Manufacturing Roundtable to Address Fast-Changing Realities

Today’s manufacturers must deal with a variety of sometimes conflicting demands on the business. They must juggle ever-more stringent time-to-market cycles, supply-chain challenges, rising costs, and global macroeconomic challenges─all while keeping an eye on their own bottom line for the benefit of themselves and their shareholders.

These issues will be discussed during a roundtable at the IME East Conference and Exhibition at the Jacob Javits Center in New York City Tuesday, June 13^th , at 11:30 am. Sponsored by manufacturing services company Protolabs, the session, titled, “Evolving Marketplaces and the New Manufacturing Framework,” will feature several Protolabs executives who will discuss some of the current challenges facing manufacturing, and look at potential solutions.

Inflation is a key hurdle facing manufacturers. Brian Peters, Chief Marketing Officer for Protolabs, will discuss how the current high inflation rates not only impacts consumers but also manufacturers and suppliers, affecting how innovation is done.

Jay Viner, Sales Leader, Rapid Prototyping and Manufacturing for Protolabs, will discuss how companies can insert speed and cost efficiencies into the product development cycles and supply chains, despite inflationary pressures. Manufacturing suppliers can play a key role here, according to Viner.

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Supply-Chain Issues

The prolonged COVID-19 pandemic disrupted supply chains in many industries, and the panelists will tackle the issue of building resilience into their supply chains to minimize the impact of future disruptions. Rob Young, Global Product and Strategy Leader, Advanced Manufacturing and Industry 4.0 for Protolabs, will look into the findings from a recent company report that calls for several corrective measures, including automation, geographical diversification, agile processes, supply-chain monitoring, and balancing inventory.

Protolabs’ Jay Viner will also discuss the greater role digitalization and industrialization will need to take for future manufacturers.

Not surprisingly, AI is also expected to play a role for future manufacturers, impacting functions down to the customer buying experience. The panel will examine the role AI will play in procurement and inventory tools to ease customer procurement.

Spencer Chin is a Senior Editor for Design News covering the electronics beat. He has many years of experience covering developments in components, semiconductors, subsystems, power, and other facets of electronics from both a business/supply-chain and technology perspective. He can be reached at [email protected].

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