About Change by Design: Engineering Transformation with Chad Jackson
Welcome to Change by Design, the podcast where we shine a spotlight on engineering transformation. Each week, Lifecycle Insights CEO and Chief Analyst Chad Jackson dives deep with leaders driving real change in the world of engineering.
From breaking down barriers and challenging the status quo to fostering cultures of innovation and resilience, our guests share their journeys, lessons learned, and actionable insights to help you become a catalyst for positive change in your own organization.
Whether you’re an engineer, an executive, or simply passionate about making a difference, you’re in the right place. Get ready to be inspired, empowered, and equipped to engineer a better future—one change at a time.
Delegate the Outcome, Not the How — Driving Change in Manufacturing with Benjamin Moses
What separates change initiatives that stall from the ones that actually ship value? Benjamin Moses, Manufacturing Engineering Manager at L3Harris, has spent 26 years on both sides of that question — designing and building hardware at Eaton, then spending a decade at AMT researching which manufacturing technologies are real and which are hype.
In this conversation with host Chad Jackson, Benjamin makes the case that a change agent is simply "someone who defines and achieves a future state" — a posture, not a title. He digs into why measurement is the hardest part of engineering change, why two-year transformation projects are usually too long for a business's natural rhythm, and how the best organizations delegate the outcome rather than the method.
Along the way he shares hard-won lessons on building cross-functional buy-in, capturing tribal knowledge before it walks out the door, getting real value from digital transformation without jumping straight to AI, and why his team once solved a throughput problem with PVC pipe in the cafeteria instead of an expensive robot.
A practical, no-buzzword listen for engineering executives and change agents working in production environments.
Topics covered: the change agent mindset · connecting change to business value · the engineering measurement problem · incremental improvement and business cycles · top-down vs. delegated change · knowledge warehousing and brain drain · digital transformation ROI · digital twins · AI and the single source of truth · MVP experimentation.
Guest: Benjamin Moses, Manufacturing Engineering Manager, L3Harris
28 Apr 2026
From the Shop Floor to the Digital Thread: MBD Change Agency in Aerospace with Brandon Paré
What does it take to drive model-based definition adoption inside one of the world's most demanding aerospace environments? In this episode, Chad Jackson sits down with Brandon Paré, Senior Engineer in the Drafting and Product Definition group at Pratt & Whitney, where he specializes in MBD adoption and 2D-to-3D workflow transformation.
Brandon's path to MBE didn't follow a straight line — it ran through circuit breaker design, aerospace machine shop floors, and one-touch gauging fixtures for jet engine components. That cross-functional journey is precisely what makes his perspective so sharp. He didn't just learn to create drawings; he stood next to the operators reading them and felt firsthand where design intent gets lost in translation.
In this conversation, Brandon and Chad dig into:
What it really means to be a change agent — and why conviction, not title, is what separates advocates from people who actually move organizations
The credibility problem in manufacturing — why shop floor relationships matter more than credentials, and how to earn trust with machinists, CNC programmers, and quality inspectors
MBD implementation timelines — why 3–7 years is the realistic range for meaningful transformation, and the pilot-first strategy that separates fast movers from organizations that stall out
PLM governance as the non-negotiable foundation — why no amount of PMI quality saves you if your data management is undisciplined
Customer pull vs. internal conviction — the two motivational forces behind MBE adoption, and why external mandates from primes like Pratt & Whitney and Collins Aerospace tend to compress timelines in powerful ways
Signals your organization is ready for MBD — and the red flags that say "not yet"
Tangible benefits that don't always make it into the ROI deck — drawing cycle time, first article inspection speed, supply chain communication, and reduced interpretation errors
Whether you're an engineering executive weighing the MBE business case or a change agent in the trenches trying to build cross-functional momentum, Brandon's experience navigating both the engineering and manufacturing sides of this transformation offers a grounded, practical perspective you won't get from a vendor whitepaper.
14 Apr 2026
The Future of Engineering - Straight from Someone Living It
What does the future of engineering look like from the perspective of someone just entering the field? In this episode, Chad Jackson sits down with Ryan Botzbach — a final-year mechanical engineering student at UC Riverside with a computer science minor, a passion for aerospace and defense, and the kind of hands-on instincts that most companies spend years trying to cultivate.
Ryan brings a perspective that engineering leaders can't afford to ignore. He's the engineer rebuilding a Volvo five-cylinder engine in his garage, converting 1970s aerospace drawings into 3D models for a machine shop, and running a thousand-person car club — all while finishing his degree. He's not waiting to "get experience." He's already in it.
In this conversation, Ryan and Chad explore:
Why today's young engineers will tolerate outdated tools — for now — and what happens when they gain enough experience to push back
The change agent mindset — how to stay alert to improvement opportunities instead of just clocking in and clocking out
Model-Based Definition in practice — what it looks like when a small machine shop bridges the gap from 2D legacy drawings to CNC-ready 3D models
Fusion 360 vs. SolidWorks — an unpopular opinion from someone who uses both daily
AI as an engineering accelerator — from troubleshooting obscure part numbers to standing up a Kubernetes cluster on a Raspberry Pi
The affordability problem in defense — and why companies like Andúril represent a fundamentally different approach to how the industry operates
Whether you're trying to recruit the next generation of engineers, modernize your workflows, or simply understand how the field is evolving from the ground up — this episode offers a candid, unfiltered view from someone standing right at the threshold.
Ryan Botzbach is a graduating mechanical engineering student at UC Riverside and part-time team member at DNL Components, a supplier to aerospace, defense, and racing industries.
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