We had our annual conference at MxD and also celebrated its 10th year anniversary. MxD’s thesis is design for manufacturing with cybersecurity and implications of supply chain logistics being key considerations to enable small and medium manufacturers ramp up to the digital era.
In strategic intentions stemming from the needs to upgrade the organic industrial base and funded by the DoD, MxD also solicits projects using a partnership model where all tiers of members jointly propose to uplift facets of smart manufacturing by jointly building blueprints, guidebooks and playbooks to provide a basis for new physical-digital interactions like digital twins, AR/VR, technical data as a service and predictive maintenance.
AGENDA
Day One – September 17
9:00 a.m. | MxD Welcome
Berardino Baratta, CEO, MxD
9:10 a.m. | Keynote: EVERYTHING, EVERYWHERE, ALL AT ONCE – Can Secure Resilient Manufacturing Thrive?
Edna Conway, CEO, EMC Advisors
9:50 a.m. | Keynote: AI as the Great Equalizer: Enabling Small Business in the Era of Digitalization
Tony Hemmelgarn, President & CEO, Siemens Digital Industries Software
10:30 a.m. | Break
10:50 a.m. | The Power of Industrial Mobilization and the National Defense Industrial Strategy
Halimah Najieb-Locke, Vice President of Policy & Strategy, Entanglement, Inc.
11:30 a.m. | Accelerating Digitalization: The Future of U.S. Manufacturing Competitiveness
Moderator: Addis Goldman, Associate Director of Economy, Special Competitive Studies Project – SCSP
Panelists:
Liz Reynolds, Advisor on Industrial Transformation & MIT Professor, SCSP
Erik Mirandette, Chief Business Officer, Tulip Interfaces
12:10 p.m. | Lunch
1:00 p.m. | Managing Technology Adoption in the Enterprise: Three Perspectives
Adam Cooper, Principal, Business Consulting Supply Chain & Operations, Ernst & Young
Matt Davis, Manager, Training, Organizational Development & Community Outreach, ITAMCO
Rob Cooke, Director of Engineering Services, Calumet Electronics Corp.
Jose Cordero, Manufacturing Technology Software Manager, Calumet Electronics Corp.
2:00 p.m. | Day One Closing Town Hall: Accelerating Digital Transformation for Impact
Moderator: Berardino Baratta
Panelists:
David Boulay, Ph.D., President, IMEC
Adam Cooper
Matt Davis
Rob Cooke
Jose Cordero
3:00 p.m. | Factory Floor Tours
4:45 p.m. | Loading of Buses for Departure to City Hall Events Begins
5:00 p.m. | Bus Departures from MxD
5:30 p.m. | 10-Year Anniversary Celebration, City Hall Events, 838 W. Kinzie St.
Berardino Baratta, their CEO framed the evolution of the project in three stages: Convening, Advancing and Empowering, to ensure a more robust manufacturing base. He also detailed how they help startups morph from the valley of death – the dip between pre-manufacturing and post-research. He likened it to the metamorphosis from a caterpillar to a butterfly stating that if proper steps are not taken, you only get a fast caterpillar.
I liked his keynote chat with Edna Conway who discussed the IT-OT Convergence issue and suggested that manufacturing should be defined as “from cradle to crate” and that manufacturers are God’s gift to humanity.
Some other key quotes during the conference were:
– How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time
– Build your own enclave LLM
– Segment data using the principle of least privileged
– Power of the collective, you don’t have to do it alone
– The hardest new programming language is English
– Build small gardens with high walls
– Crisis is a terrible thing to waste
each of which have huge implications on our technological progression.
DAY 2
Day Two – September 18
The MxD Sensor Kit was front and center on Day 2 of the Annual Conference. MxD has a unique sensor kit set that enables brownfielding of manufacturing plants – retrofitting equipment with sensors to make them smart for IoT and other Industry 4.0 protocols to better communicate.
9:00 a.m. | MxD Welcome & Annual Highlights
Jela Trask, Vice President, Membership & External Relations, MxD
9:15 a.m. | Cyber Resilience in U.S. Manufacturing: Insights & Future Directions
Moderator: Iris Shaffer, Sr. Director, North America Media Relations Practice Lead, APCO Worldwide
Panelists:
Brian Brammeier, CEO & CISO, Opscura
Sandra Parker, Director, Manufacturing Cybersecurity, Dow, Inc.
Michael Tanji, Director of Cybersecurity, MxD
In the session on Cyber Resilience in U.S. Manufacturing: Insights & Future Directions Brian Brammeier asserted that IT and OT are two different languages and that IT needs to understand that OTs goals are uptime.
Hackers have to get it right once, defenders have to get it right all the time.
Software defined networking.
We made dumb things smart but we did not let security catch up.
Mazlow’s heirarchy of neeed
10:00 a.m. | Keynote: DoD and Advanced Manufacturing: Why Now? What’s Next?
Alexis Lasselle Ross, Ph.D., President, Apex Defense Strategies, LLC.
Cautionary tale s
Surge Capacity
Production is deterrence
Status quo needs to change
We shouldn’t play catch up but be setting up
Reconfigurable manufacturing line
Optimistic – the needs of today outweigh the challenges of tomorrow.
Wargaming – contingencies and scenarios
10:40 a.m. | Break
11:00 a.m. | The View from D.C.: Insights from Lewis-Burke Associates
Amber Cassady, Principal, Lewis-Burke Associates, LLC
David “Turk” Turkovic, Principal, Lewis-Burke Associates, LLC
11:30 a.m. | Collaborating with MxD for Government Funding
Chris Dufour, Director, Government Business Development, MxD
12:00 p.m. | Q&A with MxD & Lewis-Burke Associates, LLC
12:30 p.m. | Lunch
1:30 p.m. | Small Manufacturing Spotlight Sessions
Session 1: Pioneers of Digital Transformation: Insights from the First 10 MxD Sensor Kit Adopters
Gregory Harris, Ph.D.., P.E., FSME, Professor and Chair of the Industrial & Systems Engineering Dept. at Auburn University, Director of ICAMS, and Associate Director for Digital Strategy for NCAME
Session 2: Navigating Digital Transformation in Manufacturing: Strategies, Solutions, Success Stories
Sekhar Rakurty, Research & Development Mgr., The M.K. Morse Co.
Jon Renenberg, Lead Digital Manufacturing Specialist, Purdue MEP
Kayla Viveiros, Program Manager, Polaris MEP
2:45 p.m. | Break
3:00 p.m. | Day Two Closing Town Hall: The Next 5 Years: A Look Ahead to 2030
Moderator: Berardino Baratta
Panelists:
Alexis Lasselle Ross
Gregory Harris
Mark Heindenreich, Managing Director, Ernst & Young
Mary Isbister, Owner, GenMet Corp.
James Nudo, Chairman, DMG MORI Federal Services
4:00 p.m. | Networking Reception (Sponsored by Google Cloud) & Factory Floor Tour
We at Numorpho Cybernetic Systems (NUMO) feel privileged to be associated with MxD and its ecosystem of members and affiliate organizations from the Manufacturing USA and plan to continue our relationship with them as we grow our thesis on process engineering in the new paradigm and begin to “fly” attesting to the MORPHO butterfly reference in our name.
Thank you, Siemens, Google and Betacom for sponsoring the event.
It was great meeting familiar and new faces both at the conference and after party
Antonios Kontsos Giuseppe Padula Brian P. Brammeier Kimberly Blomquist Cieana Detloff Mallik Boddu Dr. Federico Sciammarella Jacob Smith Erin O’Donnell Christopher Dufour Fabien Duboeuf Asad Vaince Logan Davies John George Rodrigo Perez Jela Trask Brian Townley Kelley Conner Rogers Scott E. Miller Alexis Lasselle Ross Kristina Young Emily Constantinou
NITIN UCHIL Founder, CEO & Technical Evangelist
nitin.uchil@numorpho.com