So That Happened: Will AI Pick Coke's Next Flavor?

Executive Editor

Focus: Operations & IndustryWeek's Best Plants

Call: 518-323-9117

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jilljusko/ 

Twitter:  @JJuskoIW

Bio: Jill Jusko has been writing about manufacturing for IndustryWeek since the late 1990s, having first joined the IW team as a freelance copy editor. She quickly became a regular team member and has been writing about all facets of manufacturing operations leadership ever since. Her coverage spotlights companies that are in pursuit of world-class results in quality, productivity, cost and other benchmarks by implementing the latest continuous improvement and lean/Six-Sigma strategies. Jill also coordinates IndustryWeek’s Best Plants Awards Program, which annually salutes the leading manufacturing facilities in North America, and has served as the editorial project director for the IW/MPI Census of Manufacturers. She received her bachelor’s degree in journalism from Bowling Green State University. Prior to joining IW, Jill worked as a reporter at two daily newspapers, as well a trade publication serving the hospitality industry. 

Editorial mission statement: Every manufacturer has a story to tell and a lesson learned along the way. My goal is to share those lessons learned with a wider audience, to help all manufacturers improve. I couldn't do it without every manufacturing leader who has spoken with me about the ups and downs of their industry and their enterprise, or who has given me a tour of their manufacturing operations. Thank you. 

Why I find manufacturing interesting: How can I not? Making things is fascinating. Discovering new processes to make things is compelling. Improving production processes using the combined talents of the entire manufacturing enterprise is energizing. I always say no manufacturing plant is an island, so observing how the whole supply chain works together to get manufactured products where they need to go when they need to be there is a continuing education. I'm a fan of manufacturing. 

Dennis Scimeca is a veteran technology journalist with particular experience in vision system technology, machine learning/artificial intelligence, virtual and augmented reality, and interactive entertainment. He has experience writing for consumer, developer, and B2B audiences with bylines in many highly regarded specialist and mainstream outlets.

At IndustryWeek, he covers the continuing expansion of new technologies into the manufacturing world and the competitive advantages gained by learning and employing these new tools.

He also seeks to build connections between manufacturers by sharing the stories of their challenges and successes employing new technologies. If you would like to share your story with IndustryWeek, please contact him at [email protected].

What To Pitch

Informing my audience as to what manufacturing technologies are currently in use and generating real-world results, such that readers can use IndustryWeek's Technology and IIoT section as a resource for considering future plans, serves as my number one priority. Therefore, before pitching me a story, you may consider the following:

• Is this project still in development or incorporated into live operations?
• Can I speak plainly to qualitative or quantitative benefits of using the technology?

There are two general exceptions to this rule that I follow:

• Cybersecurity stories - as long as they are manufacturing-centric and/or significant hacks of big companies that plainly demonstrate the costs of not tending to cybersecurity
• Emerging technologies - manufacturers are still coming to grips with 5G networks, autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), and autonomous vehicles in general, to cite some examples. Experimental deployments may have some value to cover even with only soft qualitative feedback as to efficacy.
  
  

On SME Interviews

I rarely conduct interviews with subject matter experts as standalone pieces. However, I very often suggest these SMEs pitch contributed content, instead, if the subject matter is interesting and relevant. Here are the guidelines for pitching contributed content to IndustryWeek:

First, you’ll want to take a look at our contributor guidelines, here: https://www.industryweek.com/industryweek-contributors-guidelines

Then, when you’re ready to make the pitch, you would send it here: [email protected]

News Editor

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anna-m-smith/ 

Bio: Anna Smith joined IndustryWeek in 2021. She handles IW’s daily newsletters and breaking news of interest to the manufacturing industry. Anna was previously an editorial assistant at New Equipment Digest, Material Handling & Logistics and other publications.

A native of Belgium, Geert De Lombaerde has been in business journalism since the mid-1990s and writes about public companies, markets and economic trends for Endeavor Business Media publications, focusing on IndustryWeek, FleetOwner, Oil & Gas Journal, T&D World and Healthcare Innovation. He also curates the twice-monthly Market Moves Strategy newsletter that showcases Endeavor stories on strategy, leadership and investment and contributes to other Market Moves newsletters.

With a degree in journalism from the University of Missouri, he began his reporting career at the Business Courier in Cincinnati in 1997, initially covering retail and the courts before shifting to banking, insurance and investing. He later was managing editor and editor of the Nashville Business Journal before being named editor of the Nashville Post in early 2008. He led a team that helped grow the Post's online traffic more than fivefold before joining Endeavor in September 2021.

Editor-in-Chief

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/robert-schoenberger-4326b810

Twitter: @Rschoenb 

Bio: Robert Schoenberger has been writing about manufacturing technology in one form or another since the late 1990s. He began his career in newspapers in South Texas and has worked for The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi; The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Kentucky; and The Plain Dealer in Cleveland where he spent more than six years as the automotive reporter. In 2013, he launched Today's Motor Vehicles, a magazine focusing on design and manufacturing topics within the automotive and commercial truck worlds. He joined IndustryWeek in late 2021.

Editorial mission statement: Manufacturing is an endlessly fascinating world. Nearly every object that we touch or use daily came out of a factory and is the result of design, engineering, procurement, supply chain, inventory control and management processes. My goal is to keep leaders in the $42 trillion manufacturing world up to date on developments in their industry in ways that inform and entertain them without wasting their time.

Why I find manufacturing interesting: Several years ago, I visited a plant in Pennsylvania that used laser equipment to etch fine lines in large plastic injection molds used to create dashboards on cars. The laser-etched lines created the faux-leather pattern on the dashboard, a vast improvement of the photo-chemical process that automotive suppliers had used for decades to create the illusion of natural products. The idea that designers had crafted the faux-leather patterns, that engineers had developed machines that could generate the fine lines needed, that machine shops could cut the complex shape of the dashboard into the mold shape—all for an aesthetic feature in a car that most drivers would never consciously notice (but the car would feel odd in its absence)—drove home the massive amount of human effort that goes into everything produced with modern machinery.