F043: Building a Digital First Fabrication Business

Industry 4.0 represents a shift toward connected systems. However, widespread adoption faces a hurdle regarding the use of unstructured data. A significant portion of manufacturing knowledge remains locked in 2D drawings and in experts' minds. This creates a search tax where engineers spend hours hunting for data rather than innovating.

This session introduces the system of insight as the architectural layer required to realize Industry 4.0 across the enterprise. We will examine how artificial intelligence and optical character recognition digitize these assets.

Attendees will gain strategies to:

• Democratize Tribal Knowledge: Use AI as a digital mentor to capture the expertise of the retiring workforce.

• Execute Trade-Insulated Sourcing: Leverage drawing-based similarity search to identify alternative suppliers. Model total cost of ownership amid tariff volatility and the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

• Break Down Data Silos: Achieve cross-functional interoperability by linking financial data with technical data. This enables decentralized decision-making.

As you grow, it can be difficult to scale capability without creating chaos. Sometimes the right move is investing in the right system and integrations. Other times, it’s making a smart technical hire. Today, more and more manufacturers are treating software engineering as a force multiplier rather than a nice-to-have. In this breakout session, hear from a shop that recently hired software engineers to drive meaningful ROI. We’ll get specific on what they hired for, the projects that made the biggest impact, and how they set engineers up to succeed in a manufacturing environment.