Tuesday, December 15, 2026
11:30am-2:00pm
Langdon Hall, Cambridge, ON

From Connected Operations to Autonomous Performance

The Manufacturing Heartland Evolution: Automated Scale & Robotics in Advanced Manufacturing

The Focus: Overcoming skilled-labor shortages by deploying autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), machine vision, and industrial AI on the plant floor while balancing capital expenditure restrictions.

Manufacturers have invested heavily in automation, data, analytics, and artificial intelligence. The next challenge is not simply adding more technology—it is orchestrating people, processes, assets, and decisions so the plant floor can sense, learn, adapt, and act with greater autonomy.

This confidential executive briefing and working roundtable will examine what “autonomous” means in practical terms, where value is emerging now, and how leaders can move forward without compromising safety, resilience, cybersecurity, workforce trust, or operational control. The format is deliberately small and interactive: concise briefing content, candid peer exchange, and a working lunch focused on actionable insight.

Executive Roundtable Discussion Themes

-Defining the autonomous plant floor: distinguishing aspiration, practical autonomy, and fully lights-out operations.

-Scaling from pilots to performance: integrating operational technology, enterprise systems, data, and AI across plants and networks.

-Human–machine operating models: redesigning roles, decision rights, skills, and frontline adoption.

-Trust, risk, and control: balancing speed with safety, cybersecurity, governance, explainability, and resilience.