Manufacturing AI That Actually Works: 7 Tools to Save Hours (w/ Adam Marsh)
Manage episode 513527477 series 3567702
How do you take a solid ISO shop and make it faster, smarter, and easier to run—without ripping out your ERP? Adam Marsh (President, Ledge Inc.; founder, 80/20 Quality) joins Brandon to share a no-hype playbook for practical AI in manufacturing: secure models, simple automation, and quality workflows that actually ship more good parts.
In this episode you’ll learn:
- Where the real waste hides: why the floor is fine—and the back-end admin is bleeding cash (POs, certs, contracts, first-article packages).
- 7 AI tools that already work in a job shop:
- Weld-photo check that flags defects and explains confidence scores,
- RCA assistant (brain-dump ➜ fishbone ➜ 5 Whys ➜ corrective actions),
- Material-cert auto-review against spec,
- Contract/flow-down checker mapped to your QMS,
- PO-to-PO diff to catch line-item changes instantly,
- Proposal builder for same-call quotes,
- “What-if” scheduling & 13-week cash-flow sensitivities.
- Secure by design: SOC-2, no model training on your data, and picking the right model (not just one chatbot) per use case.
- Team-based incentives > heroics: how a “craftsman bonus” crushed rework and boosted throughput.
- Data before ‘AI’: simple standards, clean inputs, and crawl-walk-run rollouts that earn trust on the floor.
- CMMC, PPAP, FAI, AS/ISO—without the chaos: get deliverables right upfront so you pass first time and get paid sooner.
If you’re a CNC, fab, or industrial shop juggling certs, submittals, and schedules, this conversation gives you a field-tested starting list you can deploy next week—no rip-and-replace required.
📣 Episode Spotlight — Ledge Inc. & 80/20 Quality
Want AI that’s actually usable on the shop floor? Ledge Inc. implements quality systems (ISO/AS), fractional quality leadership, and a secure, multi-model AI workspace for cert checks, contract reviews, PO diffs, scheduling scenarios and more. Pair it with 80/20 Quality to capture error data at the source and fix the 20% that causes 80% of pain.
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82 episodes