The ASSEMBLY Show South will offer four pre-conference workshops on Tuesday, April 4, at the Music City Center Convention Center in Nashville, TN. The workshops will be offered in partnership with the University of Tennessee Center for Industrial Services; Surface Mount Technology Association (SMTA), an international network of professionals who build skills, share practical experience and develop solutions in Electronics Manufacturing (EM); and the editorial staff of ASSEMBLY Magazine. There will be a welcome reception following the workshops, giving attendees a chance to network with the vendors the night before the trade show floor opens.
"We know one of the main reasons engineers attend The ASSEMBLY Show is to gain insight and information from subject matter experts, and we are thrilled to bring this world class event to Nashville, which is shaping up to be a major hub for manufacturing with every major automotive OEM establishing operations within a 300-mile radius of the city," said Bill DeYoe, Publisher of ASSEMBLY Magazine. "We are excited to partner with SMTA and the University of TN to offer our attendees access to four outstanding workshops focused on Lean and Continuous Improvement, Low Pressure Molding, Automated Assembly and Vehicle Electrification and U.S. Manufacturing. We invite manufacturing teams to register for the Tuesday workshops and join us on Wednesday and Thursday to see hundreds of solution providers on the trade show floor."
The workshops will begin on Tuesday morning with Keith Groves, Danny Norman and Tim Waldo from the University of Tennessee Center for Industrial Services (CIS) presenting A LEAN Journey to I4.0. UT CIS will show how Toyota Kata, a daily management practice resulting in a culture that is focused on daily improvement, can reinvigorate lean programs and help teams consider next level technologies, including I4.0 and collaborative robots. UT CIS works with teams to identify opportunities and implement solutions. Lean is a cultural transformation to an environment where everyone is continually seeking improvement.
Michael Pierce, Polymer Chemist, and Terry Ng, Lead Material Scientist, LPMS USA, will lead the second workshop on Reliability in Electronics: Encapsulation Techniques & Low-Pressure Molding. Attendees will gain confidence in the durability of the product with real world harsh environment examples from aerospace, automotive, oil and gas mining and the medical industry. The workshop will include hands-on comparison of the different products and grades along with a small-scale immersive demonstration of encapsulation of connector shells, printed circuit boards and wire splice and strain relief where the attendees will get a feel for the ease of manufacture.
Debbie Carboni, Global Product Line Manager, Electronics, KYZEN Corporation; Brian Chislea, Scientist and Application Engineer, Dow Chemical Company; Dwight Howard, Aptiv/Delphi (retired); and Brian O'Leary, Global Head of e-Mobility & Infrastructure, Indium Corporation, will lead the SMTA afternoon workshop on Vehicle Electrification and US Manufacturing: Building The Car While We Drive it. The first half of the workshop will provide presentations addressing the current state of the industry, supply chain and standards challenges, as well as opportunities for the manufacturing sector. The second half will be an interactive panel discussion addressing role policy plays and 2035 targets, electrification of transportation, infrastructure, battery energy storage systems, Supply Chain-Tier 1 vs. Tier 2 and trend to Hyper localization.
The editors of ASSEMBLY Magazine will moderate a panel on Automated Assembly on Tuesday afternoon and on Wednesday, April 5, Schneider Electric's Kenneth Engel will deliver the keynote presentation on Rethinking the Supply Chain, which is especially fitting as global factors continue to drive the domestic reshoring trend, which is in turn driving investment in the U.S. South.
The sold-out trade show floor will feature nearly 150 leading vendors with working machinery and live demonstrations for attendees to interact with. Companies will feature emerging trends and technologies related to assembly equipment and products including solutions for autonomous and electric mobility, robotics, automated assembly, fastening tools, pressing and riveting and Industry 4.0, as well as a Learning Theater featuring exhibitor presentations.
For more information and to register, go to assemblymag.com.