Discounted registration will allow plant managers or engineers to bring one of their colleagues at no cost for three days of information on the best in new strategies, best practices and the best new products.

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As the manufacturing recovery begins to take hold, plants all around the country are looking at the critical issues of how to accelerate their operations quickly to meet a changing landscape.

The first way to meet these challenges is with knowledge of the strategies and products that can facilitate growth and improvement. The fastest way to gain that knowledge will be at the 2011 Manufacturing/Automation Summit.

The 2011 Summit, hosted by Plant Engineering and Control Engineering magazines and sponsored by IBM and Hannover Messe, will be held March 20-22 at the Hotel Sofitel in Chicago. Discounted registration will allow plant managers to bring one of their colleagues at no cost for three days of information on the best in new strategies, best practices and the best new products.

"This year, the Manufacturing/Automation Summit was designed to meet a number of needs for end users," said Plant Engineering editor Bob Vavra. "One of the most important issues readers are talking to us about is the need for greater attention to be paid to maintenance issues, and our Summit addresses this. Another is to learn how to make the best use of emerging systems and strategies, and we have speakers who will talk about those issues.

"Plant Engineering has been a leader in informing plant managers around the world about the dangers of arc flash, and we’ll look at that issue during the Summit," said Vavra. "Because manufacturing is a global business, plant managers also must understand the world they compete in, and how to be more competitive in it.

"And above all, plant managers need the best tools to affect all of this change," he added. "The Plant Engineering Product of the Year awards and the Engineer’s Choice awards presented by Control Engineering offer attendees one-stop shopping for the best new products and the chance to meet the product managers behind these innovations."

Registration open, easy

Registration for the 2011 Manufacturing/Automation Summit is now open at www.plantengineering.com/Summit and at www.controleng.com/summit.

There you’ll find the registration form and hotel registration information. Registration fee is $395, which includes all meals and sessions, including the gala Product of the Year dinner Monday, March 21. Keynote speaker is Douglas Woods, president of the Association for Manufacturing Technology, which delivers industry leadership and will produce the 2012 IMTS Show in Chicago.

The 2011 Summit also takes place in Chicago in the same week at the 2011 ProMat show and the Automate 2011 show at McCormick Place, giving attendees a chance to attend more than one major manufacturing events in the same week.

"We’ve tried to make this year’s event both comprehensive and convenient," said Vavra. "We’ve brought in speakers from IBM, Ford, General Motors, DuPont, Emerson and AMT. We have knowledge tracks that talk about maintenance as a profit center, about the re-emergence of Detroit as an automotive power and a manufacturing center and about making your manufacturing systems work for you, as opposed to the other way around."

The Summit also will include some fun and some field trips. Following Sunday night’s award presentations for the Engineer’s Choice Awards, attendees can, for an additional fee, go to Chicago’s famed Second City review.

On Tuesday, March 22, following the final session at the Sofitel, attendees can visit the Dudek and Bock Spring Manufacturing Company on Chicago’s West Side. Dudek and Bock is a supplier of Tier 1 and Tier 2 automotive parts as well as a major parts supplier to the appliance manufacturing industry. They are both a traditional machine shop generating high volume, high quality parts and an innovative global manufacturing leader.

"Their story is a traditional manufacturing story in the U.S., but it also is an example of what innovative manufacturing techniques and aggressive maintenance, training and product innovation can do in the modern global landscape we face today," Vavra said.

For more information about the 2011 Manufacturing/Automation Summit, go to www.plantengineering.com/Summit or to www.controleng.com/summit.