At Rockwell Automation Fair 2025 in Chicago, Tessa Myers delivered one of the most grounded and strategically important messages of the week. Her focus was not on technology for its own sake but on the behaviours, investment logic and scaling discipline that separate genuine transformation from well-intentioned stagnation.
The contrast with the previous days at Rockwell Automation Fair was striking. Where the earlier sessions centred on emerging capabilities, architectural shifts and the expanding influence of artificial intelligence, Tessa Myers, Senior Vice President Intelligent Devices, Rockwell Automation redirected attention to the human, organisational and economic realities that govern whether those technologies ever make a difference. Her perspective carried weight because it grew from years of direct engagement with manufacturers and industrial operators who are trying to move forward while navigating a level of volatility that feels structurally different from anything they have faced before.
She grounded her remarks in the findings of Rockwell’s State of Smart Manufacturing report, now in its tenth year and backed by responses from over 1500 senior executives across global industry. According to Myers, the message that emerges from this body of research has shifted sharply. Disruption is no longer episodic, and uncertainty is no longer temporary.
“Uncertainty, volatility and change are the challenge all of us face,” she said. “They make decisions harder, because it is increasingly difficult to predict what might happen even in the next few days. The stakes are rising for every leader because the consequences of poor decisions are higher today than they have been in the past. This is the world we are operating in, and it means we must rethink how we lead, how we plan and how we bring our teams through transformation.”
Her argument was that the companies making real progress, the ones moving from aspiration to measurable improvement, share three accelerators in common. People powered transformation, a new understanding of the economics of investment and the ability to scale initiatives beyond the pilot stage. These accelerators, she said, are the dividing line between organisations that adapt and organisations that remain trapped in cycles of hesitation.
People powered transformation
Myers began deliberately with people, reversing the traditional structure in which workforce considerations appear as a final, almost ceremonial acknowledgement at the end of a presentation. She framed people not as an input to transformation but as the core driver of success.
“If people are not at the centre of your strategy, you will fail,” she said. “Technology alone does not change an organisation. It is the ability of your teams to understand it, use it, trust it and integrate it into the way they work that makes the difference. We need people who are more skilled, more digitally fluent and more empowered, because the future of operations will rely on judgment, adaptability and the human ability to see possibilities that technology cannot.”
She broke down what she observes in leaders who excel in this domain. They start with clarity, defining the business outcomes they need long before they discuss the software or automation paths that might support them. They lead with transparency, exposing the barriers, the frustrations and the constraints that prevent teams from performing at their best. They invite employees into that reality rather than shielding them from it. They ask what is getting in the way, how processes can be improved and how teams imagine achieving better outcomes.
Myers explained that skill building is becoming the heartbeat of successful transformation.
“More than half of the companies in our survey expect to create new roles and repurpose existing talent into those roles,” she said. “That tells us that the workforce is changing in every organisation. It also tells us that companies understand they cannot wait for fully formed talent to appear. They need to build it, develop it and support it.”
Her example of Perth County Ingredients, a Canadian supplier of dried egg products to food, beverage and sports nutrition markets in Canada and worldwide, demonstrated this principle clearly. Before evaluating technologies, the company’s leaders engaged their maintenance teams directly, asking what slowed them down and what information they lacked. Only then did they introduce tablets and a mobile-ready maintenance system that put real time SOPs, guides and work orders into the hands of technicians.
“The difference was dramatic,” she said. “Reactive maintenance dropped by more than 50 percent, and after hours calls were cut in half. None of that would have been visible if they had started with the technology instead of the people.”
Mastering the new economics of transformation
Myers moved to the second accelerator by addressing a pressure every leader in the room recognised. The competition for investment is more intense than at any time in recent memory. Artificial intelligence has shifted the conversation in boardrooms, with every function now positioning its initiatives as strategic. Traditional capital justification methods, built almost entirely on cost reduction, no longer reflect the realities of modern manufacturing.
“Agility, resilience and availability have become long term drivers of competitiveness,” she said. “They are not easy to quantify in spreadsheets, but they matter deeply. Volatility is not a reason to wait. It is a reason to act.”
She pointed to the survey finding that nearly half of respondents cited investment justification as a major obstacle, a number that reflects the gap between traditional business case construction and modern operational complexity. Yet she emphasised that leading organisations have repositioned operations as a strategic imperative and have become more explicit with shareholders about the value generated by operational stability and adaptability.
“Operations affect everything,” she said. “It affects your ability to respond to market shifts, your ability to serve customers, your risk profile and your capacity to grow. When companies align their investment logic with those outcomes, they unlock opportunities that cost only arguments would shut down.”
She highlighted the growing role of digital tools in building stronger business cases. Emulation and simulation, once confined to design validation, are now being applied earlier in the decision cycle to test the impact of proposed investments.
“We are doing this in our own business,” she said. “When Blake announced two billion dollars of investment in our plants, equipment and digital infrastructure, we used Emulate3D to test the scenarios. We evaluated layouts, automation strategies and material handling approaches across Singapore, Twinsburg and the new greenfield site in Wisconsin. It gives us real, data driven insight into what the ROI could be, and it ensures we place our bets in the right areas.”
Her message was clear. Data makes business cases stronger. Broader value metrics make them more accurate. A transformed view of economics makes investment possible.
From pilots to enterprise scale
The third accelerator addressed a familiar frustration. Digital initiatives often start well, deliver early success and then stall. Myers cited the survey finding that more than half of respondents were running pilots, but only 20 per cent succeeded in scaling them. The gap represents lost time, wasted energy and missed opportunity.
“A lot of effort goes into pilots,” she said. “But without scale you do not change the organisation. You create pockets of success that never translate into broad performance improvement.”
The distinction, she said, lies in how companies design their initiatives. The right starting point is not small but smart. Leaders should identify horizontal applications that naturally extend across the plant network and create value at scale. She highlighted areas such as touchless quality, where AI vision and advanced sensing can replace manual inspection, and material handling, where automation can be applied consistently across sites. Inline process optimisation was another example, where AI can adjust parameters dynamically to improve yield and quality.
She described how some organisations approach the problem by bringing together cross functional teams from engineering, operations, maintenance, planning, sourcing and plant leadership. “They ask themselves what it would take to run a single autonomous shift,” she said. “By analysing everything that needs to be in place, from scheduling and materials to maintenance timing and workforce readiness, they build a picture of the architecture and behaviours needed for autonomy. It generates ideas and exposes constraints that would never emerge in isolated discussions.”
Her example of a global frozen food manufacturer illustrated the impact that a targeted, scalable use case can achieve. The company sought to increase throughput without adding new capacity or building new plants. They applied Model Predictive Control to account for variations in incoming raw materials and environmental conditions, adjusting the cooking process dynamically to maintain quality and increase output.
“They proved it in a few facilities,” she said. “Once validated, they scaled it across the network. It became a global initiative, and it delivered the production increase they needed without expanding physical infrastructure.”
Leading in a more complex world
Myers closed with a message that captured the urgency of the moment. Industrial organisations are becoming more complex, more connected and more competitive. Those pressures will not ease. The companies making meaningful progress are those that understand how to anchor transformation in people, how to justify investments more broadly and accurately, and how to move from pilots to enterprise scale.
“They are getting faster recovery when supply chains shift,” she said. “They are seeing higher first pass yield and quality, less unplanned downtime and better energy efficiency. They are not just moving toward their goals. They are driving performance.”
Her call to action rested on a simple but demanding challenge. Leaders must think smarter, lead with more transparency and mobilise their organisations with more clarity than ever before. The path ahead requires conviction, design and the willingness to build a workforce capable of thriving in an environment that will only grow more complex.
