Tuesday, October 20, 2026 | 8:00AM - 10:30AM
Location: 1290 New Cut Road, Spartanburg, SC 29303

Capacity is limited to the first 40 registered attendees.  

Get a close-up view of how advanced manufacturing technology and legacy equipment/processes work in tandem at Spartanburg Steel Products, a Tier 1 and 2 automotive, agriculture, construction and heavy truck stamping supplier with operations totaling 575,000 square feet. You’ll witness new process development integrating cobots and profile-bending machines rolling steel and extruding aluminum. The tour will also delve into how teams approached recent complex product launches and overcame challenges to meet tight deadlines and stay on budget. Throughout Spartanburg’s two manufacturing facilities, plant leaders will speak about their lean initiatives and best practices for success.

Participants will be broken up into small groups for ease of passage throughout the tour. This tour will primarily be held indoors; however, closed toe shoes are required to walk through the facility and long sleeve shirts are preferred.

On the morning of the tour, participants meet in the front foyer of the Milliken Customer Center by Registration. Event staff will take attendance and lead the tour group to the bus no later than 8:15AM.

Tuesday, October 20, 2026 | 9:00AM & 11:00AM
Location: 1400 SC-101, Greer, SC 29651

Tour Capacity: 15 guests per tour (30 slots total)
Deadline to Register: Monday, October, 12, 2026

WAIVER REQUIRED

Experience a guided tour by BMW’s personal plant leaders and tour representatives of the Zentrum Museum which will highlight the BMW Plant Spartanburg's 32 years of production milestones. Guests will also be given a brief introduction to Final Assembly Operations inside the plant. 

Upon arrival at the tour site, guests will be required to check-in, receive visitor badges, store personal items in a locker system, and listen to the required safety briefing. Each tour will begin promptly at 9:00AM and 11:00AM.

• Photo ID is required
• Waiver is required during the registration process; contact Ann-Marie Dowling for more information
• Another waiver is required on plant site, during the tour, for your driving experience at the Performance Center
• Tour is phone-free
• No Smart Glasses are permitted
• No exposed metal on clothing or loose jewelry is allowed
• No high heels, sandals, or otherwise open toe or open heel shoes are permitted inside the plant

This tour will primarily be held indoors; however, closed toe shoes are required to walk through the facility and long sleeve shirts are preferred.

On the day of the tour, participants meet in the front foyer of the Milliken Customer Center by Registration. Event staff will take attendance and lead the tour group to the bus no later than 8:30AM and 10:30AM.

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.

Join Verizon and Siemens Electrical Products for an unfiltered look at the reality of digital transformation. Jon Dolan, VP of Operations at Siemens, will join Mike Weller, Head of Verizon's Manufacturing Practice, for an engaging, 1:1 conversation on how Siemens is using its advanced Fort Worth facility as a proving ground for the next wave of manufacturing innovation.

Moving past the hype, Jon will share how Private Wireless Networks became a catalyst for further innovation at Fort Worth, and how those lessons are now scaling across Siemens' North American factory network. Mike will offer the technology perspective that made it possible. Together they'll candidly discuss lessons learned, the "do-overs" they'd choose, and actionable advice for manufacturers on their own journey. Don't miss this opportunity to gain real-world insights on bridging the gap between strategy and execution at scale.

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.

Lunch will include a celebration of 2026 Best Plants Award winners.

Learn from the best! Hear directly from IndustryWeek Best Plants Award winners, past and present in this special panel, moderated by IndustryWeek Executive Editor Jill Jusko. These winning facilities have taken different paths to excellence, engaged their employees in continuous improvement, and have overcome a variety of business challenges.

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.

PPE compliance is more than a policy - it’s an employee adoption challenge. When PPE is uncomfortable, poorly fitted, or difficult to use, employees are more likely to resist it. This session explores how great safety leaders can remove those barriers through accurate fit, employee choice, comfort, and tangible wellness solutions. Discover how these strategies build trust, improve the employee experience, and turn PPE from something employees are required to wear into something they choose to wear - leading to better compliance and protection.

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.

Most operational excellence programs focus on the process. The best ones focus on the people running it. When Patrick Christie, CSP, EHS Director at Sealed Air, set out to change safety culture across three manufacturing facilities, he didn't launch another training program or tighten another procedure. He changed the reinforcement system — what got noticed, what got recognized, and what got repeated. Injuries dropped. Costs collapsed. Engagement went from nearly nonexistent to near-universal. The two-year result: over $5 million in documented savings. In this session, Christie and behavioral science expert Bill Sims break down the human variable that most operational excellence frameworks leave on the table: positive reinforcement. They'll show why sustained improvement requires more than optimized processes — it requires people who are genuinely committed to outcomes, not just compliant with procedures. And they'll demonstrate how a structured reinforcement system creates exactly that, at scale, on the plant floor. This session combines behavioral science with firsthand manufacturing results. Attendees will leave with a clear understanding of why improvement gains erode without behavioral sustainability — and a practical framework for building the people system that makes operational excellence stick.

Protolabs enables companies across every industry to streamline production of quality parts throughout the entire product life cycle, and CTO Marc Kermisch is leading the AI transformation of Protolabs across all departments, from the production floor to ecommerce and HQ employees.

Marc takes a practical, pragmatic approach to implementation of AI tools, which has been pivotal in addressing misconceptions and growing adoption. For example, he looks at the process in three stages—Employee productivity tools, process automation and, finally, data-driven AI. He established an AI Center of Excellence within Protolabs where representatives from each department volunteer as captains of AI adoption.

In this session, Marc will focus on the critical initial steps required for AI to successfully drive process improvements, as well as discuss the future vision of AI within manufacturing.

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.

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.

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.

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.