If you have been inside a factory, electrical shop or even a data centre before, it is likely you have seen Fluke Corporation’s signature yellow tools. For Parker Burke, the manufacturing floor is where theory meets reality and these tools connect the dots in between.

Fluke Corporation, founded in 1948, is the world leader in compact professional electronic test tools and software for measuring and condition monitoring. The company serves technicians, engineers, electricians and maintenance managers across industrial sectors.

Parker is the company’s Group President, alongside leading parent company Fortive’s Connected Reliability Group. “I strongly believe that delivering the innovation our customers rely on starts with strong problem-solving teams, supported by the right tools to help them work more productively and with greater confidence,” he explains. “Just as importantly, learning has to be grounded where the work is done, so real-world insight translates directly into innovation others can rely on.”

See the full story in the March 2026 edition of Manufacturing Digital.

Parker Burke’s career so far

Parker’s early career as an officer in the US Marine Corps taught him lessons that still shape his management today. "Whether it's the vital importance of team cohesion under pressure or how outcomes depend on how well people align around shared goals, I continually draw on my earlier experiences," he explains. “Leading an incredible Fluke team who strive each day to serve our customers in an incredible way is no different.”

Fortive, Fluke's parent company, is a diversified industrial technology company formed in 2016 when Danaher spun off several businesses. Parker brings 15 years of leadership experience across Fortive businesses. Most recently he served as Group President of Fortive's Environmental Health & Safety Group.

Parker explains: “I’ve long admired Fluke, particularly how our customers invest in our brand, ultimately enabling us to deliver the right products to them in a rapidly innovating world. Over many years, this has resulted in an enviable track record of helping customers do the things today they couldn’t do yesterday.”

“Whether in my career leading Marines around the world, or my time in business focused on ensuring that people who trust me and my team to get them home safely at the end of every day do so, I am now fortunate to be a part of a Fluke team that delivers incredible outcomes for our customers across quality, safety and reliability,” he says. “I am hopeful that my values align with Fluke’s promise to our customers and help me to be the leader that I know both our team and our customers around the world deserve.”

An engineering mindset

Now, leading a company rooted in engineering precision has influenced his approach to problem-solving: “Fluke’s culture of innovation reinforces a mindset grounded in data, measurement and evidence. This approach, when applied properly, can dispel the idea that problem-solving should focus on whether a challenge is someone’s fault or that opinions should over-influence decision-making.” Parker feels that this methodology enables teams and customers to move faster with confidence.

Day-to-day, he feels energised by his accomplished team, trusting customers and new technology trends. “From engaging with our talented team around the world to spending time with our customers to understand how Fluke can help them unlock what is possible in their business, I am fortunate to draw incredible energy from the opportunity I have to help take Fluke to our next generation,” Parker explains. 

“Without a doubt, spending time with our teams and our customers around the world inspires me to be the leader that both our team and our customers deserve.” Seeing Fluke products being used in the real-world is not just a source of inspiration, but also information. No matter how precise a factory is, it will never be the same as laboratories where products are tested. 

Energy, AI and automation

Fluke, Parker believes, is ready to not just predict what lies ahead, but also co-invent a future that enables its customers to deliver outcomes across safety, productivity and reliability. “With this in mind, as we look towards the convergence of an increasing consumption of power, from continued electrification to the required diversification of our power sources and networking of the world around us, professional instrumentation will shift from periodic, point-in-time checks to continuous, connected reliability,” he explains. 

Parker explains: “The increasing integration of industrial infrastructure is now the baseline for modern facilities.” Robotics and automation are growing too, he feels, and adding AI to these ecosystems could change productivity across manufacturing and wider supply chains. Continuous measurement will become standard rather than the exception. “Fluke is focused on making these systems faster, safer, more reliable and more scalable,” he says. The company is investing in its teams to help them work effectively even as this technical complexity grows. 

Balancing precision and reliability with the fast innovation required for new technologies is not one of Parker’s concerns: “In fact, the need to innovate to meet the quickly evolving needs of our customers is how we are able to continue to deliver precision and reliability in the places where our customers need it most. 

“By leveraging evolving technology, such as AI and other digital tools, we can scale productivity and quality for both our own team and our customers, and we look forward to helping those who trust us to continue advancing their own needs across their operations,” he explains. 

Skills, however, are becoming harder to find, particularly as new digital tools are becoming everyday expectations. “We work to stay as close to our customers as we can to help them run facilities more productively and safely,” Parker says. “This goes hand in hand with a commitment to supporting customer safety and employee wellbeing as innovation accelerates.” 

The year ahead

Over the next 12 months, digitisation of the manufacturing ecosystem will be at scale, Parker feels. A standard, rather than an emerging trend. Three things stand out to him as major changes in the near future. 

“First, productivity becomes the real constraint. Demand isn’t the problem; time, people and usable capacity are,” he says. Teams will focus less on doing more work and more on removing friction from processes, allowing for more speed without compromising safety or quality. 

Next, the challenge of finding skills will become more severe. Parker explains: “It’s on both sides of the equation. It’s the difficulty of finding experienced talent and it’s the pressure to train faster as roles evolve. We need to build capability on purpose: clearer standards, better coaching at the point of work and tools that help newer technicians make confident decisions sooner.”

“Third, technology gets quieter but more powerful,” he explains. “Sensors, data and AI won’t be about dashboards for dashboards’ sake, they’ll be embedded into everyday work, helping teams act faster, safer and with less guesswork.”

See the full story in the March 2026 edition of Manufacturing Digital.