Ahead of Machina Labs’ Series C announcement, Edward Mehr, co-founder and CEO of Machina Labs, joined the Relentless Podcast for a candid conversation about what it really takes to reinvent manufacturing and why incremental automation isn’t enough.
Hosted by Ti Morse, the discussion goes beyond headlines and hype, digging into the story of Machina Labs and the structural challenges facing defense, aerospace, and advanced mobility manufacturing today.
The Real Bottleneck Isn’t Design. One of the central themes of the conversation is a hard truth many programs are confronting: the bottleneck isn’t innovation or engineering talent, it’s manufacturing speed and scale.
Over the past decade, digital design tools have advanced rapidly. But the factories that turn those designs into real metal structures are still constrained by tooling, long setup times, and rigid production lines. As Ed explains, this mismatch is now a strategic liability, especially for defense and aerospace programs operating under tight timelines and increasing complexity.
Why Software-Defined Factories Matter: Ed outlines Machina Labs’ core belief: manufacturing itself must be reprogrammed.
Rather than optimizing individual machines or automating legacy workflows, Machina is building flexible, software-defined factories where intelligence lives in code. RoboCraftsman™, Machina’s flagship manufacturing platform, translates digital designs directly into metal, guided by AI and robotics.
This shift fundamentally changes the economics of manufacturing:
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Faster iteration
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Rapid qualification of complex parts
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Real metal production at mission speed
As Ed notes in the interview, “If your factory can’t adapt as fast as the system you’re trying to build, you’re already behind.”
🎧 Watch the full Relentless Podcast episode featuring Edward Mehr.