Podcast: How manufacturing has evolved in 25 years

We're a quarter of the way into this century, and a lot has happened. When we think about today's connected factories, in many cases controlled by tablets and smartphones, we should remember that virtually none of that was possible as recently as the turn of the century.

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Throughout the past few weeks, editors at IndustryWeek, Smart Industry's sister brand, have been publishing game-changers stories, a look into the 25 events that have reshaped the manufacturing landscape. From terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, to the 2008 economic collapse to COVID-19 to the Trump tariffs, it's been an eventful century so far.

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In this podcast, Robert Schoenberger and IndustryWeek editors talk about what they learned from the giant look back: which game-changing events took them by surprise, and which ones did they enjoy learning more about?

Below is an excerpt from the podcast:

So, if we could—Laura, briefly, could you tell us a little bit about how we put the list together? Then we can talk a little about what surprised you as we worked through it.

Laura Putre: We started this project maybe around the end of 2024, just discussing what events were significant. So, we got together as an editorial staff, and everybody came up with their own unique list of events that had changed manufacturing in the past 25 years.

We went through a discussion process, kind of narrowed down the list, and then reached out to our contributors as well to see what their game changers were, and we made some changes around their suggestions.

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Robert Schoenberger: So, we each chose about five to research and write up. Of the ones you researched, which one did you find the most interesting?

Laura Putre: I guess what I found interesting was, as a whole, looking at the path of globalization and free trade, and then the shift to more focus on bringing manufacturing back to the U.S.

Within the past 25 years, there were stirrings of concern—like, are we not manufacturing the things here that we need to be manufacturing? Even after 9/11, that early, there was talk about bringing manufacturing back.

Then the Great Recession hit. We talked about losing some of the manufacturing because credit was tight, and some of these small, very skilled shops with thin profit margins didn't survive. A lot of that manufacturing went overseas.

That kind of fed into the tariff discussion as well. And then, of course, when Trump ran on a free trade platform and we had the first round of tariffs that were continued under Biden—and here we are today.

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Robert Schoenberger: And it's really interesting to think about: we have spent so long—really the modern world order that the manufacturing world has built itself around, going back to NAFTA, so going back to the early ’90s—has been the sense of increased globalization, increased trade.

And the first Trump presidency and now definitely the second one have really upended that in so many interesting ways. So, it has been, as we call this, the Game Changer series—that really has been a massive change to how we look at manufacturing's role in the economy. So, did you find any surprises when you were looking through the list?

Laura Putre: Yeah, I wanted to just mention the Great Recession and talk about how many of our items just came out of the Great Recession or led into things—like the auto bailout of GM and Chrysler, and Ford kind of not predicting, but maybe anticipating the economic crisis ahead.

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I didn't know the whole history of how Elon Musk had acquired the GM-Toyota plant in California. It sounds like he was at the right place at the right time. Toyota was looking to unload this plant after GM had exited the partnership with its bankruptcy problems.

And Toyota's president actually took a liking to Elon Musk, and Elon was still making cars basically in a garage. Akio Toyoda came and took a Tesla for a test drive and, you know, liked the car. He liked talking to Elon Musk, and he gave him a great deal on the plant. That really got Tesla rolling with its mass production.