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A lot has changed since the last time we pulled up chairs around the Boring Bar. For our fourth edition, eight manufacturing leaders joined us in the MakingChips studio ahead of the IMTS pre-party to talk about where the industry is headed and, after a couple pours, where they think it should be headed.
AI takes over the conversation early. How fast is it really moving into manufacturing? What happens when it can quote jobs, write code, capture tribal knowledge, or help program a part? Where does the human still matter? And are we actually prepared for the power, infrastructure, workforce, and even educational questions that come with all of it?
Then we turn the question back on ourselves.
If you were starting a machine shop in 2026, knowing everything we know now, would you build it the same way? What would you invest in first? What kind of equipment would you buy? How would you think about automation, people, capacity, specialization, cash flow, and the growing list of incentives available to manufacturers?
Along the way, we get into what’s driving demand right now, why data centers suddenly matter to machine shops, what manufacturers should be watching at IMTS, and whether the next generation of shops will look anything like the ones we grew up around.
As usual at the Boring Bar, there are strong opinions, questionable jokes, bourbon, gin, and a few detours we definitely didn’t plan.
Pull up a chair.
What’s Covered in this Episode
- (0:00) The fourth edition of the Boring Bar, back in the MakingChips studio + introductions
- (5:43) IMTS 2026 registration is running ahead of 2018, the largest show on record
- (6:36) The IMTS pre-party, the rally car, and what the night is really for
- (7:44) What’s changed for everyone since the last Boring Bar
- (9:27) Data centers: Are they the engine behind this year’s growth?
- (12:43) The 37 minute AI prompt that produced a consultant grade report
- (13:30) Hallucinations, beach reads that did not exist, and why you verify
- (18:39) Training on AI, where it’s going, and why everyone needs to embrace it
- (25:33) The stage zero most shops skip: Security, then application
- (26:48) How quoting has been compressed from days to minutes
- (28:19) The IMTS Industrial AI Conference and the Industrial AI Arena
- (29:28) The IMTS Job Shops Workshop and the AI for the job shop session
- (30:36) ProShop goes AI first, plus native machine monitoring, AI quoting, and Chip
- (33:21) Programming a part with AI after 30 years away from it
- (37:00) Capturing tribal knowledge so each job teaches the next
- (42:21) The machine tool giveaway with DN Solutions + Kennametal
- (42:38) The big question: how would you start a machine shop today
- (47:49) Invest in infrastructure first (digital and physical)
- (55:25) What will be your guiding metrics? Availability, performance, and quality
- (57:34) Run the shop lights out yourself, then replicate yourself with each hire
- (1:04:05) Three business skills for a new shop: cash, capacity, and credits
- (1:06:15) $3,500 per apprentice, plus the tax tools that arrived in July of 2025
- (1:09:20) The Lights Out guest with a fab shop, a water plant, and a coal mine
- (1:15:32) The comp sci grad who chose trade school over a job AI could take
- (1:22:12) Generation CNC: teenagers buying their first machines
- (1:23:34) Math as a barrier, and why we should not exclude kids
- (1:26:48) The importance of Oscar Mike and Manufacturing Pathways
- (1:28:45) Machine giveaway: DN Solutions, Kennametal, SMW Autblok, and Martin Trunnion Tables
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