Robin Teigland explains how digitalization is changing the competitive paradigm of “traditional” businesses, where multinational corporations perform on the basis on size, structure and ownership of resources. Robin gives us many examples of how the digital disruption can start actually small, based on principles of resource sharing and open innovation. Robin Teigland is a Professor in Management of Digitalization in the Entrepreneurship and Strategy Division at Chalmers University of Technology.

What does the Industrial Internet of Things mean when put into the context of Smart Manufacturing? Sanjay Jain from George Washington University, Washington, DC, breaks it down in three pillars: connectivity, intelligence and automation. Sanjay focuses on the intelligence part mainly. He shows how synthetic data generated by manufacturing simulation models, when feeding data analytics techniques, helps us to predict cycle times and delivery rates accurately, even with a limited training dataset.

Jon Bokrantz, Chalmers University of Technology, explains: This shared understanding of smart maintenance is rooted in the Swedish manufacturing industry. They really defined what it is. He also talks about "Smash – assessment of smart maintenance". The aims to SMASh project was to enable digitalization of the Swedish manufacturing industry. Many different management roles were involved in the development of the assessment tool.

Professor Rikard Söderberg, Chalmers University of Technology, takes us to a journey from the dawn of the engineering discipline of geometrical assurance to the digital twin as key to manage product tolerances and adjust the production according to the varieties of the upcoming products. The goal? Reduce costs, waste, and improve quality. Rikard invites current budding researchers-entrepreneurs to keep their vision tight and to work hard in a journey that can last for up to 20 years.

Instead of defining big data in terms of “what” and “how”, Mukund Subramaniyan invites us to asks: “why” big data? In this episode, Mukund Subramaniyan, Chalmers University of Technology, shares his adventure and precious knowledge as cross-disciplinary PhD student, bridging the gap between computer science and production engineering. His motto? Big data for big decisions.

“With a realistic model of the factory [in VR], actors affected by changes in factory layout are actively involved in the planning process”, says Liang Gong. He is a PhD student at Chalmers University of Technology (Production Systems), and is the expert of Virtual Reality technologies adoption in his research group. He talks about why computer aided design (CAD) and simulation tools are great for estimating quantitative measures in factory layout planning.

This is a special episode, because Maja Bärring and Daniel Nåfors are the first PhD students who have been interviewed in DigiTalk Pod. Maja’s research focuses on understanding the value of data brought by digital technologies in production, such as the 5G and blockchain, whereas Daniel’s research focuses on supporting layout planning in factories via 3D laser scanner technology applied to virtual reality.

How to achieve a failure-free production? Listen to Anders Skoogh, Associate Professor and research group leader for Production Service Systems & Maintenance at Chalmers. Anders brings a perspective that combines technology, management and strategy and that transforms the concept of maintenance from reactive and insular to proactive and collaborative. Anders, being the Director of the Production Engineering Master Programme, describes how digitalization has been brought into curricula.

Professor Björn Johansson talks about virtual production and digital twins, and shares with us how digital tools can help improve the sustainability performance of factories.

Assistant Professor Mélanie Despeisse takes us to a journey starting from the quintessence of manufacturing – using valuable resources to produce value for society – to sustainable manufacturing and related concepts.