Women Reshaping Manufacturing: Deloitte’s Lindsey Berckman On The Five Things You Need To Create A Highly Successful Career In Manufacturing

In recent years, there has been a significant increase in interest surrounding the manufacturing sector. Historically, this industry has been dominated by male workers, with women constituting only about 30% of the workforce. What is the experience like for women working in such a male-dominated field? What challenges do they face, and how can they contribute to improving the industry? What does it take to establish a highly successful career in manufacturing? Additionally, what exciting advancements and innovations are US companies making in high-tech manufacturing, and what can we expect in the near future? How can the US emerge as a high-tech manufacturing powerhouse? To address these questions, we are talking to women leaders of the manufacturing industry. As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Lindsey Berckman.

Lindsey Berckman is a principal at Deloitte Consulting LLP and a Smart Manufacturing leader in Deloitte’s industrial manufacturing sector, with more than 14 years of experience serving at the intersection of production, operations, and technology. With a broad range of experience in aerospace & defense, industrials, and automotive sectors, she helps Deloitte clients shape their Industry 4.0 transformation roadmap, investing in solutions built for scale, focused on delivering value, and designed to transform legacy manufacturing processes through digital technologies and AI/cognitive insights.

Lindsey has been a key driver helping to shape Deloitte’s Smart Manufacturing use cases and key assets, and is highly engaged with Deloitte’s ecosystem partners. Through leveraging digital technologies and engaging multifaceted teams, she drives transformational change that cuts across all realms of the digital enterprise.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started in manufacturing?

Back in 2007, I earned my degree in Industrial Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and began my first project at Deloitte shortly afterward. My first program at Deloitte was working on a study for a large aerospace defense company, focused on how supply chain operations could become more effective and efficient. Through this project, I had the opportunity to study and engage with the physical product, specifically how the major sourced elements come together on the assembly line. From then on, I became enamored with manufacturing and have focused on aerospace and defense and industrials, at the intersection of operations and technology.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

A few years back, I was presenting to executives from a company with a more senior partner of mine on the then-emerging Industry 4.0. Our audience did not have much — if any — gender parity. After my partner kicked off the conversation and made introductions, I took over and drove the rest of the discussion, which included detailed information about manufacturing regulations. My audience seemed a bit shocked about the level of insight I had on the subject. There was a palpable moment when heads turned! Following this presentation, I had great conversations which led to ongoing dialogue with the executives in the following years.

I know many women in my position have similar stories, and I truly believe being a woman in the industry is a superpower. Especially early on in my career, it was incredibly rare to see women in manufacturing, but the diverse skill set I had made me memorable, unique, and able to navigate conversations in a different manner than my peers. I love having the opportunity to be a female leader in the industry and my mission is to give more women that same opportunity by demystifying the reputation manufacturing can hold and shifting the narrative to discussing the complexities, problem solving, and relationship-building skills that are vital to success in the industry. I firmly believe that, in a male-dominated industry, it’s important to remove any preexisting biases and instead get excited about new and young talent, regardless of their appearance or background. It’s important to remember that anyone has the potential to be innovative.

Can you please give us your favorite “life lesson” quote? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“Choose opportunities where you might fail, rather than live in the shadow of your own potential.” — Reshma Saujani, Girls Who Code founder

I like to take on a challenge, and it’s made even better if I feel I am a unique contributor, whether that is due to my gender, age, or whatever other factor. It gives me energy. It can also mean that I go after big, creative things that may fail, but the learnings and fuel it provides for future attempts are very empowering.

Can you tell our readers about the most interesting high tech manufacturing projects you are working on now? How do you think this will help people?

As part of my role on Deloitte’s Smart Manufacturing team, I’m working on a project that is focused on making products safer. Using new technology to help our clients solve existing and emerging challenges in manufacturing, we are looking at the manufacturability of an engineered design, testing for quality imperfections as the process is running, and linking any input from a manufacturing process standpoint to the outputs that are produced. This process uses model-based, real-time data pulled from the edge to see how machines are producing and performing. By using these types of technologies, we can limit defects and revise engineering specs accordingly. When thinking about product quality and ways to deploy products to the market faster, this project is a great example of how this can take shape.

Can you share how you are helping to reshape the manufacturing industry?

As the manufacturing industry becomes more complex, attacking it from all sides is key to success. I’m proud to be part of a team that is focused on integrating different models and platforms together into a cohesive ecosystem that will enable provocative thinking while building new applications that maximize the potential of technologies already in use. By doing this, we can help our clients make improvements to the manufacturing floor that are incredibly powerful.

Deloitte takes a unique, multifaceted approach to manufacturing that integrates all disciplines to address the evolution of the industry today and help our clients engineer advantage for tomorrow. The best example of this approach comes to life at The Smart Factory @ Wichita, an immersive experience center stationed on the Innovation Campus at Wichita State University that allows organizations to navigate emerging challenges by bringing real-world smart manufacturing concepts to life. With a business model rooted in relationship building, Deloitte saw an opportunity to bring together an ecosystem of technology providers to showcase how a real smart factory operates — each company, product, and facet working together to produce a streamlined result. As 86% of U.S. manufacturers believe that smart factories will be the main competition drivers by 2025, smart manufacturing is a key component of success to help organizations adapt to changing demands.

In addition to what you are working on, what other exciting advancements and innovations are US companies making in high tech manufacturing?

Advanced manufacturing is focused on effective operations to boost efficiency and bring the most value to clients and users. Deloitte’s 2023 Manufacturing Outlook found that 62% of manufacturers surveyed plan to focus on the utilization of robotics and automation over the next 12 months, followed by the use of data analytics (60%) and new IoT platforms (39%). Investments in the right technologies can help manufacturers pivot quickly. For example, enhanced data analytics can improve forecasting and planning, as well as accelerate the value mapping of suppliers and materials, to mitigate the impact of a resource shortage.

Additionally, US manufacturing is seeing a tremendous amount of diversification and nearshoring (localization) efforts, with the CHIPS Act laying the foundation for new business operations. 80% of surveyed manufacturers saw heavy impacts on their supply chain by at least one disruption in the past 12 months, and 90% saw an increase in these disruptions over the past decade, according to our 2023 Manufacturing Outlook. Diversification and localization are critical components of building resilience in the supply chain, with 30% saying in-house development and 61% saying strategic partnerships with technology companies will be the focus points to achieve this new stability.

From your vantage point as an insider, what exciting developments will be coming out in the near future?

The US manufacturing market sits on the precipice of an exciting time as the world goes digital. US firms are prioritizing the adoption and integration of artificial intelligence (AI) to elevate advanced manufacturing unlike ever before. This creates a great opportunity to rethink design and incorporate past learnings, all while going against the grain of traditional manufacturing to make processes and operations more sustainable. Generative AI will change the way manufacturing talent works too, streamlining tasks to create higher-order work for humans to accomplish.

What are the three things that most excite you about the state of US manufacturing? Why?

I am really looking forward to the integration of AI into advanced manufacturing. We are already seeing revolutionary tech like robotics uplevel the manufacturing industry through improvements in automation, productivity, and innovation. We are at a point where traditional manufacturing is outdated, and businesses that want to remain competitive need to strategically integrate these high-tech capabilities into their workforce structure. I’m excited to help them get there.

I’m also really encouraged to see the new career opportunities that are emerging in manufacturing due to the aforementioned technological changes to the industry, and the commitment from manufacturers to nurture that talent. I think a lot of folks in the industry are too as we’re positioned for growth in 2023 and beyond. Our research shows that 75% of manufacturers are focused on retaining existing talent, and 74% are dedicated to finding the new, right talent to uplevel their smart manufacturing processes this year. In response to the rise of nearshoring practices and the talent challenges that will come along with it, manufacturers are positioning themselves to seek out local talent that lives at the intersection of manufacturing and technology, and 22% are looking to provide career advancement opportunities alongside continuous skills development to ensure they are incentivizing and cultivating the next generation of workers. Manufacturing and technology are intertwined, and further integrating these industries in the US will be incredible for local firms, their employees, and clients.

What are the three things that concern you about US manufacturing? What would you suggest needs to be done to address those concerns?

I prefer to look at opportunities for the US manufacturing industry: First, organizations must constantly be thinking about how they are adapting to meet the changing demand of the US customer; They must put the tools and technologies in place that help them become resilient enough to quickly pivot strategies in a world where circumstances can rapidly change; and finally, bringing together a solid business strategy with emerging technology that helps better serve customers and the long-term vision of their organization.

Based on your opinion or experience, what would it take for the US to become a high tech manufacturing powerhouse?

It’s all about the pace of innovation — but you cannot just tell teams to “move faster” — you need to fund it to create meaningful change and new resources. Moving faster in the same model just leads to more mistakes but innovating faster leads to more opportunities for success. Manufacturers and leaders must make the investment in emerging technologies that enable quicker pivots. At the same time, companies and leaders must be willing to diversify their efforts and their investments whenever possible. By combining increased pace and diversification, there is more of an opportunity to disrupt. In doing so, we can take advantage of the potential that high tech has to offer.

As you know, there are not that many women in high tech manufacturing. Can you advise what is needed to engage more women in these industries?

It starts early on with consistent investment in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education. For women to be more connected to manufacturing, they need to be more engaged in STEM at the elementary and middle school levels. We all need to increase focus on how we are encouraging young girls and women to pursue STEM-related education in college and jobs after college. How do we truly get them interested in making things, producing things?

But, even if we answer that question, the next question becomes “how can we make them stay engaged?” When I started college at the University of Pennsylvania, there was noticeable gender parity. However, as the days and years went on, that parity dissipated. Most girls are taught to avoid risk and failure — we strive to be perfect, and want to make sure we are right before we speak up. There is power in being bold and learning from both failures and successes.

One program at Deloitte I am very passionate about for this reason is our Smart Factory Believers program, which started as part of the philanthropy mission of Deloitte’s Smart Factory @ Wichita. The program provides a robust curriculum and Elecno’s Smart Rover educational vehicle-building kits students in underserved communities. The goal of the program is to help middle school students in schools that may have not had exposure to STEM learn about product design, coding, and engineering. Through this program, we aim to reach 800,000 students across the country. This is just one step we are taking to expose young adults — and women specifically — to experiential STEM education.

What are your five things you need to create a highly successful career in manufacturing? Please share a story or example for each.

1. First, you must embrace disruption. This goes both ways — you can do the disrupting, or you can be disrupted. Many times, both are happening at once. The market is always changing, and there are constantly new and creative ways to execute projects. Embrace them, and you might find yourself leading the next disruption.
2. It’s also important to be provocative with your innovation. So many professionals leave innovating to the commercial space, but there’s so much to learn from it within manufacturing too. What if there was an app-based delivery service designed for the delivery of parts needed to build an aircraft? If you dream big, you can find provocative innovation opportunities.
3. You need to be hungry for the opportunity to improve what you are working on. Manufacturing is data-heavy, and you need to take the data as an opportunity to make processes faster and more efficient. If you have the hunger to streamline, you can always make an impact.
4. To piggy-back off that, we all need to work towards becoming model-based. All aspects of manufacturing and the supply chain are historically very linear — think starting at engineering, moving to production, then design, etc. We need to take advantage of new technologies to change that journey for the better.
5. Finally, you must embrace future talent. Talent today looks a lot different than it did a few years ago, and it will look different again in another five years. People may not have a four-year degree, or they may have a different type of experience. You must embrace different talent models to ensure you are recognizing top team members when they are put in front of you.

If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

I’d like to create a world where every student in a STEM-related university program had to volunteer at a local elementary school and spark interest in the field through STEM-related toys, projects, and play. It’s so important to build children’s confidence and willingness to experiment during critical years of development, and this program would foster that curiosity. It shouldn’t just be up to teachers to encourage STEM pursuits — universities and major organizations need to step in with funding for the earliest levels of support to create lasting interest in STEM education.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

The easiest way is to follow me on LinkedIn. I also encourage you to follow @DeloitteMFG and @SmartFactoryX on Twitter if you are interested in staying up to date on the latest emerging technologies.

Thank you so much for the time you spent doing this interview. This was very inspirational, and we wish you continued success.

About The Interviewer: David Leichner is a veteran of the Israeli high-tech industry with significant experience in the areas of cyber and security, enterprise software and communications. At Cybellum, a leading provider of Product Security Lifecycle Management, David is responsible for creating and executing the marketing strategy and managing the global marketing team that forms the foundation for Cybellum’s product and market penetration. Prior to Cybellum, David was CMO at SQream and VP Sales and Marketing at endpoint protection vendor, Cynet. David is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Jerusalem Technology College. He holds a BA in Information Systems Management and an MBA in International Business from the City University of New York.