Fernando Guedes, Global Manufacturing Engineering Manager at Aptiv, joins The Manufacturing Intelligence Podcast for a deeply human and practical conversation on leadership, learning, and how manufacturers can navigate rapid technological change without losing what matters most.

Drawing from more than 30 years in electronics manufacturing, Fernando traces his journey from shop floor technician to global engineering leader and shares how hands-on experience, teaching, and empathy shaped his leadership philosophy. He explains why trust and mental health are foundational to performance, how continuous improvement frameworks like Six Sigma still apply in an AI-driven world, and why real-time data has fundamentally changed the speed of decision making.

Throughout the episode, Fernando offers a grounded perspective on AI and automation, emphasizing that technology should enable people, not control them. He discusses how leaders can use data as a signal for opportunity rather than blame, why lifelong learning is essential, and how manufacturers must prepare teams for significant workforce and skills shifts in the coming years.

• Leading global manufacturing teams through trust and human connection
• Learning by doing and why shop floor experience still matters
• Teaching as a way to scale expertise and build empathy
• Why Six Sigma and Lean still work, but faster than ever
• Using data as opportunity rather than judgment
• How AI and real-time analytics change continuous improvement
• Preparing for workforce shifts driven by automation and AI
• The importance of curiosity, adaptability, and lifelong learning

What excites Fernando about the future of manufacturing leadership

• How HARMAN prevents quality escapes before they become field issues
• Why ownership beats enforcement when rolling out global standards
• What US and German manufacturing cultures can learn from each other
• The AI stance every experienced practitioner should have right now
• Career advice that compounds slowly — and pays off for decades

Jonathan Wise, Chief Technology Architect at CESMII and veteran leader across Rockwell Automation, Microsoft, GE, and Amazon, joins The Manufacturing Intelligence Podcast to unpack what it really means to be “AI-ready” in manufacturing and what it takes to build real-world ai for manufacturing that works.

Drawing from decades of experience and over 50 digital transformation projects, Jonathan discusses the hidden complexity beneath data structures, why unified namespaces aren’t enough, and how AI success depends on the right semantic and ontological foundation. He also offers a refreshingly honest perspective on standards adoption, hallucination risks in LLMs, and how to bridge both technological and generational divides on the factory floor.

• Why semantic consistency is the missing link in most manufacturing AI efforts
• How ontologies and knowledge graphs unlock decision automation
• The limitations of current standards and how modular “Lego block” approaches can work better
• Lessons from CESMII’s digital transformation projects across U.S. manufacturing
• The disconnect between LLMs and messy, real-world industrial data
• Strategies to capture tribal knowledge and embed it into next-gen AI tools
• Bridging generational divides between OT experts and digital-native workers
• Why repeatability is key to successful AI implementation
• The future role of humans in AI-augmented factory environments