let's. we're going to start considering onshoring because we want to work around the tariffs. Same percentage essentially said we're going to try to find new domestic suppliers, and then about 11% basically said, look, look, these things are just going to allow us and force us to curb our overall spend. We just have to figure out a way to cut costs. Now, I would I would bet those who purely focus on cutting costs are probably going to risk compromising quality because there is something you know. I take the analogy I was reading the other day some car review or something like that. It was just an article, and this entity-I won't take the name of the entity. This entity that was, you know, reviewing these vehicles was just absolutely calling out the fact that they used to have softer materials before the tariffs, and now they have replaced the softer materials with cheap plastic. So that's a classic example of cutting costs. But they also raised the price by 9% and they were doing an analysis as to why this car company is having a tough time selling that vehicle. I'm like, no kidding, you cut costs. Your quality appears to be bad. Not that a cheap plastic is a bad thing, but you had something really nice before, and you raise your price by nine points. So guess what? The consumer is like, you know what? Thanks, but no thanks. I'm going somewhere else.

33:19

Yeah. So that's

33:23

yeah, in a poop like that. Yeah, these guys were just you know hammering the the car company for for following that model. Now, what is interesting is they also said this car company could have established a manufacturing plant in in United States if they were targeting that market, now that takes a long time, right? That's not an easy thing to do, but if you're going to think strategically, those are some of your options. Or you look at certain domestic suppliers. Now switching suppliers or supply chains, as you said earlier, it's it's easier than than done. You know, especially if your supplier is reliable, predictable, the quality is good. Except it happens to be offshored. Well, you really don't have much of an option. But to say, look, over a period of time, I might kind of consider switching or swapping out suppliers, or have them build it. You know, the components here in this country, if you will, if that's what you're targeting your markets to be, but but that's where compliance has kind of taken a toll in some ways. You know, I don't mean toll as in a bad way, but it just raises the bar, which means your focus on quality has to be even further up than it probably was before. Just to counter the pressure of compliance and tariffs.

34:44

That analogy of the car manufacturer and using cheap plastic, raising the price, doing all that-you can't have a high-quality car, whatever the car is, and not have recalls and impact more more costs associated with it. You don't want. That you want to be able to manufacture something, get it into the marketplace. There, nothing's worse. I've got a I got a recall from my truck. Like I don't want to do that. That's an impact on me, and it's all about what is

35:16

what is interesting. Yes, it is about you, the consumer. But here's the interesting part about the recalls, because of what we just discussed. Yeah, you know, cutting, cutting. I don't want to call it cutting corners, but it's certainly cutting costs. The fact that you did that and you had probably an impact on adversarial impact on an adverse impact on quality, the recalls seem to have still stubbornly high, despite best efforts. So, if you know if you're focusing so much on quality across the board, it's interesting and counterintuitive to think like recalls still remain high. Well, it's high because compliance requirements have gone up, tariffs are taking a toll. So, in order to maintain quality, it is becoming harder and harder for them. So, almost 75% of our respondents said, "Hey, we've had a product recall in the last five years, and 47% of them, to our earlier discussion on supply chain, traced it back or attributed it to problems in the supply chain because that's what's happened. People think of it and say, "Well, I can't really shift my manufacturing, you know, overnight. I don't want to really curb the cost too much. In other words, I'm not going to go for the cheap plastic. So guess what? I have to look for a new soft leather supplier, maybe domestically or somewhere else, and as soon as you do it, it takes some settling time before you get the quality level that you're hoping to achieve. So it's a lot of things just moving different levers.

36:52

Yeah. See, as a as a human being, I I I want things to not be full of tension and stress and and going and saying, "Hey, I got to go find another supply. People will automatically say, "Well, I'll just sort of deal with the one that I have because I don't want to introduce a frustration to

37:10

it.

37:11

You know, it just is-it's just human human nature. Yeah, it's it. See, this is interesting, and I'll tell you right now. Right now, my expectation as a consumer is constantly improving. It just-it's my expectation is higher and higher

37:29

and higher

37:30

and higher. And I blame the manufacturer. I just do. You're you're setting the bar high. You know

37:37

that-that's true. And then if you think of it in terms of the earlier discussion we had about the three A's giving you the 3e's,

37:45

yeah,

37:46

you can now see a correlation between well, they don't have a whole lot of options to kind of do you know do some near term quick fix to these compliance pressures or tariffs. So investment in automation, analytics, and AI is your next bet, you know, next best bet, which without compromising quality.

38:06

Yeah, which is a great segue to this next question. If I had a nickel every time somebody talked about workforce management, if I had a nickel of reshoring a company here and say, hey, now we're gonna try to man it up or bring some people in that you just can't do that because and and the speed at which the expectation it's hard. You got the human side that's got a pace, and then you got this technology side. It's like there's real disconnect. How does how do I I don't have an answer. I I work with some companies, but I don't have an answer on how to create that resilient business, knowing that workforce management, finding skilled individuals, training them, and and that they stay, and then they don't go to you know Joe down the street. That's the challenge.

39:04

I think. I think one of the things, interesting things we learned was 78% of our respondents said their organizations had been impacted by a workforce shortage or skills gap. Now, why are they saying that? Well, if you think of it in terms of onshoring, at least in in in the Western world, manufacturing kind of at a macroeconomic level shifted east, for lack of better words.

39:35

Yeah,

39:36

ing this machine for the last: 1015

42:19

Yeah, I agree with you 100% and of course, a component of that needs to be safety. Of course, and making sure that these new entrants are are safe. You know what's interesting, Vick? I was doing a project for utility companies many years ago, right? And one of the challenges we had is, of course, like we have today is this silver tsunami. How to? But at that time, didn't have a a real option to try to extract that. You know what we did? Hey, come on board as a consultant.

42:54

That's true.

42:55

It's true, and and help us transition. That was we we had a hard time pulling that knowledge. And and to your manufacturing example, you know, Susie used runs this machine, and she's been running this machine for 15 years, whatever. She understands all the little quirks and the little sounds and little. That's a bad sound. That's not a bad sound. We, you know, just tweak it here. That's a hard one to to try. That's a tough one.

43:29

Yeah, it is. AI can help, but

43:33

at

43:33

the end of the day, you still need Susie to come in and and impart her knowledge to the AI system to capture, so that the next person can kind of learn from that.

43:44

You do, and and with that with that analogy, with that example, you need to have willing manufacturers. You can't. You still need people. Whether you can only automate so much, and and there was an example. I used to be alignment, so I used to climb towers. You can't automate that. You can automate maybe the the patrolling of it with with. But if I have to change a string of insulators, it's a you know yeah

44:14

yeah that's climbing and taking care of you. Can never take the human out of the loop. That no, you but you can make them more

44:20

efficient. You can make make them more

44:22

efficient. You can make them more productive, certainly, and make it improve their work life balance. You can certainly do that, so they stay productive.

44:32

We've we've covered a number of points on this particular survey. Why don't you just sort of give us a just your general assessment of what has been revealed in this this survey, just like and sort of the you know the the clipboard is that everything looks bright in the future.

44:52

Well, I think if we if we sum it up as what are the key insights, you know. First and foremost, manufacturers are elevating and investing in quality as a core business driver. You know, thinking of it, thinking of quality as a strategic differentiator versus a tactical necessity, if you will. Just is. Second one is our our favorite. You know, three A's to 3e's. Most manufacturers are now using some form of AI in their quality operations. So it's like, hey, invest in the three A's, and get the 3e's back. The next one I would say is what you brought up, which is you know, hey, regulatory compliance requirements and tariffs are headwinds. They're absolutely a big challenge, and what do we do to counter them or work around them, if you will? And the last two are the first one is a little bit counterintuitive, but it's there, which is product recalls absolutely remain high despite best efforts of manufacturers, and you can blame that on disrupting the pulp supply chain more than anything else, and kind of countering the tariffs and and compliance requirements to say, hey, that causes a ripple effect down on quality, and as soon as you do that, you probably get a recall out of it. And then last but not least is the last topic you talked about, which is you know labor and workforce skill shortage absolutely continues to impact quality, you know, as as a silver tsunami, as you talked about

46:26

silver tsunami.

46:28

Yeah, as that kicks in, yeah, it's it's it's causing shortages, and manufacturers have to do something, and it's causing an impact on quality.

46:36

You know, it's interesting, and and just in general, just just looking at the survey, I I get a sense of anxiety-not a bad anxiety-but I I feel like I need to act. I need to do something like like with the the the labor situation. We got to do fast. We got to be we got to be faster. I I don't know how to be faster, you know. But everything's like I don't want I don't want to miss a boat. Anyway, that's just me.

47:04

I think I think the issue there is if we look at the survey key takeaways. I think for all manufacturers, they really have to look at their level of preparedness, right, and how much investment they're making in quality, and you know, I'll I'll tell you the way I kind of look at it is, if you're a manufacturer and you're not doing anything about it, you're not getting prepared. You'll either be in the stressed camp, or you can be in the under pressure camp. The difference between being stressed or feeling pressure is going to be your level of preparedness. It's just that simple.

47:44

It's true, and I think that one has a more a bright. Oh well, has a brighter future, and the other one, well, it's not as bright.

47:53

Not as bright, exactly.

47:55

As we wrap it up, Vick, how does somebody say, and I like this. I'm gonna, I'm gonna have this out on Industrial Talk. This survey, just because I can, unless you tell me otherwise. But right now, I'm going to go. It's out there. How do people get a hold of you, my friend?

48:12

Well, you can certainly talk to us via email. It's vik. Vashnavi at Octave. com. That's probably the easiest way and the best way to hit us up. And if you can email it, that is that would be fantastic. That's the best way to.

48:30

What about your LinkedIn profile? Can I? That

48:34

is certainly there as well. You can hit me up on LinkedIn, or you can email us, email me, and we'll be happy to answer any questions. Or more importantly, if we can help you not be in the stress land and be under get better prepared, we can certainly help there too.

48:51

See, and this is you. You touch on something that I always want. I want I want a trusted Sherpa to bring me along on this journey. I want that individual that I can trust, know, like everything about it. But technology is the technology; it's always the people game, and being able to feel like, hey, Vick, I trust Vick. Vick's great, man. I go out and have a beer with Vick. You know, that is so important because if I'm making a decision that I'm going to be deploying some technology, and I'm I'm actively saying I'm going to upset my manufacturing process because I see a brighter future in the down the road. I better have somebody along with me that I that I like.

49:36

Yep, and then and then also also I would say you know if anybody wants to get hold of the survey and see the results and study it a little bit more, they can get the survey at Octave.com, o-c-t-a-v-e.com, and they can search for pulse or quality survey. So you can you can hit us up on Octave. And do a search on the website for pulse of quality survey.

50:05

You're stellar. You know we've been talking for 40 minutes, and it doesn't seem like 40 minutes. How's that? That's how good you are.

50:12

Thank you. Thank you for the voice, Scott. All right,

50:15

we're going to have all the contact information for Vick out on Industrial Talk. Reach out to him. He knows what he's talking about. You need to up your manufacturing game. This is a great survey for you to sort of triangulate how you will survive in the future with all this wonderful, wonderful technology. Vick, thank you for being on Industrial Talk.

50:36

Thank you, Scott. Great to be here. All

50:38

right, we're going to wrap it up on the other side. Stay tuned. We will be right back.

50:42

You're listening to the Industrial Talk Podcast Network.

50:54

Yeah, cool. There's so much going on. You need people like Vick. You need people and companies like Octave. Yeah, you need to tap into that that cornucopia of individuals that definitely know how to deliver value. They they have that insight. Again, I was at Octave Live. One conversation after another conversation of of professionals, industrial professionals, just delivering so much value. You're all out there. Yeah, you need to connect with Vick. He needs to be a part of your network, your posse. You know, your stable full of just incredible individuals that are delivering that you can tap into, and you can tell he's an open book. He's all there. Anyway, that's big, Octa Company. Again, the the pulse of quality in manufacturing. It's all there. Let's go out to Industrial Talk. Reach out to him. Find out more. Do your due diligence. It's easy. I know you're getting you know inundated. This whole drinking from a fire hose type of world we live in. Here's something that you can just sort of sit down and curl up with and look at it and say, Yeah, I got it. Now I'll take the next step. It's all good, right there. All right. Once again, industrial talk is here for you. I'm going to continue to plug Industrial Talk. We are the ESPN of industry. You need to connect with us. You need more eyeballs, eyeballs and ears on what you do, and you need to participate in Industrial Talk to inspire that next generation of industrial leaders. We need you to be a part of Industrial Talk, so reach out. Go out to industrialtalk.com, click connect with me, and we have a team of people. We'll make it painless. We just want you to succeed because when you succeed, everyone succeeds, and that's pretty doggone good. And I like that a lot. And you are doing great stuff out there, and that story needs to be told over and over again. All right, parting shot here. Reach out to pick one, two. Connect with anybody in Octave because they're great. You know, they just whatever you're looking into. Yeah, they're all good. Download that survey out on Industrial Talk, or go to Octa and get it, and then let's succeed in the future. All right, be bold, be brave, dare greatly. Hang out with Vick, and you can tell you will be changing the world. We're gonna have another great conversation shortly. So as always, stay.