Episode Summary:
In this episode of BetterTech on Deploying AI on the Factory Floor, host Umair Javed sits down with Kenny Mullican, Chief Information Officer of Paragon Films, a private equity-owned mid-market plastics manufacturer operating across North America. Kenny traces his journey from building video-conferencing hardware in Silicon Valley — including early work on what would become the predecessor to Zoom — to running IT for a modern manufacturing company. He shares how Paragon Films is deploying AI on the Factory Floor for predictive maintenance, real-time quality control, and production scheduling, and explains why the CIO role has evolved from keeping the lights on to driving genuine competitive advantage. Kenny also offers candid insight into how AI adoption is spreading organically from IT outward and what it really takes to move from pilot to production.
Show Notes:
- Kenny Mullican shares insights into the CIO role inside a manufacturing company and how it extends beyond standard IT to include shop-floor systems, OT security, and ERP integration.
- Discussion covers Paragon Films’ first use case of deploying AI on the Factory Floor — a turnkey predictive maintenance platform using IoT sensors to catch machine failures before they cause costly downtime.
- Kenny explains how generative AI is being applied beyond data analysis, including prescriptive quality alerts, production scheduling reasoning, and R&D analytics.
- The episode explores how AI adoption moved from IT-led rollouts to grassroots employee demand, with Claude being introduced for trusted power users and gradually expanding.
- Kenny outlines what genuine production-readiness looks like: monitoring, token cost visibility, model lifecycle management, and ROI reporting to executive teams.
This episode is hosted by Umair Javed, Host, BetterTech
