Sep 9, 2026

You walk in Friday morning and the material is still sitting in quarantine. It was supposed to be relabeled and moved out Thursday, and you need that space today because corporate is walking the floor tomorrow.

What happens in the next ten seconds decides the whole conversation.

Trevor takes one real scenario from a...

Sep 2, 2026

Karin Lindner has spent fourteen years trying to make manufacturing attractive to the people who work in it, and she says it is still not there. Her new book, Making Manufacturing Sexy, argues that most manufacturing leaders are not leading. They are surviving, stuck in a system that rewards firefighting.

Karin and...

Aug 26, 2026

What if the reason nobody applies has nothing to do with what you pay? In new research across the United States and Canada, concerns about physical safety ranked as the number one barrier to even considering a job in manufacturing. Pay came in fourth. Trevor assumed that was a perception problem, an old...

Aug 19, 2026

When was the last time somebody stopped your line and you thanked them for it? Toyota built the andon cord into the line decades ago and most plants still treat pulling it as a failure. Dr. Michael Gillespie, organizational psychologist at the University of South Florida and co-author of Distancing with David Marquet,...

Aug 12, 2026

You inspect for hazards every single day. When did anybody last inspect the culture? In new research across the United States and Canada, a toxic or unhealthy work culture ranked above unsafe or hazardous working conditions as a reason people would leave a new manufacturing job inside the first three months....