Panel sessions, workshops to mark new Congress manufacturing track

Emily M. Smith
ASME NEWS

A manufacturing industry track will be among the newest offerings at ASME's 2004 Congress, which will distinguish this year's annual event from previous meetings.

The new track will feature 10 different panel sessions and two workshops designed for the manufacturing community in the aerospace, electronics and bioengineering industries. The track topics will be held over a three-day period, from Nov. 14-16, during the 2004 Congress, which will be located in Anaheim, Calif.

The track will begin with two workshops — the Paperless Factory and Small Business Programs — offered on Sunday, Nov. 14. Each three-hour workshop will be broken into two sessions.

The Paperless Factory workshop is geared toward engineering and manufacturing operations personnel who may be considering developing or installing computer- based systems to flow data from engineering design to the shop floor.

That workshop will be an interactive session focusing on the strategic consideration necessary to justify a decision to go paperless, gaining senior management approval, planning, developing, testing and implementing a paperless shop, and the critical success factors for a seamless change to a paperless environment.

The Small Business Programs workshop, which focuses on federal assistance programs available to small businesses, will feature representatives from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy.

Track programming on Monday, Nov. 15 will include a panel of speakers who will examine the changes in competition brought about by globalization during a 90-minute session called "Competing and Winning in a Global Economy." This panel will also discuss how globalization has influenced the relationship between customers and suppliers, what companies have done to take advantage of globalization, and what the future holds for managing relationships from the engineering level on up.

Also on Nov. 15, another panel will explore a related topic, Strategies for Manufacturing Competitiveness. This panel will discuss the challenges facing today's manufacturers from a federal policy perspective. Speakers will provide their own analysis of manufacturing's major hurdles and professional insights into what policies will work to reinvigorate the U.S. manufacturing base.

The other panel sessions scheduled to take place Nov. 15 include: the Mars Exploration Rover Project, in which representatives from the Jet Propulsion Lab and contractors will discuss manufacturing activities; E-Manufacturing, and the Manufacturing Engineer of the Future — What Skills Will Be Needed? That panel will include speakers from industry, government and academia who will conduct a roundtable discussion around this high-profile topic.

Tuesday, Nov. 16, will feature a panel session on NEMS/MEMS for Surgery and Medicine. As more instruments and tools are made available to physicians at the point-of-care, research prototypes must be converted into robust, reliable, cost-effective manufacturable products. Panel members from the medical-device industry and medicine will discuss the current situation, and what steps are needed to obtain optimal application of BioMEMS/NEMS in real products and their timeline.

For more information about attending these sessions and others scheduled during the new Manufacturing Track, or for details on Congress registration, visit www.asme.org/congress.

back to meetings & courses