Howard Sachs joins Phil Seboa and Ed Fuentes to discuss how de-risking industrial technology, championing sovereign manufacturing, and first-principles leadership are shaping Australia's industrial future.

Key topics in this episode:

• Why de-risking matters more than product specifications in industrial sales
• How the Dulux Industry 4.0 project succeeded through collaboration and leadership
• Australia's sovereign manufacturing challenges and the COVID-19 vaccine push
• Pockets of innovation across traditionally conservative industries
• Why mentorship from every direction accelerates learning

Connect with Howard on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hsachs/

Connect with Phil on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philseboa/

Connect with Ed on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edfuentes/

Learn more about Universal Automation Solutions: https://universalsystems.com.au

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Most industrial AI projects fail before they produce anything useful. The models are ready, the dashboards look great, and the executive presentation landed. But on the shop floor, nobody can get clean data out of the PLC without calling the vendor. The missing piece is a data foundation.

Alexander Kruger, co-founder and CEO of United Manufacturing Hub (UMH), joins Phil Seboa and Ed Fuentes on this episode, powered by PLCnext Technology, to explain why factory AI stalls without the right infrastructure underneath it, why boring technology beats shiny platforms, and how open source tooling is putting data ownership back in the hands of the people who run factories.

Key topics in this episode:

• Why most factory AI projects fail at the data layer before they reach the model layer
• How UMH went from systems integration with McKinsey to building open source data infrastructure
• The five-step process for connecting machines, modeling data, and serving it to applications
• Why Kafka and Postgres beat purpose-built IoT platforms for long-term reliability
• How containers and Kubernetes solve high availability problems OT has wrestled with for years
• The open source bet on forerunner power users who change organizations from within

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• This episode is proudly made possible by PLCnext Technology

  PLCnext Technology is the ecosystem for industrial automation consisting of open hardware, modular engineering software, a global community, and a digital software marketplace.

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  Learn more at:

  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.plcnext-community.net/news/synergy-edge-cloud/⁠⁠⁠

  
  

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  Connect with Alexander on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexander-krueger/

  Connect with Phil on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philseboa/

  Connect with Ed on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edfuentes/

  Learn more about United Manufacturing Hub: https://umh.app

Most industrial data projects fail before they start. The data is clean, the tools are connected, and the dashboards look great. But nobody can explain why the production line dropped 12% last Tuesday. The missing piece is human context.

Bob van de Kuilen, CEO and co-founder of Thred, joins Phil Seboa to explain why knowledge graphs fill the gap that the Unified Namespace leaves open, and how pairing them with AI turns weeks of troubleshooting into minutes.

Key topics in this episode:

• Why machine context alone cannot make industrial data meaningful
• How knowledge graphs go beyond UNS to connect cross-functional perspectives
• A hydraulic failure diagnosed in three minutes instead of two weeks
• The knowing-doing gap that keeps factories stuck despite having the right tools
• Why throwing an LLM over raw data without a knowledge graph causes hallucinations

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  This episode is proudly made possible by PLCnext Technology

  PLCnext Technology is the ecosystem for industrial automation consisting of open hardware, modular engineering software, a global community, and a digital software marketplace.

  • 
    

  Learn more at:

  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.plcnext-community.net/news/synergy-edge-cloud/⁠⁠

  
  

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  Connect with Bob on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bob-van-de-kuilen-a531403/

  
  

  Connect with Phil on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philseboa/

  
  

  Connect with Ed on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edfuentes/

  
  

  Learn more about Thred: https://thredcloud.com