2024 MX.0 Southeast Agenda

Many perceive technology as the easy part of digital transformation; managing people through digital-led change has been said to be the challenge.

Join this panel of digital transformation leaders to unpick how you steer technology-led change, taking your people with you along the way. Avoiding 'leadership spiel' and 'management speak,' the panelists detail the incremental steps and processes needed to execute new tech-led business plans.

Take away details of what works, which tried and tested failures to avoid, and answer common questions, including:
- How do you sell your ideas for digital transformation to your boss, influence change and bring your people with you?
- How can you prepare people for integration and engage those who seem resistant?
- How do you effectively educate different teams on new integrated processes and technologies?
- What are the quick wins, ‘easy buttons’, and powerful tools that you can implement to kick-start tech-led innovation?
- What is the best approach to fostering new working relationships between teams, identifying problems, and reacting quickly with new processes and training?

Join Ron Norris, Director of Innovation at Georgia-Pacific, as he reveals how the fusion of Knowledge AI and Data AI can effectively bridge the knowledge gap left by retiring workers. Discover how Causal AI captures and codifies tacit knowledge, ensuring continuity and mitigating risks associated with institutional knowledge loss.  

Explore how the integration of Knowledge AI and Data AI revolutionizes knowledge management, empowering businesses to proactively drive sustainable success. Don't miss this opportunity to future-proof your organization and thrive in an evolving industry landscape.

Devin Bhushan challenges the prevailing automation narrative, advocating for a strategic focus on enhancing human potential through technology. He presents a compelling argument for why investing in people, rather than replacing them with machines, is key to unlocking business innovation and efficiency.
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Highlights:
1. Prioritizing Human Creativity Over Robots: Bhushan argues for the irreplaceable value of human creativity and adaptability in the workplace, emphasizing that true innovation comes from empowering people, not just deploying autonomous technology.

2. Empowering Employees Through Technology: By leveraging tools like Squint to streamline mundane tasks, Bhushan showcases how technology can enhance job satisfaction, reduce turnover, and make workplaces more efficient and innovative.

3. Leveraging GenAI for Operational Efficiency: Highlighting the practical application of GenAI, Bhushan demonstrates how technology can simplify documentation and standard operating procedures, allowing employees to focus on value-added activities and fostering a culture of continuous improvement.

Conclusion: Bhushan advocates for a shift in perspective towards valuing and investing in the workforce as the key to future business success. He underscores the importance of using technology to enhance human potential, fostering an environment where innovation and human talent flourish together.

Join for an in-depth exploration of AI's impact on manufacturing as we explore real-world case studies. Learn to kickstart AI projects, choose the right use cases, and blend human expertise with technology for practical results. Gain valuable insights from best practices, data strategy, governance, reusable architecture, common pitfalls to avoid, and pathways to success.

Be inspired by shop floor implementations where AI-driven visual inspections enhance product quality, free up the workforce for value-added tasks, boost capabilities, and improve ergonomic conditions. Understand how AI becomes an invaluable toolbox, optimizing factory maintenance and traceability, elevating design, and production to new heights of efficiency and product quality.

- How do we plan out the steps needed to build sustainable practices based on policy and customer demands?
- Who drives the change? How do we engage employees and leadership to get sustainability on the agenda and invested in?
- What targets do you need to set to drive outcomes?
- How do you overcome the challenges of legacy infrastructure and assets and get the data to back up the investment?
- What do scalable and successful sustainability practices look like?

As more companies embrace Industry 4.0, they are looking to bolster the industrial edge to harness the power of data near the source. The value of edge data increases rapidly when it is used for real-time monitoring and control, which is crucial in industries like manufacturing or oil and gas, where even milliseconds of delay can affect productivity and safety. Legacy protocols like Modbus, MTConnect were optimized for machine-to-machine communication, and not for seamless communication between diverse industrial edge devices and systems. The only way to achieve true interoperability is to adopt a modern standards-based communication protocol like MQTT which is a lightweight, open-standard protocol tailored perfectly for the industrial edge. Learn more how MQTT and HiveMQ's Edge gateway are powering the Industrial Edge.

AI's potential is recognized and accepted, but how to use it effectively in a production setting remains unclear for many. Join the panel of manufacturers to unpick the actions needed to ensure you have accurate data and the right tools and technologies to achieve the business outcomes you plan to yield from AI.    
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Hear detailed examples of how to apply AI to: 
- Planning: Setting a manageable AI implementation and measurement strategy that fits your business needs.
- IoT Analysis: How to use AI to leverage data at a machine level.
- Optimization: Using AI to enhance throughput, removing bottlenecks and reducing downtime.
- Quality Control & Process Improvement: How to reduce defects and improve using AI.

Learn how Milliken & Company is executing on itssustainability digital roadmap to achieve meaningful insights, processes,forecasts, and capabilities.

Join Larry Megan, a digital leader fostering cross-departmental relationships to break down silos between IT and OT and scale digital transformation at a medium-sized manufacturing business.

Taking a 'how to' approach, Larry details the exact steps he's taken to:
- Build and engage an internal team. that supports digital transformation plans and bridges the gap between business and technology.
- Create a partner and vendor ecosystem that meets the needs of midsize manufacturers.
- Build a foundation for digital transformation by modernizing our ERP, MES, and cybersecurity platforms.
- Redesigning the day-to-day life and tasks of operators by introducing automated and data-driven tools.
- Create new value from the proactive use of data across our manufacturing, quality, supply chaining, and procurement functions.

Since the pandemic, companies have been more drawn to robust and scalable ways to gain deep knowledge and insight into their day-to-day operations. They are looking at a more accurate monitoring and simulation solution. Hence, the drive for an advanced manufacturing process, like real-time monitoring process simulation, predictive analytics, production, and condition monitoring. The digital twin has been around the block for some time,but it has recently become a good tool to help companies gain more control of what happens on the shop floor in real time. Building a digital replica of processes and the ability to run a what-if scenario are the main objectives of Digital Twin. Leveraging process simulation, 3-D modeling, and real-time monitoring are keys to achieving a digital twin of any process.  Join this session to hear the steps to implementing a digital twin of any process within the manufacturing space.  

Hear details of:
- The Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0)and current practices
- The roadmap for a manufacturing facility
- Real-time monitoring of processes and assets
- 3-D layout and process simulation
- Building a Digital Twin
- Otis’ current implementation strategy - a case study approach

Hear how Siemens is using data to identify opportunities and implement solutions at their site, working towards the multinational conglomerate's 2030 net-zero commitment.

- Join and benefit from Siemens' best practices and the key lessons they've learned while digitizing energy data, evaluating market areas and opportunities, procurement and lease standards.
- Determine how to measure success and highlight progress to your wider company.
- Discover how your future sustainability roadmap could look and pinpoint prospective opportunities enabled by renewables, electrification and scope 3.

Today's Operational Technology (OT) environments are modernizing and digitizing, connecting more assets, systems, and networks to new threats and risks.  
With more regulations and higher expectations on the OT data than ever before, OT leaders must move quickly to improve their operations and build resilience.      

This session provides a contextual perspective on operational technology management and how to improve security, continuous operation, and integration with processes and digital workflows.  

Watch this space...

Hear the journey of how to build a cross-functional, collaborative team to enable your digital strategy. Join Brad, a leader in Swedish Match’s digital strategy team to pinpoint the exact steps needed to:

- Identify opportunities and winning business buy-in
- Build cross-functional teams to bring the voices and objectives of Engineering, Maintenance, Operations, Business and IT together
- Move from proof of concept to value
- Get continuous improvement and change management right

Currently, many manufacturers are undecided on whether to purchase the "new" manufacturing cobots or go with the"old", but established industrial robots. Join this session to dive into the experience of ZF Group, a Tier 1 automotive supplier, as they showcase the pros and cons of each when used in complex manufacturing processes (part and size variations, bin picking, process automation, simulation, cycle time management, etc). Dive into the details to understand which concept might work best for your manufacturing setting and identify the pitfalls that you wouldn’t have known of before.

Stefan presents the realities of Industry 4.0's impact on heavy asset and assembly equipment monitoring within Magna's manufacturing plant. His enlightening presentation unveils tangible success stories where Industry 4.0 technologies actively redefine Magna's asset management and assembly processes.

Hear how they have harnessed real-time data analytics, IoT connectivity, and sophisticated sensor networks to optimize heavy asset performance and streamline assembly operations. Don't miss this opportunity to learn from Magna's tried and tested approaches to uncover the strategies and tools that can drive your organization's transformation and competitiveness.

- Understanding and choosing the sustainability reporting standards and frameworks to use
- Identifying the traceability solutions that improve your supply chain visibility while maintaining brand value and meeting regulatory requirements
- Leveraging technology to improve raw materials and labor reporting to meet customers’ sustainability expectations
- Advancing your data analytics to analyze, predict, and collaborate, so that you can go from reactive to proactive planning

High-quality data and a robust data strategy are critical to the outcome of your digital transformation goals, the effectiveness of AI, and your overall effectiveness as a smart manufacturer in today's competitive markets.  

Yet, despite the advancement of digital transformation plans and investments, common questions persist, such as how you capture data from your equipment, and when you have it, what do you do with it? Hear how these manufacturers built a profitable data strategy that gave their work force real-time visibility on operations and brought their business game-changing insights.  

‍Along with your questions, the panelists dive into:
- What are the best options for capturing shop floor data?
- How to build a plan for OT data: what do you need from different functions, what data sets are required, and how do you provide a secure environment?
- How much do you need to spend? Which technologies do you need to get the most from your data?
- What tools are available to empower your staff to use production data to make decisions on the go, and which are the good ones? How do you connect and digitalize legacy equipment?