Women in Manufacturing Conference Highlights

I just returned to frozen, rural Western Colorado from beautiful Clearwater, Florida, where I attended the Women in Manufacturing Winter Workforce Conference. This year marked our first time sponsoring the event, which was especially exciting as we approach two years in business.

I wanted to share a few key themes that heavy industry leaders are navigating right now, many of which we discussed at the conference and see reflected in our everyday work.

Very quickly, one core theme emerged again and again AND AGAIN.

We know you want AI. But how? Not whether AI matters. Not whether it is the future. That debate is over. The room had already accepted that modernization is happening. The real tension was around the application.

How does AI integrate into existing systems?

Where does it sit within ERP environments that are held up by tears and prayers? I’m lookin’ at you 30 30-year green screen. Who owns it operationally? What happens when something fails on a live production line?

What stood out to me immediately was the low tolerance for vague, inspirational language. FINALLY! There was no appetite for abstract commentary about “human machine synergy” or grand visions of digital transformation without operational grounding. These were operators, executives, and transformation leaders who wanted specificity. They wanted workflows, cost models, ownership structures, and measurable outcomes.

That is my kind of room.

AI Is Not the Problem. Ambiguity Is.

AI came up constantly throughout the event. Image recognition for quality control. Predictive maintenance. Automation layered into existing systems. What the heck are agents? Infrastructure investment.

But every time the conversation began to drift toward buzzwords, someone brought it back to fundamentals. Do we trust our data? Is this a business intelligence problem or a true artificial intelligence use case? Are we solving a meaningful operational constraint, or are we layering complexity onto an already strained system?

The distinction between BI and AI surfaced repeatedly. Not every problem requires machine learning, but most manufacturers do. Sometimes the answer is better reporting, cleaner governance, clearer accountability, or simply fixing the tech implementation that was rushed five years ago.

Advanced technology only creates value when the organization is mature enough to apply it. That maturity, more than any tool, is the real differentiator.

Women in Manufacturing Are Not a Pipeline Story

Another thing that became clear is that women in manufacturing are not an “emerging talent” narrative. They are already deeply embedded in the most complex parts of the industry.

I met women leading ERP transformations, managing plant operations, overseeing compliance and safety, and driving digital initiatives that directly affect P&L performance. That capability is demonstrated every day through decisions that carry meaningful financial and operational consequence.

Women make up roughly 30 percent of the manufacturing workforce in the United States, and representation declines at higher levels of leadership. That gap is real. But what struck me most was not a focus on representation for its own sake. The conversations were centered on execution. On capital allocation. On influencing strategic decisions. On building systems that actually work.

This was not a room looking for inspiration. It was a room focused on outcomes.

Loyalty, Longevity, and Leadership Evolution

Manufacturing has long been defined by tenure. Many organizations are built on leaders who have spent decades inside the same company. That depth of experience is earned. It is lived. And it is often the backbone of operational stability.

We all know the “Jim” on the shop floor.

Jim knows LITERALLY everything. He knows which machine needs to be restarted twice, not once. He knows which button sticks when humidity shifts. He knows exactly where to tap a panel to get one more shift out of it. When something breaks, people do not open a manual. They call Jim.

But Jim is not just a walking troubleshooting guide. He is a pillar of shop culture. He sets the tone. He mentors younger operators. He knows the history behind every workaround and why certain decisions were made ten years ago. He carries institutional memory that is not documented anywhere. That kind of longevity is an asset.

The risk shows up when organizations rely on Jim’s instincts more than systems. When critical knowledge lives in one person’s head instead of being operationalized. When modernization feels threatening because it disrupts the informal structures that have kept things running.

Longevity becomes a problem only when it replaces adaptability.

The leaders who stood out at the conference were not dismissing experience. They were integrating it, or really trying to figure out how. They combined operational depth with technical literacy. They could talk production metrics and system architecture in the same breath. They respected the realities of capital constraints and safety requirements, while still questioning whether legacy systems were truly serving the business.

Let me be so CLEAR: Modernization in heavy industry does not require replacing Jim.

It requires elevating Jim. Capturing his knowledge. Embedding it into systems. Pairing his experience with data, automation, and structured process so that what he knows becomes scalable.

That is leadership evolution.

Not abandoning institutional knowledge.

Operationalizing it.

My Roundtable: No Fancy Words. Just Tactics.

I had the opportunity to host a roundtable session, and from the start, we set the tone. No buzzwords ALLOWED. No polished consultant language. No abstract frameworks. Just tactics.

What made the discussion powerful was how quickly everyone agreed on one core truth: an enterprise technology strategy is as unique as your DNA. No two organizations are the same. Not their culture. Not their risk tolerance. Not their capital structure. Not their operational maturity.

And yet, companies are constantly sold “best practice” templates as if they are universal. THEY ARE NOT.

Your ERP landscape, your workforce, your production environment, your leadership style, your customer demands. All of it shapes what your strategy should look like. Copying another organization’s transformation roadmap is like borrowing someone else’s prescription glasses and expecting perfect vision.

From there, the conversation got real.

We talked about how to get leadership to stop treating AI like magic. The narrative that AI will “fix everything” is seductive, especially at the board level. But AI is not a strategy. It is a tool. If the underlying processes are fragmented, if ownership is unclear, if data governance is weak, AI does not solve that. It scales it.

We talked about why IT often appears secretive during ERP implementations. That tension came up more than once. From IT’s perspective, they are managing risk, integrations, security, vendor relationships, and technical debt. From operations’ perspective, it can feel like decisions are being made behind closed doors about systems they have to live in every day.

That disconnect is not malicious (mostly). It is structural. But if you do not intentionally bridge it, you end up with mistrust layered on top of an already high-stakes implementation.

Another honest question that surfaced: Is AI making my people less capable? That concern is very valid. When tools automate thinking, what happens to judgment? When predictive models start recommending decisions, do operators lose the instinct that comes from experience?

The group did not dismiss that fear. We unpacked it. AI should augment expertise, not replace critical thinking. If your workforce becomes dependent on outputs they do not understand, you have created fragility, not efficiency.

And then there was the question everyone has felt but does not always say out loud: How do you deal with big consulting firms and major software vendors holding your business hostage?

Enterprise tech is a high-pressure sales environment. Deadlines get manufactured. Roadmaps get framed as urgent (they’re not). Licensing structures get complicated quickly. It is easy for internal teams to feel outmatched. They profit from your confusion.

The consensus in the room was clear. Clarity is leverage. If you understand your business deeply, if you have defined your actual problem, if you know your operational constraints and your non-negotiables, you are far less likely to be pushed into something misaligned. Vendors sell platforms. Consulting firms sell... bad ideas usually.

YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE SOFTWARE YOU BUY.

The roundtable reinforced something I see every day in our work: modernization is not about chasing the newest tool. It is about disciplined decision-making inside complex environments.

And that discipline has to be built from the inside out, and consistency is key.

Thank you to the Women in Manufacturing team for having me and for hosting such a sharp, no-fluff event. It was an honor to sponsor, to host a roundtable, and to spend a few days in rooms full of operators and leaders who are actually doing the work.

And yes, I went to Clearwater and did not eat a single piece of seafood. Not one. Still enjoyed every second.

Because what made the trip memorable was not the beach. It was the conversations. Real women. Real challenges. Real execution stories. No hype. No pretending.

Just smart, capable leaders figuring out how to modernize heavy industry without breaking it.

That is my kind of conference.