Manufacturing Summit drives knowledge, honors excellence.

Cutting-edge knowledge at PLANT ENGINEERING event.

By Plant Engineering Staff April 6, 2007

PLANT ENGINEERING ’s Manufacturing Summit brought together industry leaders and manufacturing managers from around the country and overseas this past Monday and Tuesday in Chicago for two days of information on cutting edge issues.

It also brought together the 2006 PLANT ENGINEERING Product of the Year and Top Plant award winners. During a gala banquet, Baldor Electric received the 2006 Grand Award as the outstanding Product of 2006, as voted on by readers. Toyota of Georgetown, KY; Square D of Lincoln, NE; and BMW of Spartanburg, SC, received their Top Plant awards for 2006.

The banquet’s 140 attendees heard from keynote speaker Dave Petratis, president and CEO of Schneider Electric North America, about the challenges and opportunities in manufacturing in the coming years. Petratis cited the pace of change in manufacturing, the competitiveness of American manufacturing in a global economy and the need to provide abundant and sustainable energy sources as key issues for manufacturing moving forward.

The Manufacturing Summit highlighted hot topics including manufacturing execution systems, wireless monitoring and energy efficiency. Panelists from companies such as Invensys, Apprion, Atlas Copco, Baldor, Rockwell Automation, GE Fanuc and others discussed those issues in roundtable formats. Coverage of the presentations will be available in print and online in the May issue of PLANT ENGINEERING magazine.

Coverage of the awards dinner and a recap of the 2006 Product of the Year awards will appear in print in the April issue of PLANT ENGINEERING and online at www.PlantEngineering.com .