Your host
Vladimir Romanov
Director of digital transformation, founder, and the person you want in a discovery meeting — because he's been on the other side of the table.
$20MM+
Production lines commissioned
200k+
Engineers trained via SolisPLC
26
Unionized techs led
200+
Manufacturing Hub interviews
From the plant floor to the mic
Vladimir Romanov has spent his career on the controls and operations side of real manufacturing. At Procter & Gamble he led the procurement, deployment, and validation of two $20MM+ production lines — the fastest startup in the site's history — and built high-speed vision and control systems that pushed line speed up 20%.
Across Kraft Heinz, Post Holdings, and other food manufacturers, he designed, programmed, and commissioned PLC, HMI, SCADA, and MES systems at full-plant scale, led a team of 26 unionized technicians, and drove a 20% OEE improvement through data systems and operating discipline.
Today he runs Joltek, an independent automation and digital-transformation consultancy, and founded SolisPLC, the training platform that has reached over 200,000 engineers, technicians, and plant leaders worldwide. He co-hosts Manufacturing Hub (200+ interviews with manufacturing leaders) and speaks at Automate, SPS, and ICC.
He holds an MBA from McGill and a B.Eng in Electrical Engineering from Concordia, and is a US/Canadian dual citizen working on both sides of the border.
Why Factory Field Notes
After years of training engineers and advising plants, the best questions kept coming from the field — not from textbooks. Factory Field Notes is where those questions get answered honestly, without a vendor steering the conversation.