2025 MX.0 Southeast Agenda

By embracing AI as a strategic enabler, organizations can position themselves at the forefront of innovation, ensuring long-term success in an increasingly digital and data-driven economy. Don’t miss hearing lessons from a manufacturing, innovation, and technology leader during this talk designed for business executives, R&D leaders, and technology innovators seeking to unlock AI’s full potential within their organizations.  

In today’s fast-evolving digital landscape, artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing how industries approach scientific discovery, product development, and operational efficiency. Nowhere is this more evident than in chemistry, material formulation, and new material discovery, where AI accelerates research by predicting molecular properties, optimizing formulations, and reducing the reliance on costly and time-consuming trial-and-error experimentation. By leveraging machine learning and advanced modeling, companies are developing high-performance materials with tailored properties for applications in coatings, lubricants, polymers, and sustainable alternatives.  AI-driven insights allow for faster identification of breakthrough materials, enhancing both performance and environmental impact. Beyond the lab, AI is redefining manufacturing by enabling smart production processes, automating quality control, and enhancing supply chain agility. AI-powered predictive maintenance, real-time process optimization, and defect detection systems are transforming factories into intelligent, self-correcting ecosystems that drive efficiency, reduce waste, and improve sustainability.

Leaders will learn practical strategies for leveraging AI to enhance research, protect intellectual property, and build more resilient, efficient, and sustainable business operations. The session will also address the ethical considerations of AI adoption, including transparency, bias mitigation, and responsible leadership in an AI-powered world.

In today's fast-paced world, harnessing digital information is key to overcoming challenges and achieving measurable results. Get ready to take not-to-be-missed lessons from this NPI story, which illustrates how to successfully turn practical data analysis into tangible solutions to drive success. Be prepared to be inspired to unlock the potential of digital information to achieve your goals during a new product launch.

Transformation and advancement, and therefore, growth, for US manufacturers is based on data + automation. However, how do you converge your data and automation initiatives, and make sure you're making the most of all the technologies you're employing? As technologies evolve, the opportunities to apply Advanced Analytics, AI, GenAI with your Automation strategies can radically step change your performance.

Join this panel of experienced, tech-savvy manufacturing leaders to learn from lessons in taking a holistic approach to effectively integrating different digital tools and technologies. Explore what is next for the evolution of automation with intelligence!

Hear your audience questions addressed, as well as:
- Where do you start with convergence between Automation and Data (IoT, SCADA, OT, etc.)?
- What are better practices when automating your operations with today’s modern technology stack?
- What steps can you take to minimize the risk of cyber-attacks and maximize resilience if you do get hit?
- What does IT/OT convergence look like, and how can different business heads be the best partner?

Join Tariq Shiblaq and Lonnie West as they share insights and successes from their digital transformation journey within Bausch+Lomb's manufacturing operations.

This fast-paced discussion covers a lot of ground and highlights the multiple areas of impact:
- Identifying opportunities where new applications and tools can both solve challenges and reduce operating costs
- Discussing the impact of new technologies and how existing processes were adapted
- Reviewing new approaches taken to condition monitoring, predictive maintenance, and digital paperless validation systems in a highly regulated environment
- Quantifying sustainability wins
- Managing culture and moving people from a place of discomfort to digital-first thinking

Manufacturing thrives on data, but too often, that data is scattered across machines, systems, and departments—trapped in silos that slow down decision-making and limit efficiency. The challenge isn’t just about collecting data; it’s about making it useful and be able to glean insights for the entire business.

Distributed Data Intelligence offers a smarter way forward. By unifying data from the edge to the cloud within a structured, shared namespace, manufacturers can create a single source of truth that ensures insights reach the right people and systems exactly when needed. This approach enhances production efficiency, improves quality control, and strengthens supply chain resilience.
With open standards like MQTT, manufacturers can enable real-time data flow, AI-driven insights, and seamless IT-OT integration—without getting locked into rigid, dated architectures.
This talk will break down the key principles of Distributed Data Intelligence in manufacturing, highlighting real-world applications and practical steps to move in this direction without vendor lock-in.

Attendees will walk away with a clear roadmap for leveraging data more effectively, making smarter decisions faster, and setting the foundation for a truly connected and agile manufacturing environment.

Squint partners with leading manufacturers — across industries from tires to turbines — to help teams deploy fast and prove ROI that sticks.

In this hands-on session, we’ll walk through how top operational teams are building ROI directly into their digital transformation strategies — and how you can, too.

We’ll share field-tested frameworks and practical playbooks to help you define what ROI looks like in your organization and accelerate your path to measurable results.

Determine how to conduct a comprehensive self-assessment to determine your organization's Industry 4.0 maturity level and hear insights from real-world case studies and the latest trends.

- Understand the stages of Industry 4.0 maturity and how to conduct a self-assessment.
- Learn from the experiences of other organizations that have successfully implemented Industry 4.0 initiatives.  
- Benchmark against industry trends
- Develop an action plan!

Industrial data presents unique challenges due to its diverse formats and siloed nature, making it difficult to integrate and utilize effectively. Join this session to explore how Industrial DataOps enables manufacturers to overcome these challenges by transforming raw data into actionable insights for AI, machine learning, and smart manufacturing.  

Attendees will walk away with more information on:  
- Why industrial data is unlike other data, its unique challenges, and what is required to make it interoperable.
- An introduction to Industrial DataOps: The people, processes, and technologies required to leverage industrial data for Smart Manufacturing and Industry 4.0 outcomes.
- How to prepare industrial data for AI/ML, consuming applications, and services by engineering telemetry, transaction, time series, and file data into contextualized data sets.  - Understanding the key problems and use cases addressed by Industrial DataOps for manufacturers.

In a dynamic, low-volume, high-mix job shop, operational excellence can seem elusive. Join us as we unpack how combining real-time data from OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness), RTLS (Real-Time Locating System), and APS (Advanced Planning & Scheduling) systems with advanced analytics transformed our plant’s performance, delivering impressive financial and customer-centric results.  Learn how we improved operating profit, reduced lead times, and boosted on-time delivery, all while enhancing customer satisfaction and winning market share and a prestigious President’s Award. Discover actionable insights into transforming complex operations into competitive advantage.

Join Richard Shaw as he does a quick but meaningful demo of the technology commonly used IIoT / Digital Transformation.
 
Breakdown the software stack of:
- (M)QTT – Used to provide communication between other components of the stack.
- (I)nfluxDB – Used to store all the sensor data.
- (N)ode Red – Low code platform to process logic, model data, and write to the database.
- (G)rafana – Commonly used platform in IT for dashboards and monitoring.

The manufacturing industry is at a crossroads, facing increasing pressures to enhance energy efficiency, reduce emissions, minimize environmental impacts, and meet the growing expectations of stakeholders—all while maintaining profitability. Sustainability is no longer just an option; it’s a competitive imperative.

At Sustain SC, we explore and share how strategic, data-driven approaches to sustainability can help manufacturers not only meet compliance standards but also unlock innovation, operational efficiency, and long-term business resilience. Attendees will gain insights into best practices, emerging trends, and actionable strategies to navigate the complexities of sustainable manufacturing and drive measurable impact.

Hear three manufacturers summarize an impactful digital tech implementation that has brought meaningful benefits to their manufacturing processes in no more than 10 minutes.  

Join as each presenter shares the business problem they identified and how they resolved it. Benefit from hearing the best practices that you can apply to your operations.

ERP transitions are very complex, costly, and can have huge negative impacts. Hear firsthand experience on ways to get out front to lead your effort to have a more positive impact and, more importantly, what to try to avoid. 

Pick up lessons in how to:
- Structure your PMO (program management office) to be a driving force
- Know your data
- Get out front of your edge system integrations
- Prepare and augment your teams
- Avoid technical debt from weighing you down