How to Decide What to Buy After a Trade Show: Eaton Aerospace and Slytek | Ep. 53

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The trade show is the easy part. The hard part is the Monday after, when you’ve got a pile of brochures, an investment to justify, and a shop that still has to ship parts. How do you turn what you saw into decisions you can defend? We recorded this episode live at IMTS 2026, but it’s really about what happens next.

Walt Swenton of Eaton Aerospace returns for a second conversation, and Cam Schley of Slytek joins us to talk about the decisions behind smarter manufacturing investments. From a small shop to a company with multiple facilities, there’s always competition for the budget. How do you decide what deserves the money—and whether another machine is actually what you need?

We get into machine monitoring, tool management, and the challenges of turning shop-floor data into something useful. Collecting numbers is one thing. Knowing what they mean, getting operators on board, and using them to guide your next move is another.

We also explore where AI and digital twins fit into the picture, along with the less glamorous work required to connect it all. If IMTS left you excited about the possibilities but unsure where to start, this conversation will give you plenty to think about before making your next investment.

What’s Covered in this Episode

• (1:33) Recorded live at IMTS 2026 with Walt Swenton and Cam Schley
• (2:35) What to look for first: spindles, changeovers, and workholding
• (4:11) Adaptive control and tool life based on actual usage, not part count
• (5:43) Hennig WorkFlow: compact pallet automation that holds up to 40 pallets for high-mix lights-out machining
• (6:33) Turning show-floor input from your team into a plan, and standardizing machine tools
• (7:58) Fall strat plan: planning three to five years out during rapid growth
• (11:20) Buy with room to grow: five axis, bigger spindles, probing
• (14:39) Factur: the go-to-market hierarchy, from referrals to trade shows
• (20:47) Where to invest next when the low-hanging fruit is gone
• (22:50) The data points behind a CapEx decision, and when machines age out
• (24:03) Capturing downtime reasons and the cycle start interlock
• (25:39) Getting operators on board, and why Toyota says 90% of problems get solved on the floor
• (26:56) Digital twins, OT infrastructure, Palantir, and CMMC compliance
• (28:46) Where AI is useful today: vision inspection and AI insights
• (31:35) Navu: AI chat for your website, trained on your own content
• (32:48) After the show: profit plan, ROI justification, and hard trade-offs
• (34:47) Why the ERP and monitoring system have to work together
• (36:30) The fear of buying the wrong technology
• (39:18) What Eric is hearing: buyers who make the trip are ready to buy
• (42:10) Takeaways: make the decision, use data, be bold, think big, win together

Resources Mentioned

• Hennig WorkFlow
• Factur
• Navu
• IMTS
• Slytek
• Eaton Aerospace

Connect with Walt Swenton and Cam Schley

• Connect with Walt on LinkedIn
• Connect with Cam on LinkedIn