For the past few decades, the race for industrial competitive advantage has centered on finding new and abundant low-cost labor sources. The next wave of industrial productivity increases is anticipated to be fueled by technological advancements. Cyber-physical systems (CPS) and dynamic data processes that employ enormous volumes of data to drive smart machines define this development, which some refer to as Industry 4.0.
Dr. Dean Bartles, a well-known person in the manufacturing area, is well-suited to describe the complexity of production and how it is being altered with the assistance of developing technology. He is a seasoned operations specialist with four decades of manufacturing and technology management experience. He is currently the President and CEO of the Manufacturing Technology Deployment Group, Inc., a not-for-profit holding company of both the National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining (NCDMM) and Advanced Manufacturing International, Inc. (AMI), a new subsidiary and sister company to NCDMM.
MTDG
The Manufacturing Technology Deployment Group (MTDG) is the not-for-profit holding company of the National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining (NCDMM) and Advanced Manufacturing International (AMI).
MTDG is transforming the advanced manufacturing industrial base by driving innovation and accelerating growth. MTDG is headquartered in Clearwater, FL.
Years of Excellency
Since 2010, Dr. Dean Bartles has served as a board member for NCDMM before joining as the President and Chief Executive Officer in May 2019. Prior to this, he served as the President of the National Tooling and Machining Association and was previously the Director of the John Olson Advanced Manufacturing Center at the University of New Hampshire. Dr. Bartles was the founding Executive Director of the Digital Manufacturing and Design Innovation Institute in Chicago and the Chief Manufacturing Officer of UI LABS. Dr. Bartles worked for General Dynamics Corporation for 30 years, where he was responsible for setting up and running manufacturing operations in Egypt, Turkey, and the United States. Between 2001 and 2014, Dr. Bartles increased sales at General Dynamics Corporation from $135 million to over $600 million. Before his time at General Dynamics Corporation, Dr. Bartles worked for Fairchild Republic Company as an industrial engineer for approximately 5 years.
Dr. Bartles served as the 2016-2017 President of the North American Manufacturing Research Institute, the 2016 President of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers, the founding Chairman of the Smart Manufacturing Leadership Coalition, and the Chairman of the Board of the National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining. Dean graduated from Indiana State University, earning a PhD in Technology Management with a concentration in Manufacturing Systems.
Dr. Bartles’ skills in advanced manufacturing technology areas include digital manufacturing, model-based enterprise, industry 4.0, smart manufacturing, advanced robotics, and brilliant factory concepts.
Growing as a Leader
As Dean sees it, the key to developing as a business leader is having high-quality people on your team who are self-motivated and have the necessary experience for the market you’re seeking. As a result, the Department of Defense is MTDG’s principal customer, and Dean has a terrific executive leadership team reporting to him that he can count on to find new methods to assist the power of defense in overcoming modern manufacturing issues. “This team had a lot of success with it,” Dean mentions. He finds that this offers him the opportunity to look into other possibilities. He is in the mode of acquisition that he obtained. He purchased the Smart Manufacturing Leadership Coalition in December of 2020. Dean asserts, “I’m now working on another acquisition that I can’t talk about just yet, but I’m continuing to develop organically as well as via acquisitions.”
Major Challenges in Operation Management
One of the most challenging aspects of operation management, according to Dean, is digesting and comprehending new technologies as they arise, as well as evaluating which technologies are appropriate for your company in order to increase overall efficiency and performance. There are so many changes and new things happening so quickly that it’s tough to keep up with everything. According to him, it needs someone who can process a lot of data and determine which products are worth trying out for their company and which ones should be avoided.
Always Be Learning
Dean considers that continuing his education while also progressing in his work has been the single most important accomplishment of his now 40-year career. He says, “Every degree I’ve achieved, including my associates, bachelor’s degrees, master’s degrees, and doctorates, have all been earned while working full-time.” He further adds that, as a result, they’ve always been part-time endeavors that he has pursued in the evenings or on weekends. “Every step I’ve taken in my job has helped me to improve my performance in my own career goals, thanks to the information I’ve received by dedicating myself and chasing those academic goals,” says Dean.
While salesmen talk about the abbreviation ABC, which stands for Always Be Closing, Dean likes to use the acronym ABL, which stands for Always Be Learning. In his opinion, the greatest way to learn is to follow a planned curriculum that leads to a diploma, since it drives you to acquire new skills that you would not have learned if you were left to your own devices.
Advancements in Manufacturing
Manufacturing has been Dean’s entire career. As a result, his concentration is on manufacturing, which is undergoing substantial transformation. It is known in Germany as industry, the Ford automobile, and the fourth industrial revolution. In the United States, we talk about smart manufacturing, intelligent manufacturing, and digital manufacturing; they’re all the same thing, really, just different buzzwords, but it’s the idea of being able to collect data from your shop floor machines and then understand that data in order to improve your operations.
Data collection is an emphasis made by Dr. Dean that should not be overlooked. He describes data as digital gold, just to show how treasured it should be. He believes that if data is collected and fed to the machine builders and manufacturers, it will change the industry. Boosting uptime while reducing costs is one of the biggest positives of data collection, and this alone is reason enough to implement this tactic around the world. Data provides deeper insights into how machines are performing, like monitoring production status and understanding the condition of a given machine. It also predicts the malfunctioning of machines and optimizes the decision-making process.
So, Dean finds, if a corporation wants to start on their road toward smart manufacturing, the first step they need to take is to figure out how to extract data from their machine tools. He further says when it comes to machinery and production, data is the new oil. As a result, data is vital. MTDG is assisting small and medium-sized businesses with connecting IoT Edge devices to their old legacy machinery in order to obtain the kind of data required to monitor and understand what’s going on the manufacturing shop floor and then decide how to enhance the environment, increase productivity, and streamline clients’ manufacturing processes.
Recognition for Making a Significant Contribution
Dean has grown abilities that are problem identification. He has been in the industry long enough to identify a problem before it turns into a catastrophe. He sees a problem in the standard way: machines are built to communicate. It is closely linked to smart manufacturing, which he has played a significant role in making big. It is because smart manufacturing depends on statistics that are passed on from one computer to another through communication. If the communication between the machines is flawless, Dr. Dean suggests that production and manufacturing will also be of higher quality.
Dean has received a lot of awards, including being made a fellow of SME and a fellow ASME. But as Dean sees it, his best one, he believes, is the Eugene Merchant Award from the Society of Manufacturing Engineers, and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. It’s a joint society award and it’s to recognize the contributions that one has made to the manufacturing operation. “M. Eugene Merchant Manufacturing Medal” of ASME/SME”, The M. Eugene Merchant Manufacturing Medal of ASME/SME is awarded to an individual who has had significant influence and responsibility for improving the productivity and efficiency (either by research or by implementation of research) of the manufacturing operation. This award was established in 1986 in honor of M. Eugene Merchant, who is recognized as a pioneer in CNC machining.”
More Assistance for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises
Dean describes his current position as his second career. He had a 36-year successful career in the military sector, rising to the position of senior vice president with General Dynamics Corporation, a large defense contractor with a $40 billion defense business. When he was 57 years old, he left everything behind to aid non-profit organizations. He says, “A lower-paying but very satisfying job is working for a non-profit, where you’re assisting other small and medium-sized businesses.” He further adds, “I grew up in my father’s machine shop, which was literally in our backyard, and it was a one-man operation. And, he made a good life for himself and his four children.” From a very young age, Dean was introduced to equipment and welding, and now he is able to give back by working with these non-profits and assisting other small and medium-sized businesses. So for the future, Dean is hoping to continue doing this for another ten years. He is 65 years old and yet has plenty of energy and motivation to keep going. He adds, “So long as my board of directors is satisfied with my performance, I plan to keep doing what I’m doing for the next ten years.”
Advice for Emerging Leaders
Dean’s advice for emerging leaders is to follow A, B, and L. “Always be learning”. He says, “I can’t emphasize that enough as it has been so helpful for my whole career.” He also suggests constantly pursuing academic pursuits on the side that will help you with the execution of your responsibilities at your job. His other advice is to build a strong network of professional societies and organizations where you meet other professionals in the same career that you’re in and begin growing that network. He adds, “In my 36 years in the defense industry, the network that I grew during those 36 years was absolutely helping to grow still.”
Written by Steve Sanchez.
