Networking Breakfast | Presented by Purdue University’s Indiana Manufacturing Competitiveness Center

Start the day by meeting manufacturers, educators, workforce partners and industry experts from across the country. Visit sponsor displays, make new connections and plan your Summit experience before sessions begin.

Welcome

Innovation Through People: GE Appliances and the Future of Manufacturing (GE Appliances)

The future of manufacturing depends on people as much as technology. In this keynote, GE Appliances leaders Bill Good and Tami Hatfield share how the company's Zero Distance strategy drives direct engagement between leaders and front-line employees — turning feedback into continuous innovation. Rather than treating improvement as a top-down initiative, GE Appliances empowers workers on the floor to identify problems and shape solutions, creating a culture where every voice carries weight. Bill and Tami will also show how this philosophy extends beyond daily operations, through investments in apprenticeships, technical education and partnerships that position manufacturing as a compelling career choice for the next generation of talent. The results speak for themselves: this approach has helped fill 4,000 new jobs, support $3.5 billion in U.S. manufacturing investment, and propel GE Appliances to become the #1 appliance company in the U.S.

Redesigning Frontline Work in the Age of AI (PwC)

AI is transforming the manufacturing frontline, but are workforce strategies keeping pace? Join us for an early look at findings from PwC and the Manufacturing Institute’s survey of manufacturing leaders, revealing how organizations are redesigning frontline work, where gaps are emerging between AI adoption and workforce readiness, and what it takes to demonstrate measurable value. Discover practical actions leaders can take now to close the gap and share your perspective to help shape the final research.

Designing Scalable Manufacturing Onboarding: A Pull-Based, Supervisor-Led Approach (Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories)

At Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, onboarding shifted from a traditional batch model to a pull-based approach aligned to production demand. Employees start when available and connect to their team immediately, reducing downtime. Supervisors lead onboarding in real work environments using actual equipment and conditions. This approach improves safety learning, reduces ramp-up time and strengthens early engagement.

Focus: Onboarding, frontline leadership • Level: Foundational

From Equipment to Ecosystem: How 3M and GPS Education Partners Co-Designed a Scalable Manufacturing Talent Pipeline (3M & GPS Education Partners)

3M and GPS Education Partners redesigned program launches through structured co-design sessions with manufacturers, schools and colleges. The process guides partners through six phases to build aligned, student-centered talent pathways. Outputs include defined pathways, implementation plans and measurable outcomes. This model strengthens partnerships and creates more scalable workforce pipelines.

Focus: Education partnerships, student engagement, curriculum design • Level: Foundational

Using Emotional Intelligence to Manage Successfully (Westminster Tool)

At Westminster Tool, emotional intelligence strengthens communication, coaching and team resilience. This approach helped new hires, many without manufacturing experience, successfully grow into independent roles. Early gaps in emotional intelligence also helped identify misalignment quickly. The session shows how emotional intelligence can improve retention, accelerate development and strengthen workforce performance.

Focus: Leadership development, emotional intelligence • Level: Advanced

The Maintenance Technician Pipeline: Scaling Industry Readiness through Statewide Curriculum Redesign (Ivy Tech & Amatrol)

At Ivy Tech, technical programs are redesigned into a unified, modular framework aligned with industry needs. The model shifts from multiple degree pathways to a shared foundation with specialized training in maintenance and automation. This approach ensures consistent, high-demand skill development across regions while providing a scalable solution to address manufacturing talent shortages.

Focus: Postsecondary pathways, system change, employer-directed training • Level: Advanced

Career Conversations That Move People: A Playbook for Hourly Talent Progression (Trane Technologies)

At Trane Technologies, leaders and frontline employees are equipped with tools to have clear, consistent career conversations. The approach includes defined career pathways, planning tools and structured conversations supported by guides and real employee stories. These efforts help employees envision long-term growth within the organization and understand the steps needed to advance. Sites using this model have seen stronger engagement, improved retention and increased internal mobility.

Focus: Employee career planning, training, job frameworks • Level: Intermediate

From Cost Control to Capability Advantage: Scaling Skills and the Total Workforce for Manufacturing Performance (Dow)

At Dow, a total workforce strategy is built around skills visibility and intentional deployment across employees and contract labor. By aligning work to skills rather than headcount, leaders redeploy talent, simplify operations and maintain performance during a downturn. The approach improves workforce utilization, reduces operational risk and helps sustain customer delivery. It offers a practical framework that manufacturers of any size can adapt to build a more agile workforce.

Focus: Workforce planning, skills, talent reorganization • Level: Intermediate

From LMS to Workforce Engine: Scaling Manufacturing Talent Through Digital Learning Pathways (Miles Fiberglass & Composites and ACMA)

At the American Composites Manufacturers Association (ACMA), traditional training was transformed into a blended model that combines digital learning, instructor-led training, hands-on experience and certification pathways. Static materials were converted into interactive modules organized into structured learning paths with practice-based assessments. This approach improves accessibility, consistency and scalability while maintaining hands-on learning, offering a practical framework that manufacturers can apply in their own organizations.

Focus: Training, assessments, skills, digital learning • Level: Foundational

Powering America's Manufacturing Comeback: A Coalition Blueprint Across Competitors for Solving the Electrical Workforce Crisis (Siemens Foundation & Careers Electric)

The Careers Electric initiative, led by the Siemens Foundation, builds a coalition-based model to scale electrical workforce training. It connects multiple entry points, including pre-apprenticeship programs, community college pathways and advanced credentials. The approach uses employer leadership and accountability to drive results and is designed to scale nationally, with strong early demand and growth projections.

Focus: Industry coalition, systems building • Level: Intermediate

Networking Lunch with Sponsored Table Topics | Presented by Armstrong World Industries

Enjoy lunch while building new connections and continuing conversations from the morning’s sessions. Attendees may choose open networking or join a sponsor-hosted table discussion focused on a specific workforce topic, creating opportunities to exchange ideas, share challenges and learn from peers tackling similar issues.

Featuring Lunch & Learn Tables with:

From Shop Tours to Shop Floors: How Local Outreach Helped Build a Manufacturing Workforce from the Ground Up (KMM Group)

At KMM Group, workforce strategy shifted from reactive hiring to long-term community engagement. The approach includes school partnerships, mentorships, internships and sustained outreach to students and educators. By building trust and visibility over time, the company strengthened awareness of manufacturing careers. This strategy supports sustainable hiring and stronger talent pipelines.

Focus: Student engagement, community building • Level: Foundational

Building Skills at Scale: Advancing Life Sciences Talent Through Cross-Sector Partnerships (Johnson & Johnson)

This session will highlight how Johnson & Johnson is strengthening the life sciences workforce through innovative, cross-sector collaborations that expand talent pipelines and build job-ready skills. Drawing on initiatives with community colleges and economic development organizations, as well as workforce investments in key states, the discussion will showcase how public-private partnerships, apprenticeship models and applied learning experiences are addressing talent acquisition and retention challenges. Featuring perspectives from both strategic leadership and on-the-ground operators, the session will focus on four core pillars — strategic partnerships, skills-based training, experiential learning and scalable workforce models — and provide practical, transferable insights for organizations looking to build a resilient, future-ready manufacturing workforce.

Focus: Partnerships • Level: Intermediate

Become a Workforce Strategist: Lead the Change on Your Plant Floor (The Manufacturing Institute)

Manufacturers everywhere are wrestling with the same talent challenges. The ones who come out ahead are the ones who invest early in a clear workforce strategy. Join the Manufacturing Institute's Workforce Innovation team for an interactive session where we'll preview our new Workforce Strategist Course, built to help you diagnose your toughest challenges and leverage real-time SMEs who have conquered the same hills and valleys. Along the way, you'll build retention and upskilling strategies tailored to your environment and forge the external partnerships — with schools, workforce boards and community organizations — that keep your pipeline full. Manufacturing needs workforce strategists. Not just workforce programs.

Focus: Strategic workforce planning, leadership development, internal and external alignment • Level: Advanced

It Takes All Three: How Colorado's State, Nonprofit and Manufacturing Partners Built a Shared Training Academy (CareerWise, Colorado OEDIT & Xerox)

Maintenance technicians keep automated lines running around the clock, and they are among the hardest manufacturing roles to fill. Few programs teach the mix of electrical, pneumatic, HVAC and robotics skills the job requires, so employers end up hiring technicians away from each other. In Colorado, a state grant and a nonprofit intermediary helped turn one company's training academy into a shared resource for more than 20 manufacturers. Opportunity Now funding from the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade expanded the CoorsTek Academy, and CareerWise convened the NextGen Manufacturing Collective to decide what it teaches, starting with maintenance technicians. Xerox (formerly Lexmark) has hired apprentices into its maintenance team and now sends them to the Academy for advanced training. More than 900 workers have trained so far. Panelists share what each partner contributed and how other regions can build the same model. 

Focus: education partnerships, student engagement, curriculum design • Level: Foundational

Local Action That Builds the Pipeline (Major Tool & Machine)

You don’t need a large foundation or a big grant to lead on workforce. Brandon Lee of Major Tool & Machine shares how his company opened its Indianapolis plant to students. What began as a modest effort has grown into a major annual manufacturing event, with facility tours, robotics teams, local schools and other employers taking part. He’ll explain how Major Tool links that early exposure to real careers through the Indianapolis FAME chapter and work-based learning, using people, equipment and relationships the company already had. Attendees will leave with practical first steps they can take in their own communities right away.

The AI-Empowered Frontline Workforce (McKinsey & Company)

AI is in every headline but one thing is clear: The need for human skills will evolve, not disappear, as people work more closely with AI. As technology accelerates, matching our sector’s talent needs with the emerging and proven capabilities will allow for the Manufacturing Sector, and its workforce to win. In this session, we’ll cover the current state of AI in the sector and discuss the implications for employers as they navigate the changing environment.

Skills at Scale: How Employers, States, and Funders Are Closing the Pipeline Gap (Guild)

Across manufacturing, robotics adoption is outpacing the workforce built to support it. Thousands of reliability and maintenance technician roles now stand between automation investment and the productivity it's supposed to deliver. This session explores what it takes to close that gap at scale: the shift from tenure-based advancement to skills-based qualification, with SACA emerging as the standard employers are rallying around; why no single employer can solve this alone, and what a real ecosystem (employer, education partner, credential body) looks like in practice; and the enablers, like virtual proctoring, that are removing the bottlenecks that used to cap how fast this could scale.

Amazon, JobsOhio, and College Futures Foundation each represent one piece of that ecosystem in action: a hyperscale employer building the pipeline internally, a state incentive making that possible for employers of every size, and a philanthropic funder testing what a shared, multi-employer pipeline can do before employment even starts.

Brewing Solutions

Grab a pre-reception drink and/or a sweet treat and join us for a Brewing Solutions session! These lively, facilitated conversations are designed to spark honest dialogue about the workforce opportunities and challenges shaping manufacturing today. Intentionally informal, Brewing Solutions sessions create space for attendees to ask questions, compare approaches, and discuss what's working, what's not and what's still being figured out. Pull up a chair for one of our most popular breakout experiences year after year.

Networking Reception | Presented by Amatrol, Colonial Life and Indeavor

Close the day with light refreshments, drinks and conversation alongside MI Staff, Guest Speakers and Summit sponsors. Use this relaxed networking opportunity to continue discussions from the day, make new introductions and deepen connections with manufacturing workforce leaders from across the country.

Networking Breakfast with Sponsored Table Topics

Begin the final day over breakfast and connect around the workforce issues most relevant to your organization. Join a sponsored table topic for a focused conversation or use the time for open networking with fellow attendees, speakers and industry partners.

Featuring Breakfast Brainstorm Tables with:

Investing in America’s Manufacturing Workforce: From Global Strategy to Local Impact (Caterpillar)

Building the manufacturing workforce of the future requires national ambition and strong local collaborations. Join Asha Varghese and Carolyn Lee for a conversation on how companies can align strategic investments with local workforce needs, build on existing education and training ecosystems, and bring industry, government, and community organizations together around shared priorities. The discussion will highlight lessons from state and community collaborations and how this approach can create opportunities for workers, employers, and communities alike.

LAUNCH: Redefining Access to Opportunity (YKTA)

YKTA shifted from competing for external talent to building a “grow your own” workforce model. The approach creates structured pathways that move entry-level employees from onboarding through certification, cross-training, leadership readiness and internal promotion. Rather than relying on a tight labor market, YKTA focuses on developing talent from within — strengthening retention, building skills and creating opportunities for long-term career growth.

Focus: Incumbent talent development, leadership development, career pathways • Level: Intermediate

Reimagining the Frontline: Building AI-Ready Workers Before the Gap Becomes a Crisis (McKinsey & Company)

At McKinsey & Company, leaders are helping manufacturers confront the growing gap between rapid AI adoption and limited investment in frontline talent. With a structured six-enabler framework spanning strategy, operating model, training, technology, partnerships and culture, this approach shows how to build AI-ready workforces at scale. Manufacturers are shifting from viewing talent as a cost to measuring labor performance and ROI alongside capital investments. The result is a practical roadmap to strengthen workforce capability, improve retention and unlock long-term value.

Focus: AI • Level: Foundational

From 10 Days to 1: A Manufacturer's Playbook for Hiring Fair Chance Talent at Scale (JBM Packaging)

At JBM Packaging, a 12-month workforce model connects hiring, development and leadership progression, including intentional support for fair chance talent. Employees advance through four stages supported by coaching, clear expectations and structured development. The shift from a shorter model improved retention, leadership performance and workforce stability. This system shows how long-term investment and supervisor engagement can drive lasting results.

Focus: Second chance hiring, employee support strategies • Level: Intermediate • This session is also supported by JBM Packaging's partner, Rezme.

Tribal Knowledge to Scaled Capability: Using AI to Train Problem Solvers (Rheem Manufacturing)

At Rheem Manufacturing, AI agents are embedded into daily workflows to coach employees through structured problem solving. This approach captures expert knowledge, standardizes decision-making and provides real-time support to frontline workers without replacing human judgment. By integrating AI into day-to-day work, Rheem reduces reliance on a few experts while improving consistency across operations. Results include faster issue resolution, less rework and stronger problem-solving capabilities.

Focus: AI, knowledge transfer • Level: Intermediate

AI Skills for the Shop Floor

Artificial intelligence is becoming part of everyday manufacturing, and preparing the workforce to work confidently alongside it is the priority. In this session, Jordan Morang, Director of Workforce Innovation and Policy at the MI, gives attendees an exclusive first look at the Manufacturing Institute's new AI Skills for Manufacturing Training Suite - free, manufacturing-focused training that builds learners' confidence from foundational AI concepts to practical shop-floor applications. Attendees will learn how the curriculum combines shop floor fundamentals with AI tools and how organizations can incorporate the training at no cost.

Focus: AI, Innovation, Frontline Leadership

From Enterprise to Local: What It Really Takes to Make Workforce Strategy Work (Caterpillar)

As organizations confront growing skills gaps and rapidly evolving workforce needs, bold workforce strategies are only as strong as their local execution. Building on insights from Caterpillar's Building the Future Workforce Initiative, this session takes a candid look at what it really takes to turn enterprise vision into on-the-ground impact. Through practical examples and lessons learned, participants will explore the coordination, collaboration-building and continuous adaptation required to develop workforce solutions that are relevant, accessible, and scalable. Participants will gain insight into how employers, educators, workforce organizations, and community organizations can work together to strengthen talent pipelines, expand access to training, and create pathways to high-quality, future-ready careers. 

Focus: Career pathways, partnerships • Level: Foundational

From Skills to Opportunity: A Shared Language for Manufacturing Talent (The Manufacturing Institute)

Manufacturing’s workforce needs are changing, increasing the demand for better ways to identify skills and connect talent to opportunity. A shared skills language can help employers recognize capabilities gained through education, training, military service, and work experience. This session will explore how skills-first practices can strengthen hiring, retention, and career growth. Drawing on The Manufacturing Institute’s work in military skills recognition and competency frameworks, panelists will discuss how trusted skills evidence can connect workers to opportunities, guide training, and support career pathways. Attendees will learn how to make skills more visible and expand talent pipelines.

You Said It. We Built It.

Last year, you gave us homework. We did it. At last year's Summit, your 1,081 live answers helped shape new initiatives, including the free AI Skills for Manufacturing Training Suite, new FAME chapters, a robust virtual Solution Series and a brand-new Workforce Strategist course. Gardner will show you what came of your input. Then it's your turn. This is a live, interactive session: grab your phone, answer in real time on Slido and watch the room's results come up on screen. What you share helps shape how the Manufacturing Institute continues to support manufacturers in building the workforce they need to compete and grow. Don't miss the Summit's final mainstage. The conversation continues throughout the year, and at Summit 2027, we'll share what we heard and how it informed our work.

Program Closing and Lunch To Go

Come back together for final reflections and a look at how attendees can carry the Summit's ideas, resources and connections into their work. Boxed lunches will be available to take with you as the program concludes.