Automation World Gets Your Questions Answered

In this Automation World podcast, we’re joined by Vention's Brendan Sterne to explore how usability and accessibility are helping drive trends in industrial cobots and robotics. We dive into how manufacturers can create that environment where "anyone can program" and why that's important for realizing success in modern industrial spaces. We also touch on the common challenges manufacturers face in this space and how holistic solutions can mitigate those pitfalls.

In this Automation World podcast, we’re joined by Hexagon’s Joel Martin to explore methods to make automation more practical, more accessible for manufacturers at every stage of their journey. In taking this mindset, Joel stresses, we make automation techniques more fully embraced and, thus, more successful. Our conversation touches on getting started with automation programs, the most common pitfalls at the beginning of campaigns, and the easy wins that can create excitement in teams making first steps with smart new processes.

In this episode of the Automation World Gets Your Questions Answered podcast, Chris McNamara, Automation Group market content director, interviews Steve Kaminski, product manager for condition monitoring sensors at Banner Engineering.
Kaminski explains that condition monitoring converts machine data into actionable maintenance insights, helping manufacturers keep assets operating efficiently and avoiding failures. He recommends beginning with the most critical, failure-prone, or difficult-to-replace equipment, such as compressors, pumps, and connecting systems.
The discussion highlights Banner’s Snap Signal ecosystem, which connects diverse sensing devices—including vibration, temperature, voltage, current, pressure, and humidity sensors—into a streamlined data network that can incorporate non-Banner products. Vibration, temperature, and power data provide early warnings of mechanical or electrical problems, while differential-pressure monitoring helps optimize filter replacement.
Kaminski says modern systems enable planned maintenance, reduced unplanned downtime, longer asset life, and lower consumable and energy costs. He also describes simpler deployment through overlay networks, wireless options, dashboards, and edge controllers. Looking ahead, he expects easier-to-use systems that support both basic monitoring and automated maintenance workflows.

During this Automation World podcast, we’re talking about something different… not automation in the traditional industrial spaces (process or discrete manufacturing which we often focus on), but rather we’re looking at automation in the metal fabrication and construction spaces, which are changing drastically as smart new tools and techniques empower teams in new ways.  We’re joined by Zach Boyd, CTO at Hirebotics, to explore the evolution of fabrication, construction, welding and even painting, as humans pass paintbrushes and torches over to robotic assets.

In this Automation World podcast, recorded at the IMTS show in Chicago in late summer 2026, we connect with Sergei Altynbaev, founder and CEO of Aiolys, to explore the retrofit vs. replace debate when it comes to automation initiatives. We discuss how this decision is changing as automation matures and mainstreams, and if there are differences between European and American mindsets when it comes to updating or entirely swapping out assets and technologies.

In this episode of Automation World’s “Get Your Questions Answered” podcast we connect with Raj Rajendra, a Siemens portfolio sales specialist for automation products, who explains that “everyday automation” targets smaller applications—such as pumping stations, HVAC, water and wastewater systems, irrigation, building automation, energy monitoring, and OEM equipment—where users need capability without the expense or complexity of a full PLC system.
 The discussion centers on Siemens’ LOGO! 9 logic controller. Raj highlights its expanded 800-function-block capacity, floating-point calculations, AM4 module, integrated color touch display, built-in HMI, web visualization, and LOGO! Soft Comfort V9 engineering tools.
 Raj and Chris also discuss secure boot, encrypted controller communication, role-based access, and certificate-controlled updates as crucial protections for increasingly connected systems. Raj points out that LOGO! 9 is positioned as an entry point in Siemens’ automation portfolio, enabling scalable, secure, energy-conscious automation while preserving ease of use.

If you’ve read a newspaper over the past year—or purchased gasoline—you’re aware that our global supply chain is turbulent. And while we can’t control weather or war, manufacturers do have tools at our disposal to operate more efficiently within unsteady supply chains.
In this Automation World podcast we connect with Vincent Vasilevski of Supply Technologies, a leading global supply chain management company for assembly components and fasteners, to discuss how supply chain disruption can be mitigated through additional inventory and contingency planning, but those tactics don't always give manufacturers the flexibility to respond during prolonged disruptions. Vincent explains emerging smart inventory strategies to bolster supply chains, how the evolution of industrial automation is changing how we access assembly components, and how findings in Supply Technologies' new "State of Supply Chain Resilience 2026 Report" reveal the common supply chain challenges and exciting opportunities facing modern manufacturing decision-makers.  
This podcast is sponsored by Supply Technologies.

Now, 3D bin picking adds tremendous capability to industrial robots in manufacturing, but this technique requires advanced vision and expert setup. Today we’re going to spotlight the emerging 2D Flex feeding approach, empowered by more simple vision systems to enable quicker, more reliable implementations.
We’re connecting with Nicholas Kern, systems applications engineer with SICK, and Nick Barron, President of Feedall, to differentiate flex feeding from bowl feeding, explore new capabilities enabled by this smart new approach, highlight some of the early adopters generating real wins, and look to the future of feeding robots with smarter vision.

Join us for this podcast in which we take a deep dive into emerging benefits of the digital lockout/tagout approach. We connect with Devin Murray, safety manager with Schmersal, to explore the most common and beneficial applications of lockout/tagout, how network complexity is affecting this tactic, and how minor-servicing comes into play. Finally, we discuss how standards support lockout/tagout and what new capabilities are revealing themselves as this tactic evolves and new tools are launched.

Let’s face it...CAD systems are really just documentation systems for mechanical and electrical outputs from engineers’ minds. And oftentimes the greatest barrier to productiveness is the bandwidth of those engineers. But that bottleneck can be overcome with a smarter approach—the evolution of engineering intelligence—to make knowledge scalable across hundreds of projects.
In this podcast, we connect with Dr. Axel Zein, CEO of WSCAD, to explore the changing role of CAD, why electrical engineers should really care about AI, and how new software is empowering these industry-shaping shifts.