Conference programme, preliminary

The focus of the MDT Europe conference is manufacturing engineering out of an information life cycle perspective. How can we obtain a more efficient exchange of data between different applications and tools? How can process planning be supported by improved communication between design and manufacturing? Can a more efficient information integration get us any other advantages as in more products on the market, shorter lead times, cheaper production and increased quality? At the conference the challenges, the solution aspects and how to get started will be looked at. These building blocks along with the World café are further described below the programme on this page.

Download printable version of the programme (.pdf).

The topics

Our Challenges

• Issues of today -– what is most important?
• How to match your production system with your business strategy?
• What blocks us the most from achieving our production goals?
• How to leverage product information?
• What makes design to manufacture easy?

This is a session for people who want clarity on what our most important issues are within manufacturing data management today.

Aspects of Solutions

• What can be a break-through in interaction between Design & Manufacturing?
• What value can Manufacturing Lifecycle Planning bring to Overall Equipment Efficiency?
• How to integrate suppliers of manufacturing resources?
• How to get value out of disparate system?
• What can we learn from best practices for future development?
• What research and education do we need for tomorrow’s demands?

This is a session where we describe and create aspects of possible solutions to the challenges we defined in the morning session.

Getting Started

• How do I get going?
• What is an effective first step?
• What frameworks will guide us?
• How do I identify the low hanging fruits?
• Securing commitments from all stakeholders
• Tips and ideas, checkpoints
• What communities/networks do we need to keep our conversations and ideas alive?

This session is about bringing solutions to reality and knowing what to do tomorrow.

What is a world café?

The World Cafe is an easy-to-use method for creating a living network of collabora­tive dialogue around questions that matter to the "real life” situations of organizations or communities. World Cafe conversations offer a practical yet creative way to grow a group’s capacity for thinking together. The session will focus on a current topic, you will work in groups and the excercise will be led by an experienced coach - Mr Uwe Weissflog of Pathway Guidance. This is the perfect opportunity for you to experience something new, while at the same time getting to know the people you will be seeing over the next 1,5 days. Don't miss this unique experience!

About our coach

Uwe Weissflog founded the company Pathway Guidance GbR in 2000. He helps organisations to rediscover the human spirit as the source for novel approaches to innovation, teamwork and leadership. Thirty years of prior international experience as a professional and executive at IBM and SDRC, combined with coaching and organisational development provides the basis for his unique way to integrate technology, processes and people into meaningful business operations.

Uwe Weissflog works as a coach, as a facilitator for group events and as an author. His current book is on innovation (Innovation Cells – agile teams to master disruptive innovation) published by Springer, Berlin.