2021 Virtual Summit: Gearing up for growth

Over the past year, I’m sure you’ve had your fair share of e-mail invitations to virtual industry events. Indeed, we’ve participated, covered and attended quite a few ourselves over that time. While most of these events were “one-offs” due to the travel ban situation, I’m proud to say that the publications of Peerless Media have been players in this space since 2005, and it’s an offering that thousands of our readers have baked into their conference attendance schedules over those many years.

Our next one is Modern’s “2021 Virtual Summit: Gearing up for growth” set to roll out on Thursday, July 29 (register at mmh.com). Our editorial team designed sessions to help operations harness the tools available—automation, software, robotics, mobility, advanced technologies—to help manage through disruption and prepare for what comes next.

We welcome Steven Bowen, founder and CEO of supply chain and operations consulting firm Maine Pointe (p. 66), as this year’s keynote. He asks the simple question: How are you preparing your supply chain for recovery? He’ll then outline key considerations managers now need to consider when readying supply chain operations for the next round of growth.

We’ll be joined by Rueben Scriven, senior analyst a Interact Analysis, who will help us better understand the nuances of the “hyper-local” trend in a session called “Micro-fulfillment: Beyond the buzzwords.”Senior editor Roberto Michel helps set up this session on page 24.

Long-time research partner Bryan Jensen, chairman and executive VP of supply chain consultancy St. Onge Co., will join us. Jensen’s session “Automation’s evolving role in future growth” shares an overview of what’s driving this need to automate and offers a roadmap for how operations managers can create a plan to make sure the investment is on target.

In his session “Software: The ties that bind,” Ian Hobkirk, founder and managing director of Commonwealth Supply Chain Advisors, follows the evolution of supply chain execution software as it’s now tracking labor hours, managing inventory and transportation, as well as tying automation systems to the greater enterprise.

Dwight Klappich, research VP at Gartner, will help match pain points to appropriate robotic solutions in his session “Assessing and scaling robotics to fit your operations.” He says its time to look past the “wow” factor and better understand which types of robotics are a good fit with your operations—if they are at all.

Mobility will play a significant role in improved efficiency, and who better to bring us up to speed than David Krebs, executive VP of enterprise mobility at VDC Research. In his session “What’s next? Assessing the maturity of mobile technology solutions,” he tracks how data collection from improved networks and new mobile devices will continue to transform operations.

And Lalit Khandelwal, executive VP and manufacturing market unit head at Capgemini, will demystify several hot trends in his session, “Emerging Technologies: AI, IoT & Machine Learning inside the four walls.” He contends that these next-generation technologies are for real, and if matched with a measured, thoughtful approach, they can be powerful new tools that will better enable operations to keep pace.