Additive Manufacturing (AM) is a technology that is more than three decades old, and Boeing has been a leader in researching and implementing AM in the aerospace industry since 1997. Metal powder-bed AM technology, however, has only recently begun to demonstrate value for application into critical aerospace products that require high quality and rigorous process and manufacturing control. This presentation describes several technological advancements being implemented at Boeing that lead to significant gains in production quality, scale and efficiency. The advancements, however, are not without challenges, which are also addressed. Finally two case studies of certified flight hardware are presented and the value added over the traditional counterpart is discussed.

Manufacturers are finding amazing value leveraging technology to accelerate innovation cycles and deliver new products and services. Some such examples have reduced innovation cycle times by as much as 35% and decreased cost of NPI similarly. Imagine company revenue being reduced by as much as 40% due to the impact of the pandemic only to emerge rapidly with new product lines that fill the revenue gap at an even greater profitability prior to the pandemic. Lets discuss how this is being done.

Cost optimization and continuous imrpovement demand a high-performance culture and smart digital enablers to drive innovative manufacturing management. We help our customers merge physical and digital manufacturing environments into one ecosystem.

Winning the war on talent with a great place to work culture.

Successful development and commercialization of Exosomes-Based therapies require a scalable manufacturing platform in order to be able to meet market needs (QUANTITY) at acceptable COGS. This will ensure patient accessibility and deliver the desired ROI for therapy developers (COST). Furthermore and more importantly, the process must result in high quality material consisting of well-defined final exosome-based product (QUALITY). In this presentation, we cover these three important factors with a particular emphasis on characterization considered as a key critical element for successful development and commercialization.

As the Baby Boomer generation retires from the workforce, numerous industries are finding in difficult to fill positions. This has lead to more companies looking toward automating as many lower skilled tasks as possible to free employees to focus on other tasks. In this presentation, Aaron Prather will discuss some of the best practices to follow when deploying robotics and other automation into your operation and how to make your existing employees not only part of the process, but team players in wanting the robots as part of their team.

In 2030 Gen Z employees will be over a third of the workforce. These early career employees need to be engaged differently from the generations before. Hear the perspective of a leader of teams that has hired over a hundred Gen Z engineers. Walk away from this presentation with practical guidance to improve the effectiveness of your engagement of Gen Z employees!

In this presentation, Dr. Marlene R. Kolodziej, DBA, ITIL, VP, Centralized Services, Ricoh USA, Inc. will discuss how Augmented Reality (AR) is one silver lining that has come from the pandemic and is allowing for a superior customer experience, despite the limitations of not being able to complete in-person service calls. She’ll also detail how people, technology, knowledge and process play into the delivery of a business continuity plan and use Ricoh’s response to the pandemic as an example of what worked, while also sharing lessons learned.

Packaging Hall of Famer Dr. Michael Okoroafor sits down to chat about the current state of the manufacturing industry and what we need to consider moving forward. Prior to COVID, the trend in the manufacturing industry was how big could you get with your manufacturing infrastructure. Now as we learn to adapt, it’s important to have a nimble and flexible agile manufacturing structure and a digital platform to align processes.

This presentation will provide an overview of technologies that enable robots to (1) program themselves, (2) efficiently learn from the observed performance, (3) safely operate in the presence of uncertainty, (4) appropriately call for help during the execution of challenging tasks, and (5) effectively communicate with humans. The use of a team of smart robotic assistants can significantly improve human productivity and eliminate the need for human involvement in tasks that pose risks to human safety. In high-mix application areas, production volume may not be high. Therefore, justifying capital expenditure based on return on investment is often challenging. robot as a service model is eliminating the need for upfront capital expenditure in deploying robots.

“In an increasingly competitive environment, how do you boost your team’s productivity while retaining top talent? In this presentation we will explore how to align at multiple levels to improve your team’s engagement, efficiency, and outcomes. Working across your organization to understand the landscape to increase your team’s ability meet organizational expectations • Challenging work tasks to focus your team on the right activities to increase your team’s ability to deliver • Investing in your individual team members success through coaching, professional development, and opportunity to increase team member satisfaction “

Methodology like ‘3×5 why’s’ and ‘Prevent Protect Predict’ have been long established, but organizations still struggle today to get to the bottom of systemic root causes that slow down their programs, cost them money and ultimately can break the trust relationship with their consumers and their brand image. So, how can we better leverage data that already exist in organizations to shift the focus on fixing their systemic problems once and for all? And most importantly, what can leaders with no quality background learn from these quality techniques and how can they use them to turn their functions in learning and innovative organizations?

Learn more about what is most important to make sure professionals get the best results and about how the future of the Opex and CI is about smart manufacturing and digitalization.

Innovation is all about creating measurable, quantifiable, and demonstrable value to both your customer and business. It is your ability to build the right product, for the right market, build it right with the right tools, processes and resources, and build it fast so you do not miss the market window. This presentation will introduce the innovation ecosystem and provide valuable lessons from practice to help you establish an effective culture of innovation to reward the right behavior with a maniacal focus on the customer.

In recent years the confluence of cloud computing, faster networking, mobile, edge device processing, and sensor technologies have converged to enable formerly inanimate objects to start talking. We all know this as the IOT, or the Internet of Things. Companies across the globe have leaped into the fray to ride the wave of this new way of delivering innovative services, optimizing performance, zeroing in on targeted sales opportunities, and at the core, collecting data to drive better and faster decision-making. This presentation takes the perspective of a nearly 100 year old manufacturing company producing mechanical padlocks and it’s decision to purposefully enter the IOT doing what it does best, that is, produce portable locking devices, but newly improved with intelligence added. This journey will cover the insights used to inform the strategy, and a few of the more common challenges across the industry including go to market, customer support, and sales.

Agility is necessary to be successful in R&D product development. We can learn this from taking a look at case studies of successful companies over time and how they’ve remained relevant as society changes. Agility, however, is usually associated with a small size, so how does a large company remain agile? Dow Inc. has successfully delivered new innovations in short times as demonstrated by its response to the pandemic with the development of PPE for the medical industry. In addition to examining the critical elements which made that possible, I will discuss my experience on leading the team through changing times and discuss 7 key components I found critical for agile product development.

Eliminate inefficiencies, manage costs and build a sustainable foundation. Integrate with legacy systems. Manage strategy, Security and Scalability.

In today’s new norm of Digital Transformation what are the steps that should be taken to ensure you are moving in the right direction and if your investments are paying dividends. You need to evaluate these investments, regain control of the implementation processes, ensure you are building the necessary business case and review the role of IT and how it fits with today’s environment.

In uncertain times, such as the pandemic we are currently living through, organizations have a tendency to hunker down. This is manifested by a slowing or de-prioritizing of activities which are longer term focused. What should a product development team do in these times? How should the product development function stay relevant to the organization in these times?

Leadership growth on a daily basis is essential for every company and industry to thrive in an ever-changing business environment. The focus of this presentation is to discuss how business leaders must adapt to the new norm by mastering their own mindset, leading effectively with virtual teams, and leading for a long-term legacy. By raising the level of our own leadership, all other direct and indirect associates will rise to new levels.

Porex has implemented a robust Front End of Innovation process that has helped generate numerous valuable and novel ideas in a short period of time. At the same time, we have also focused heavily on the Back End of Innovation to ensure proper selection of ideas for project execution while minimizing risk to the business. Our vision is to execute these projects at maximum speed and minimum risk through a combination of traditional risk management strategies (project management) as well as through digital transformation and Data Analytics.

“Lean is simple, to quote Taiichi Ohno “”All we are doing is looking at the time line, from the moment the customer gives us an order, to the point when we collect the cash “”. SMED (Single Minute Exchange of Die) is a technique developed by Ohno’s partner in Lean, Shigeo Shengo. The west has been slow in adopting SMED and has become asset rich which translates to ROI and cash flow poor, with low agility. It does not have to be complex or complicated. 80% of the benefit of SMED can be achieved by less than 20% the perceived effort. Uncovering both hidden and obvious non-productive time often has a much greater impact than the risks and yields of focusing solely on productivity improvement. Too often significant Asset Utilization (ROI), Throughput (Profit) and Inventory (Cash Flow) may be hidden in plain sight. “

Managing manufacturing through the pandemic will require a holistic framework – one that considers people, process, product and the role of technology. Technology today is scalable, reconfigurable and decentralized, and its economics have changed as companies focus on infection control, but also need integration with people and products required by the supply chain. We present ideas that firms can use to think through ideas and tactics to succeed after the pandemic. We showcase specific technologies as well as company playbooks to illustrate our ideas.

Continuous Improvement has never been more important as the world events and business climate changes daily. Having worked in big business, small business and even non profits, successful continuous improvement depends on a company culture shift towards constant innovation. Without the culture change, it becomes the flavor of the month and fades away quickly. Simple steps and tools towards implementation helps ensure sustainment. Utilizing these tools and more importantly a system of checks and balances will ensure continuous improvement is embedded into your company’s culture for years to come.

Manufacturing technology for cost-effective part production is critical to the US economy. A key process for fabricating parts from nearly any material with high accuracy and surface integrity is machining, or material removal using a defined cutting edge. The introduction of computer numerical control (CNC) for machining centers enabled a digital approach, where the desired part is defined by a solid model using computer-aided design (CAD) software. The CNC commands to produce this part are then generated using computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) software. While this is a key capability with continued advancements, the primary focus on geometry neglects key physical considerations that must be addressed for cost-effective and reliable manufacturing performance. This presentation will discuss these issues, including vibration during the machining process and its influence on part quality.

Successfully transitioning new product concepts from research and development to production requires effective collaboration across the complete supply chain. In this presentation, we look at lessons learned to avoid potential pitfalls that might hinder new product introduction. Areas of discussion include tools, problem definition and communication. COVID-19 business impact is briefly reviewed.

Practical implementation of digital technologies in manufacturing has never been a clean or easy business….. but we’ve all been doing it for years. Everyone has a brownfield footprint of investments & technologies that have evolved over time. We have lots of connected devices. Lots of disparate systems. How do we deliver real business outcomes rather than insights in isolation?