As I continue to share the Top 10 Tips I gleaned from industry leading manufacturers over my 40 year career, I almost missed sharing this one.

When it comes to digitizing processes on the plant floor in the pursuit of achieving “Industry 4.0” objectives, it occurred to me that many of my most successful customers had benefitted from the youthful, tech savvy enthusiasm of college students working under the direction of the plant manager, getting ideas put into action that the manager, or his seasoned staff, was not able to do as effortlessly themselves. New technology has its advantages, but it is not as exciting to the ‘more seasoned’ crowd as it is the younger generation that embraces it naturally and enthusiastically.

About a year ago, I was doing a presentation to a company that has 3 plants and about 500 employees. The owner of the company was still involved and was at the meeting along with his plant managers, CI manager, IT manager, CFO and a few others. Almost as a tag-along, one of them invited their co-op student to the meeting, likely because it was his responsibility to keep the co-op student gainfully occupied that four-month term.