Mark Whitten is the President & CEO of Spartanburg Steel Products, a leading manufacturer of metal stampings and complex assemblies. In these roles, he oversees the strategic direction, manufacturing operations, and growth of the company, while fostering a culture of excellence, collaboration, and continuous improvement.

In his keynote, Mark will share his learnings about building a culture of continuous improvement in a challenging environment (he took the CEO role at Spartanburg Steel the same month the pandemic began) and establishing the discipline necessary to sustain that improvement. He’ll also talk about the art of anticipating and meeting customer demands for clients that include BMW, Oshkosh and John Deere, and will address the realities of leading change and building worker trust amid limited resources and demanding timelines.

When a positive corporate culture exists, people recognize it immediately. But when that culture is weak or unhealthy, it manifests confusion, disengagement, distrust, and inconsistency. This session provides practical, shop-floor-tested strategies for building and sustaining a positive corporate culture. The return on your investment is substantial: improved engagement, stronger performance, and long-term organizational resilience.

This session explains why Lean principles are essential for successful AI adoption in manufacturing. Stable processes, standard work, and structured problem-solving provide the reliable data AI needs to improve root cause analysis, kaizen, and operational decision-making. Attendees will learn how to combine Lean practices with AI to enhance continuous improvement while avoiding the risks of automating unstable processes.

BMW Plant Spartanburg's weLEAD program prepares the next generation of manufacturing leaders to sustain operational excellence amid tariffs, EV adoption, workforce transitions, and evolving market demands. This session gives an inside look at how the program develops cross-functional problem-solving, values-based decision-making, and continuous improvement skills to reduce costly silo friction and improve collaboration across functional groups.

Content in development. Please check back. 

Content in development. Please check back. 

This session explores how manufacturers can accelerate digital transformation by empowering employees to build low-code applications, workflows, and real-time reporting tools. This “citizen development” concept moves beyond the traditional centralized IT development model to one where IT enables the business to build its own digital solutions. Attendees will learn how this approach improves shopfloor agility, drives adoption, and supports scalable digital innovation across manufacturing operations.

This session draws on 35 years of practitioner experience at Fortune 100 manufacturers and across dozens of consulting engagements to show exactly where industrial reliability programs break down and what distinguishes the facilities that sustain improvement from those that endlessly restart. This session will cover the five foundational elements that must be in place before any advanced reliability strategy can take hold, and why leadership behaviors are the single largest determinant of success.

AI can be leveraged to capture and harmonize vast amounts of item-level data across the MRO landscape. By standardizing taxonomy and aggregating this information, Cummins, working with Roland Berger, has been able to uncover actionable insights that improve operational consistency and enable smarter buying decisions. Importantly, these AI-driven approaches have not only streamlined data management but also have potentially opened the door for mass negotiation strategies, allowing scale and efficiency in procurement.

Darrell Edwards is assistant professor of practice in the Supply Chain Management Department at the University of Tennessee. Prior to joining the UT faculty, he was Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at La-Z-Boy Incorporated, the nation’s largest producer of reclining chairs and one of the nation’s largest providers of home furnishings.

In his keynote, Darrell will draw on years of experience leading La-Z-Boy Inc.’s 9,000-person global operations and supply chain team, sharing wisdom and best practices on building a resilient culture that can adapt to change and adversity while meeting the deadlines and challenges of the everyday.  He’ll share best practices on developing world-class teams while improving team agility and decision-making, and include lessons learned from redesigning La-Z-Boy’s global supply chain strategy, navigating disruptions from Covid to tariffs and building a new talent management framework.

This session examines how manufacturers can move beyond compliance-based safety programs to build a culture of employee engagement and ownership. Drawing on aerospace manufacturing experience, it highlights practical strategies such as leadership visibility, peer recognition, and proactive hazard identification. Attendees will learn how stronger safety engagement improves risk prevention, workforce trust, morale, and overall operational performance.

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Content in development. Please check back. 

This presentation examines how Agentic AI, IoT, collaborative robots, and 3D simulation are advancing automotive manufacturing toward Industry 5.0. These technologies enable self-healing production systems that can detect, diagnose, and correct issues in real time with minimal human supervision. Attendees will learn how human-machine collaboration, predictive analytics, and virtual simulation improve resilience, quality, sustainability, and operational efficiency.

The presentation focuses on how safety leaders can gain the respect of the workforce, drive purposeful change, and enhance an activity's safety culture by adhering to some sound leadership principles. Proven leaders must possess both tactical and strategic skills in elevating an organization to the next level of safety excellence, and this presentation will identify those skills and the character traits necessary to achieve positive safety results.

Learn from the best! In this general session you will hear directly from IndustryWeek Best Plants Award winners, past and present. These winning facilities have taken different paths to excellence, engaged their employees in continuous improvement, and have overcome a variety of business challenges. The panel will be moderated by IndustryWeek Executive Editor Jill Jusko, who also will reveal the 2026 award winners.

In 2023, Bosch’s Charleston SC manufacturing facility embarked on a $260 million expansion of its capabilities in electric vehicle components production. In this session, Mueller will share her leadership learnings through the transformation and will lead an interactive exercise to give attendees a concrete framework and practical tools they can immediately apply to lead change effectively within their own operations.

Culture transformation in global manufacturing often includes periods of progress, regression, and competing operational priorities. This presentation examines how Intentional Leadership, grounded in applied behavioral science, helps leaders sustain momentum by aligning daily behaviors with key organizational goals. Drawing on a global pharmaceutical manufacturer's EH&S transformation, attendees will gain practical strategies for building lasting cultural change.

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This session explores why safety programs often break down after implementation despite strong compliance and training efforts. It examines how unclear ownership, production pressures, and reduced leadership involvement create gaps between written procedures and daily execution. Attendees will learn practical leadership strategies to strengthen accountability, verify safe work practices, and sustain safety performance on the manufacturing floor.

Empowering employees at every level to identify inefficiencies and waste fosters a culture of sustained operational excellence. This session will cover how to implement a structure for continuous improvement in your operation, supported by psychological safety, cross-functional collaboration and visible leadership engagement, to drive meaningful, measurable gains. Attendees will learn real examples and practical frameworks to embed continuous improvement into daily routines at their facility.

Content in development. Please check back. 

Many operational failures stem from gaps between engineering, operations, suppliers, and customers rather than flawed processes. These cross-functional disconnects often lead to hidden risks, rework, inefficiencies, and poor system performance. This session explores how manufacturers can identify ownership gaps, improve collaboration across teams, and design systems that better reflect real-world product use to achieve lasting operational excellence.

This session explores how pre-hire physical abilities testing can improve workforce readiness and operational performance beyond compliance. Properly aligned testing helps manufacturers reduce turnover, injuries, overtime, and productivity losses while supporting consistent throughput and stronger margins. Attendees will learn practical strategies for integrating testing into hiring processes and using workforce selection as a proactive tool for long-term operational success.