Building resilience
AMNA ’26: Building resilience through speed, flexibility and disciplined digitalisation
Day 1 of Automotive Manufacturing North America’26 brought together a clear message for North American automotive manufacturing: the industry must adapt faster, but it cannot afford to confuse activity with progress
Across the sessions – from the outlook for the market to practical discussions of factory digitalisation and investment – the speakers returned to a common challenge: how to respond to volatility while protecting cost, quality and the ability to build what customers want.
The answer was not one technology or one investment. It was a combination of sharper choices: understand the market, make existing assets more productive, build flexibility into operations, and put reliable processes and people ahead of advanced digital tools.
American production in 2035: control what can be controlled
The opening session set the economic and competitive context. Joe McCabe, president and CEO of AutoForecast Solutions, described a market shaped by uncertainty: geopolitical disruption, tariff volatility, changing demand, affordability pressures and a supply base under strain. His central point was that manufacturers and suppliers need to plan for a different operating environment, rather than assume the industry will return to the conditions that once supported higher volumes and more predictable programmes.
McCabe pointed to a structural squeeze: more vehicle manufacturers are competing for lower overall production volumes. That makes it harder for suppliers to maintain capacity, absorb programme changes and meet repeated cost demands. He also warned that manufacturers’ decisions to reverse or recalibrate expensive electric-vehicle bets have consequences throughout the supply chain, especially for smaller suppliers.
The challenge is not simply to forecast which powertrain will win. The North American market, McCabe argued, has different customer preferences and economics from other regions. Electrification will continue, but internal combustion engines and hybrids will remain important. Manufacturers need to accommodate uncertainty in the product mix instead of betting that one technology or one demand scenario will dominate.
His starkest competitive warning concerned China – not only the prospect of Chinese brands entering North America, but the speed and operating methods they bring. McCabe highlighted common components, faster programme cycles and the ability to move quickly as competitive strengths. His argument was not that North American manufacturers must copy every practice, but that they should ask where complexity is costing them time and money.
McCabe’s advice to suppliers was to be proactive and to protect their own economics when responding to customer requests. As he put it: “The idea here is just be proactive.” In a volatile market, that means challenging unrealistic assumptions, understanding the business case behind a programme and looking for ways to adjust capacity and product plans without taking on unsustainable risk.
This opening analysis established a theme that carried through the rest of the day: manufacturers cannot control every market or policy shift, but they can improve their readiness to respond. That readiness depends on flexible operations, a stronger cost position and a willingness to reconsider established ways of working.
Smart factory execution: begin with the problem, not the technology
The smart factory discussion turned that market-level challenge into practical advice. Gestamp’s North America Operation Director, Mohan Swaminathan, described a long-term effort to bring consistency to a global manufacturing network where plants had different systems and ways of working. Gestamp’s Smart Fusion approach is organised around three principles: standardise, digitise and connect.
The order matters. Swaminathan argued that digital tools are most useful when the underlying process is stable and understood. Plants should first identify critical assets, particularly bottlenecks; stabilise how they operate; and standardise safety, quality and production practices. Only then should they build the digital systems and data capabilities that make wider analysis possible.
He cautioned against treating data collection as the objective. “Not all data is good,” he said. The goal is to gather information that is trustworthy and meaningful for a defined purpose – not to connect every machine simply because connectivity is available. Once the process and data are reliable, teams can consider applications such as machine vision and predictive maintenance.
Eric Whitley, senior manufacturing solutions engineer at L2L, made a complementary point: digitalisation should be tied to measurable business improvement. “This journey should be about improvement.” He encouraged manufacturers to identify whether a proposed step will increase throughput or reduce cost, then use that result to guide investment. Data is valuable when it helps teams decide where to act, not when it accumulates without changing the work.
That distinction was particularly important in the discussion of AI. Whitley described manufacturers as “data rich and action poor”: businesses may have a great deal of information but still need to identify where engineers and improvement teams should focus. Swaminathan likewise warned against making AI the first step.
The speakers also emphasised that shop-floor adoption is fundamental. Digital tools must help operators and maintenance teams do their jobs – not simply add another process to follow. Swaminathan’s example was the manual recording of machine parameters at the start of a shift. After connecting equipment and monitoring parameters continuously, the system could flag deviations, generate a work order and, in the case of a critical parameter, stop the machine. The intention was to remove repetitive checks and help employees respond to problems sooner.
That, he explained, is not about eliminating the human role: “Digitalisation is not about removing jobs. It's more about changing the way people do the job.” The shift requires training and reskilling, as employees take on work that calls for more interpretation and problem-solving.
The session’s practical takeaway was to start with a specific operational problem, select a critical asset and build capability in sequence. As Whitley put it, companies should first ask: “What do you want to solve? What do you want to fix?” The answer should connect directly to an expected return, rather than an open-ended digitalisation programme.
Making every dollar count: flexibility is a form of resilience
The panel on manufacturing investment explored how to move forward when capital is constrained and forecasts are difficult to trust. Representatives from Lucid Motors, Daimler Truck North America and Tenneco described different businesses, but their priorities converged around making existing assets work harder and preserving the ability to respond to change.
Arun Prakash Mantena, Global Manager, Advanced Manufacturing Engineering-Stamping at
Lucid Motors, explained that the company is looking at ways to increase throughput on existing equipment instead of automatically adding a new line. One example was improving the output of an existing stamping line. As Lucid matures, he said, the company is also seeking to commonise parts and align product design more closely with manufacturing needs. The aim is to design products that can be built at scale, not merely products that look compelling on paper.
Daimler Truck’s North America Manufacturing Engineering Manager, Manufacturing Development Center, Adam Polcha, described flexibility as essential in a business with a wide range of customer configurations and long product lifecycles. The company is considering how production networks and equipment can accommodate shifting volumes, changing regulations and supply-chain disruption. That includes extending equipment life where it makes sense, and considering whether production can move between sites.
Marla Stern, Manager for Manufacturing Excellence at Tenneco, stressed the need to assess assets across the company rather than treating each plant as an isolated operation. She described a shift toward viewing equipment as a company-wide resource: the question is not only how to fix a local problem, but where an asset can best support the wider organisation. At the same time, she warned against assuming every capacity problem requires new equipment. “Most of the industry doesn't have a capacity problem, it has a utilisation problem.”
The panel also challenged simplistic return-on-investment calculations. Mantena argued that investment decisions should account for total cost of ownership and future product plans: equipment that looks economical for one launch may not support the next model. Stern added that an asset is not successful merely because it has been installed; it must perform as promised in the business case, in the conditions of the plant where it is used.
AI and automation were approached with similar caution. Rather than making large commitments based on uncertain returns, the panel discussed smaller, incremental applications. Polcha saw potential in using AI to help subject-matter experts analyse data they already have. Stern described targeted investments, such as improving preventive maintenance or using external expertise for visual-inspection applications, where appropriate.
The panel’s closing advice was to investigate the problem before buying a solution. Stern captured the risk of jumping straight to capital expenditure: “One of the biggest mistakes that I believe we all do in manufacturing is investing in CapEx for a problem that doesn't need CapEx.” In a tight-cost environment, disciplined problem-solving is not a substitute for investment; it is what helps ensure that investment solves the right problem.
Gestamp’s shop-floor digitalisation journey: standardise, then scale
The Gestamp session brought these themes together in a detailed account of Smart Fusion. Swaminathan described the platform as a response to fragmented processes and systems across plants. The programme aims to make shop-floor work more consistent and paperless, then connect operational systems across the wider business.
The examples were practical. Employees can use mobile devices and QR codes to access maintenance instructions, record activities and open work orders. Digital systems support safety reporting, training records, quality audits and production monitoring. Gestamp is also working on supplier integration and product traceability, linking information about a product to where and how it was made.
A key element is the company’s federated development model. Plants and regions can pilot solutions, while a central group provides governance around standards, coding and testing. That balance is intended to encourage local initiative without allowing every location to develop incompatible tools. Swaminathan emphasised that a successful pilot still has to prove it can scale; adoption across different regions, systems and workforces is a substantial challenge in its own right.
The journey also illustrates why digitalisation depends on organisational foundations. A connected system is only useful if the processes feeding it are consistent and the workforce can use it. Gestamp’s approach therefore pairs technology with training, governance and an emphasis on making shop-floor tasks simpler.
Staying competitive: the need for disciplined adaptability
Taken together, the sessions presented competitiveness as a question of ‘disciplined adaptability’. McCabe described an industry where competition, volumes and technology are changing. The smart-factory speakers argued that technology must serve specific improvements and rest on reliable processes. The investment panel showed how flexibility, asset utilisation and careful business cases can make capital go further. Gestamp offered a concrete example of building digital capability through standardisation, pilots and gradual scaling.
The day did not suggest that manufacturers can remove uncertainty from the market. Instead, it asked them to become better prepared for it: reduce avoidable complexity, make existing equipment more productive, invest in adaptable systems, and ensure digital tools help people take action. The common thread was simple: move faster where it creates value but build the foundations before trying to scale the solution.
