75 Inspirational Manufacturing Quotes That Will Boost Your Business
/Some of the greatest leaders of industry and manufacturing offer inspiration for revitalizing, improving, and impacting your business.
By Michelle Segrest, Navigate Content, Inc.—Reporting on the Industry
After touring more than 75 facilities representing dozens of industries in 12 countries on three continents, there are two common certainties I can report: 1) no two plants are alike, and 2) even if the manufacturing process you are considering is in a vastly different industry than yours, there is something valuable to be learned from every plant’s process.
From assembly lines to man-made tools to machines to automation, the evolution of modern manufacturing has driven the course of the global economy for centuries. We continue to see innovation and creative ideas change the face of modern manufacturing.
Through the years, I’ve learned from manufacturing and industry professionals from various ranks—including engineers, innovators, mechanics, technicians, operators, and CEOs. They all have helpful advice to offer. Here are 75 of my favorite inspirational manufacturing and industry quotes:
“The great differentiator in business is when an organization steps out and creates value from something never tried before.”—Kerry Baskins, CEO, Peak Toolworks, from the foreword of Modern Manufacturing (Volume 2)—Real World Stories from the Plant Floor.
“Never before in the history of mankind has the pace of innovation and technological acceleration been faster than it is today.”—Yannick Schilly, CEO, Altix Consulting, from the foreword of Modern Manufacturing (Volume 1)—Best Practices from Industry Champions.
“We have become a white-collar workforce, and automation has become a necessity.”—Randy Breaux, President, Motion Industries, from the foreword of Modern Manufacturing (Volume 3)—An Inside Look Into Game-Changing Processes
More Inspiring Manufacturing and Industry Quotes from Business Leaders
4. “I don't spend my time pontificating about high-concept things; I spend my time solving engineering and manufacturing problems.”—Elon Musk, business magnate, industrial designer, engineer, philanthropist, founder, CEO, CTO and chief designer of SpaceX; early investor, CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc.
5. “Time waste differs from material waste in that there can be no salvage. The easiest of all wastes and the hardest to correct is the waste of time, because wasted time does not litter the floor like wasted material.”—Henry Ford, American industrialist and business magnate, founder of the Ford Motor Company, and chief developer of the assembly line technique of mass production.
6. “Sometimes when you innovate you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly and get on with improving your other innovations.”—Steve Jobs, an American business magnate, industrial designer, investor, and media proprietor. He was the chairman, chief executive officer (CEO), and co-founder of Apple Inc.
7. “Unlike the objective of far too many companies, manufacturing is not about a quick 'exit.' It is centered on long-term value creation.”—Hamdi Ulukaya, a Turkish billionaire, philantropist, activist and the owner, founder, chairman, and CEO of Chobani yogurt.
8. “Don’t water your weeds.”—Harvey Mackay, seven-time New York Times best-selling author of Swim with Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive.
9. “The most dangerous kind of waste is the waste we do not recognize.”—Shigeo Shingo, a Japanese industrial engineer who was heavily involved in the development and promotion of the Toyota Production System (TPS)
10. “If everybody else seems to be doing it one way, there might be more opportunity the other way.”—Andrew Scheuermann, Co-Founder of Arch Systems Inc.
Inspirational Quotes about Modern Manufacturing Processes & Innovations
11. “As equipment and machines are becoming more and more complex, we are asking workers to keep track of more and more data. We believe AR is the way to help workers keep up with the complexity of manufacturing operations.”—J.P. Provencher, vice president of manufacturing strategy and solutions for PTC, on augmented reality used in manufacturing.
12. “We’ve gotten past the point in our evolution where the Lone Ranger is going to go out there and grab the data and solve the problem for us. We probably don’t realize the degree to which collaboration is an essential ingredient in all of this. That is the secret sauce.”— Robert Golightly, Senior Manager, Product Manufacturing, AspenTech, on leveraging IIoT data in manufacturing.
13. “Investing millions of dollars in a commercial-sized system that doesn’t work is ultimately expensive. Pilot plants are an excellent risk-mitigation strategy for process scale-up at a fraction of the investment.”—John Schott P.E., president of EPIC Systems Inc., on how pilot plants can remove manufacturing risk.
14. “Additive manufacturing is not just looking at the value propositions like assembly, cost, and cycle. Now we can look at actually improving performance. When people hear 3D printing, I wonder if they realize how it’s being used today. It seems very futuristic. Additive manufacturing is fundamentally changing what we can do. It’s not 10 years away. It’s here.”—Ryan Hooley, general manager of product management for GE’s Power Services business in the B/E class fleets, on how additive technology can improve manufacturing performance.
15. “The drones that are now able to fly in and read complex environments, using things like sonar and lasers to understand where the walls are, they are thinking in real time about how to avoid obstacles and duck under pipes and go through very thin channel ways in real time. They are learning how to identify problems. It’s Terminator-type stuff. It’s very sci-fi.”—Michael Cohen, CEO of Houston-based Industrial Skyworks, on how drones are the game-changers of modern manufacturing.
16. “Industry 4.0 is not really a revolution. It’s more an evolution. In 1970, the first personal computer was launched in the market—this was where digitalization started. It has developed through the years. Today, I think Industry 4.0 helps to drive the competitiveness of industry. We are still in development every day.”—Christian Kubis, head of plant engineering at the Festo Scharnhausen Technology Plant on building the factory of the future.
More Manufacturing Quotes That Will Inspire You
17. "Quality means doing it right when no one is looking."—Henry Ford, American industrialist and business magnate, founder of the Ford Motor Company, and chief developer of the assembly line technique of mass production.
18. “The prevailing—and foolish—attitude is that a good manager can be a good manager anywhere, with no special knowledge of the production process he's managing. A man with a financial background may know nothing about manufacturing shoes or cars, but he's put in charge anyway.”—W. Edwards Deming, American engineer, statistician, professor, author, lecturer, and management consultant who wrote The New Economics for Industry, Government, and Education.
19. “There is no waste in the world that equals the waste from needless, ill-directed, and ineffective motions.”—Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr., American engineer, consultant, and author known as an early advocate of scientific management and a pioneer of time and motion study.
20. “The more we retain our people, the less time we need to commit to recruiting new people.”—Christine Thatcher, VP of Human Resources at TW Metals.
21. “If you don’t rock the boat, folks, guess who’s going to do it? Your competitors.”—Todd Hockenberry, founder of Top Line Results, a management consulting firm.
22. “The way we look at manufacturing is this: the U.S.'s strategy should be to skate where the puck is going, not where it is.”—Tim Cook, CEO, Apple Inc.,
23. “Don’t spend a lot of time on trying to cobble together a fully-integrated solution if the systems aren’t designed to play well together.”—Chris Kuntz, VP of Marketing at Augmentir.
24. "I'd rather have half of my idea change the world than my whole idea be a few papers in a journal."—Rodney Brooks, Australian roboticist, Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, author, and robotics entrepreneur, most known for popularizing the actionist approach to robotics.
25. “Why not make the work easier and more interesting so that people do not have to sweat? The Toyota style is not to create results by working hard. It is a system that says there is no limit to people’s creativity. People don’t go to Toyota to ‘work’ they go there to ‘think’”—Taiichi Ohno, Japanese Industrial engineer and businessman. He is considered to be the father of the Toyota Production System, which inspired Lean Manufacturing in the U.S.
Transform Your Business With Inspiration from Manufacturing Leaders
26. “No country is ever successful in the long term... without a really strong and vibrant manufacturing base.”—Alan Mulally, American aerospace engineer and manufacturing executive. He is the former President and Chief Executive Officer of the Ford Motor Company.
27. “There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.”—Peter F. Drucker, Austrian-born American management consultant, educator, and author, whose writings contributed to the philosophical and practical foundations of the modern business corporation.
28. “Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.”—Elon Musk, business magnate, industrial designer, engineer, philanthropist, founder, CEO, CTO and chief designer of SpaceX; early investor, CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc.
29. “If you always do what you always did, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”—Henry Ford, American industrialist and business magnate, founder of the Ford Motor Company, and chief developer of the assembly line technique of mass production.
30. “We cannot become what we want to be by remaining what we are.”—Max DePree, American businessman and writer.
31. “The big challenge is to become all that you have the possibility of becoming. You cannot believe what it does to the human spirit to maximize your human potential and stretch yourself to the limit.”—Jim Rohn, entrepreneur, author, motivational speaker.
32. “A bad system will beat a good person every time.”—W. Edwards Deming, American engineer, statistician, professor, author, lecturer, and management consultant who wrote The New Economics for Industry, Government, and Education.
33. “A relentless barrage of ‘whys’ is the best way to prepare your mind to pierce the clouded veil of thinking caused by the status quo. Use it often.”—Shigeo Shingo, a Japanese industrial engineer who was heavily involved in the development and promotion of the Toyota Production System (TPS)
34. “If you define the problem correctly, you almost have the solution.”—Steve Jobs, an American business magnate, industrial designer, investor, and media proprietor. He was the chairman, chief executive officer (CEO), and co-founder of Apple Inc.
35. “We always want to create something new out of nothing, and without research, and without long hard hours of effort. But there is no such things as a quantum leap. There is only dogged persistence—and in the end you make it look like a quantum leap.”—James Dyson, British inventor, industrial designer, landowner and entrepreneur who founded Dyson Ltd.
36. “Sometimes no problem is a sign of a different problem.”—Mark Rosenthal, American business executive who was the President and COO of MTV Networks from 1996 to 2004 and the CEO of Current TV from 2009 to 2011.
37. "Life is pretty simple: You do some stuff. Most fails. Some works. You do more of what works. If it works big, others quickly copy it. Then you do something else. The trick is the doing something else."—Tom Peters, business author and speaker.
38. “Good design is obvious. Great design is transparent.”—Joe Sparano, graphic designer for Oxide Design Co.
39. “Out of clutter, find simplicity. From discord, find harmony. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”—Albert Einstein, German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of relativity.
40. “There is no such thing as a boring project. There are only boring executions.”—Irene Etzkorn, Chief Clarity Officer, Siegelvision.
41. “To be competitive, we have to look for every opportunity to improve efficiencies and productivity while increasing quality. Lean manufacturing principles have improved every aspect of our processes.”—Cynthia Fanning, Vice President, GE Appliances.
42. “Do not compromise on the quality and your customers will not negotiate on the price."—Amit Kalantri, author.
43. “If you need a new process and don’t install it, you pay for it without getting it.”—Ken Stork, president, Association of Manufacturing Excellence.
44. "No matter how great the talent or efforts, some things just take time. You can't produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant."—Warren Buffett, American investor, business tycoon, philanthropist, and the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway.
45. “We always need to sharpen our skills and look for new opportunities.” —Bill Schmid, VP & GM at TW Metals.
46. “Manufacturers are wise to embrace lean manufacturing.”—Robert Niemiec, Managing Partner at Twisthink.
47. “Manufacturing is more than just putting parts together. It's coming up with ideas, testing principles and perfecting the engineering, as well as final assembly.”—James Dyson, British inventor, industrial designer, landowner and entrepreneur who founded Dyson Ltd.
48. “If I have over a thousand ideas and only one turns out to be good, I’m satisfied.”—Alfred Nobel, Swedish chemist, engineer, inventor, businessman, and philanthropist.
49. “However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.”—Winston Churchill, British statesman, army officer, and writer.
50. "You must have a supplier relationship of constant improvement."—W. Edwards Deming, American engineer, statistician, professor, author, lecturer, and management consultant who wrote The New Economics for Industry, Government, and Education.
51. "Improvement usually means doing something that we have never done before." - Shigeo Shingo, a Japanese industrial engineer who was heavily involved in the development and promotion of the Toyota Production System (TPS)
52. "Lean is about constant ticking, not occasional kicking.”—Alex Miller, Professor of Management at The University of Tennessee
53. “Due to the set-up times, the tendency is to produce in batches that are larger than the order quantities. This supposedly utilizes the equipment more efficiently, reduces set-up costs, and reduces unit product cost. But any production in excess of immediate market demand ends up as finished-goods inventory. The result of producing these large batches in today’s competitive marketplace is poor customer service despite high levels of inventory.”—M. Michael Umble and Mokshagundam L. Srikanth, authors of Synchronous Manufacturing: Principles for World Class Excellence
54. "Today’s standardization…is the necessary foundation on which tomorrow’s improvements will be based. If you think “standardization” as the best you know today, but which is to be improved tomorrow – you get somewhere. But if you think of standards as confining, then progress stops.”—Henry Ford, American industrialist and business magnate, founder of the Ford Motor Company, and chief developer of the assembly line technique of mass production.
55. "Copying your competitor won't help you beat your competitor. You need to think beyond your competitor."—Gerhard Plenert and Bill Kirchmier, authors of Finite Capacity Scheduling: Optimizing a Constrained Supply Chain
56. “If we reduce batch sizes by half, we also reduce by half the time it will take to process a batch. That means we reduce queue and wait by half as well. Reduce those by half, and we reduce by about half the total time parts spend in the plant. Reduce the time parts spend in the plant and our total lead time condenses. And with faster turn-around on orders, customers get their orders faster.”—Eliyahu M. Goldratt, author of Theory of Constraints and other books.
57. “There are three kinds of leaders. Those that tell you what to do. Those that allow you to do what you want. And Lean leaders that come down to the work and help you figure it out.”—John Shook, author of Managing to Learn and other manufacturing books.
58. “There are so many men who can figure costs, and so few who can measure values.” —Author Unknown
59. “A corporation is a living organism; it has to continue to shed its skin. Methods have to change. Focus has to change. Values have to change. The sum total of those changes is transformation.”–Andrew Grove, Hungarian-born American businessman, engineer, author and a pioneer in the semiconductor industry.
60. “Define success on your own terms, achieve it by your own rules, and build a life you’re proud to live.” Anne Sweeney, American business woman, formerly the co-chair of Disney Media, President of the Disney–ABC Television Group, and the President of Disney Channel from 1996 to 2014.
61. “One of the greatest discoveries a person makes, one of their greatest surprises, is to find they can do what they were afraid they couldn’t do.”—Henry Ford.
62. “If you talk about it, it’s a dream. If you envision it, it’s possible. If you schedule it, it’s real.”—Tony Robbins, American author, coach, motivational speaker, and philanthropist.
63. “If you really want to do something, you’ll find a way. If you don’t, you will find an excuse.”—Jim Rohn, entrepreneur, author, motivational speaker.
Thought-Provoking Business Inspiration from Unlikely Sources
64. “You can. You should. And if you’re brave enough to start, you will.”—Stephen King, American author.
65. “Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.”—Vincent Van Gough, artist.
66. “Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection.”—Mark Twain, American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer.
67. “The most difficult thing is the decision to act. The rest is merely tenacity.”—Amelia Earhart, American aviation pioneer and author.
68. “If you are going to do something, do it now. Tomorrow is too late.”—Pete Goss, sailor, adventurer, international speaker.
69. “We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.”—Ernest Hemingway, American journalist, novelist, short-story writer, and sportsman.
70. “Perfection is not attainable. But if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence.”—Vince Lombardi, football coach and leader.
71. “If you want to make everyone happy, don't be a leader, sell ice cream.”—Nick Saban, Alabama Football Coach.
72. “You can waste your lives drawing lines. Or you can live your life crossing them.”—Shonda Rhimes, American television producer, screenwriter, and author.
73. “If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun.”—Katharine Hepburn, American actress and leading lady in Hollywood for more than 60 years
74. “Set your goals high, and don’t stop until you get there.”—Bo Jackson, American former professional baseball and football player
75. “Work like a captain. Play like a pirate.”—Michelle Segrest
Michelle Segrest is president of Navigate Content, Inc. and has been a professional journalist for 30 years. She has covered the industrial processing industries since 2008 and specializes in technical articles and case studies that focus on technology and innovation connected with rotating equipment. She is the author of three books about modern manufacturing processes. Please contact Michelle at michelle@navigatecontent.com
