Welcome to The Manufacturing Intelligence Show—where innovation meets manufacturing. Join hosts Andrew Scheuermann, Co-founder and CEO, and Jennifer Davis, COO at Arch Systems, as they dive into the latest trends in AI, digitization, and advanced technologies. Discover how these innovations are reshaping the industry and unlocking new opportunities for growth and efficiency.
Tune in for expert insights, thought-provoking conversations, and practical strategies to stay ahead in the evolving world of manufacturing.
Human First Leadership in AI-Driven Manufacturing | Fernando Guedes
Fernando Guedes, Global Manufacturing Engineering Manager at Aptiv, shares his human-first leadership philosophy for navigating AI-driven manufacturing, emphasizing trust, learning, and data-driven opportunity in this interview.
3 Apr 2026TRANSCRIPT
Professional Growth to Global Manufacturing Engineering Manager in SMT | Guido Heuser
Thirty years. Nokia. Flex. Vario Systems. HARMAN Automotive. And a career that started on the line as an operator.Guido Heuser doesn’t talk about manufacturing from a boardroom, he talks about it from the shop floor up. As Manager of Global Advanced Manufacturing Engineering at HARMAN Automotive, he oversees quality, OEE, and process standards across factories on multiple continents. And he has some hard-earned things to say about where AI fits in and where human judgment still has to lead.In this episode, Guido walks us through the real tension between quality and cycle time (and how data-driven insights can actually resolve it), how to make global standards stick across cultures without imposing them top-down, and why the next generation of engineers should start from scratch — on purpose.He’s also refreshingly direct about AI: fully open to it, genuinely excited, and absolutely clear that curiosity and critical thinking must remain at the center of how we innovate.You’ll hear:
How HARMAN prevents quality escapes before they become field issues
Why ownership beats enforcement when rolling out global standards
What US and German manufacturing cultures can learn from each other
The AI stance every experienced practitioner should have right now
Career advice that compounds slowly — and pays off for decades
26 Feb 2026TRANSCRIPT
Human First Leadership in AI-Driven Manufacturing
Fernando Guedes, Global Manufacturing Engineering Manager at Aptiv, joins The Manufacturing Intelligence Podcast for a deeply human and practical conversation on leadership, learning, and how manufacturers can navigate rapid technological change without losing what matters most.
Drawing from more than 30 years in electronics manufacturing, Fernando traces his journey from shop floor technician to global engineering leader and shares how hands-on experience, teaching, and empathy shaped his leadership philosophy. He explains why trust and mental health are foundational to performance, how continuous improvement frameworks like Six Sigma still apply in an AI-driven world, and why real-time data has fundamentally changed the speed of decision making.
Throughout the episode, Fernando offers a grounded perspective on AI and automation, emphasizing that technology should enable people, not control them. He discusses how leaders can use data as a signal for opportunity rather than blame, why lifelong learning is essential, and how manufacturers must prepare teams for significant workforce and skills shifts in the coming years.
Topics Discussed:
Leading global manufacturing teams through trust and human connection
Learning by doing and why shop floor experience still matters
Teaching as a way to scale expertise and build empathy
Why Six Sigma and Lean still work, but faster than ever
Using data as opportunity rather than judgment
How AI and real-time analytics change continuous improvement
Preparing for workforce shifts driven by automation and AI
The importance of curiosity, adaptability, and lifelong learning
What excites Fernando about the future of manufacturing leadership
Inside a recent episode
Human First Leadership in AI-Driven Manufacturing | Fernando Guedes
Published 15 Apr 2026 · Transcript excerpt
[…] Instead of two operators per line, three per line on SMT, you may have one per five lines. I'm just saying. So looking to this and imagine this is coming, we need to reshape, reshape what we are doing and the way we keep people are working on the environment that instead of 100 employees, they're going to have 15 or 10, right? So we need to start to sing how we are going to act accordingly on this. Not again, not just looking, you know, just to be sad and cry because they're going to lose jobs. Okay, you know the good things? We know it's coming. So if you know it's coming, we have the benefit that we can sing ahead. […]
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