Inside Conexus Indiana: The Industry Network Driving Manufacturing Tech and Talent | Ep. 46

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Conexus Indiana is an industry-led nonprofit that pulls the state’s manufacturers, logistics companies, colleges, and public sector into the same room to tackle the problems they all share: building a workforce pipeline, speeding up tech adoption, and getting shops to actually help each other. Every state is scrambling for exactly that, and Indiana seems to have cracked it. This week we sat down with Bryce Carpenter, EVP and Chief Operating and Strategy Officer at Conexus Indiana, to ask a blunt question. Is this a model the rest of us should be stealing?

At its core, Conexus runs on a simple idea, that industry knows what industry needs. Its Advanced Industries Council pulls 126 manufacturing, logistics, academic, and public sector partners into the same rooms all year long to name problems, share what’s working, and go on offense together. In a state where advanced manufacturing and logistics is one in five jobs and a third of the economy, that kind of organization isn’t a nice to have.

We got into the shift Bryce has watched over a decade, from automation is the enemy to automation being a foregone conclusion, and now the same cycle repeating with AI. He makes a case we come back to a lot on this show. The winning move isn’t automating people out, it’s automating the jobs nobody wants. His palletizing story is a clinic in change management.

We also dug into the Manufacturing Readiness Grants that have pushed matching dollars into more than 700 small and midsize shops, the FiberX company that 10x’d its business, and why Conexus works hard not to be a plaque factory. If you have ever wondered what it would take to build something like this where you are, Bryce lays out the non-negotiables.

What’s Covered in this Episode

• (0:00) Learn more about Bryce Carpenter, Conexus, and the Advanced Industries Council
• (4:19) From politics to manufacturing: how Bryce landed at Conexus and never left
• (7:55) The evolution Bryce has watched across 10 years in the industry
• (9:41) COVID as the catalyzing event that forced shops to rethink headcount
• (11:37) Automating the job everyone hates: the palletizing story and what it did for retention
• (13:22) Why you should head to the IMTS Industrial AI Conference
• (14:10) The origin of Conexus: from recruiting the NCAA to backing advanced manufacturing
• (16:22) ⅓ of Indiana’s economy is in Advance Manufacturing and Logistics
• (17:52) Why a nonprofit that can’t lobby becomes government’s best ally
• (20:28) What a 20-person shop in Fort Wayne actually gets out of Conexus
• (22:25) Manufacturing Readiness Grants and the 700-plus shops they reached
• (25:05) FiberX 10x’s its business on a matching grant
• (28:39) Why we created Hire MFG Leaders (and why you should use it)
• (29:08) Answering the skeptic: why Conexus isn’t a plaque factory
• (32:49) Doing less on purpose (the Boston Scientific ASRS story)
• (35:00) Past Lights Out guests on the winners list: MSP and Arcamed
• (36:14) Arcamed’s cobots, tiger teams, and a visit from the SBA
• (38:15) Can this model be copied? The yes, the no, and the partner activity score
• (42:12) The non-negotiable ingredients to pull this off
• (44:12) Head to Kennametal’s booth at IMTS (Booth #431800)
• (45:16) 3 rules for digital adoption: strategy, a why, and life after the vendor leaves

Resources Mentioned

• Conexus Indiana
• IMTS
• Hire MFG Leaders
• Kennametal
• Lights Out

Connect with Bryce Carpenter

• Conexus Indiana
• Connect on LinkedIn