Annual Conference Recap: Day 1

By Alex Batty, MHI Marketing Communications Coordinator |@mhi_alex

Goood Morning!

Dang it.

Goooooooooood Evening!

(I made up for it with more Os. We’re good.)

If you didn’t know, we’re at the 2017 MHI Annual Conference this week (#MHIAC17). So what’s happening?

Networking.

Learning.

Listening.

Roundtabling.

VR-ing.

And, of course, meeting.

You guys, there is so much happening and it’s only day one!

Some highlights from some of today’s sessions include:

Implementing Industry 4.0

This session was a roundtable about, well, implementing industry 4.0 and the challenges and benefits companies can face while doing so. It was pointed out that adding AI and cloud computing to the regular supply chain makes it a powerful network rather than disparate chunks of network.

But it’s more than just connecting things. It’s more than just throwing things at the board and seeing what sticks. It’s a focused, concerted effort to create something powerful that works for you.

For smaller companies who just don’t have the capital, human or otherwise, to make a huge sudden shift to an all IIoT system, there’s a strategy called overlaying visibility. The ideas is to slowly work in, a piece at a time, new technology that can overlay on the existing infrastructure.

Another point that was made is that companies are moving from a reactive state to a predictive state. The information we’re gathering from these devices and systems are allowing us to predict future problems rather than just scrambling to react to them.

Collaboration across the industry can help us build that connectivity to give the customer exactly what they need.

 

Brian Federal – Futurist

Brian Federal had everyone take out their phone – and then give it to their neighbor. The slightly panicked silence that followed was his point. We are very attached to our devices. They are an addiction; they are a source of information. And the rest of his presentation followed common sense: it’s only going to get worse.

 

Economic Outlook

Jason Schenker gave the Economic Outlook keynote, discussing how to work with economic data and how to use that to make decisions for your business.

He specifically discussed the MHEM and how they take into account things like the U.S. Outlook to create the forecast. We host a quarterly MHEM webinar with Jason Schenker. The next one is on October 13, so tune in to learn more.

 

Josh Linkner

Josh Linkner was our lunch keynote and he talked about disruption. We’ve got to be doing it to keep moving forward. Disruption, both now and historically, has led to the revolution of the way we think about things. New and innovative technologies and processes can threaten business-as-usual complacency, but can also define new opportunities for businesses to grow and shine in ways they hadn’t previously thought of.

Tonight is the Glow Games Dinner Party at the Boca Beach Club. Check out our social media (@poweredbymhi) to see photos from the event!

*chanting* Beach club dinner party. Beach club dinner party. BEACH CLUB DINNER PARTY.

I feel fancy. I’ve never eaten either at a club-like thing or on the beach. I’ve had dinner parties, but when I say dinner parties, I mean everyone brought a bunch of dips and called it dinner.