Purdue University to host prestigious 2024 NAE Regional Meeting at the Crossroads of America
Manufacturing and operations are critical to envisioning a resilient nation for commerce, defense and more. To advance this dialogue, Purdue University is honored to host the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) Regional Meeting and Symposium on March 24-26, 2024 at the historic Purdue Memorial Union.
National and regional partner sponsors include the Association for Manufacturing Technology, the Society of Manufacturing Engineers, Conexus Indiana, Purdue’s eXcellence in Manufacturing and Operations (XMO), Manufacturing & Materials Research Laboratories, Indiana Manufacturing Competitiveness Center and Purdue’s Dauch Center for the Management of Manufacturing Enterprises.
The discussion will center around excellence in integrated digital, physical and sustainable manufacturing and operations for critical industrial sectors including defense and aerospace, transportation and logistics, semiconductor and microelectronics, agriculture and food, and biomedical for health care. The NAE regional meeting is strategic with a focus on building dialogue and collaborations for achieving excellence in manufacturing and operations, especially at the “Crossroads of America,” which leads manufacturing and operations for the nation. This event is at a critical time as America is going through a renaissance of manufacturing with various supply chain challenges and geopolitical pressures.
Key leaders in national and regional businesses, academia and government — including distinguished NAE members — will discuss ways to build bridges to a resilient, secure and sustainable future in this region and America that will be driven by manufacturing for quality of life.
Purdue University, known for over a century as “makers” — Boilermakers in fact — is advancing the science and engineering of making for commerce and defense, educating leaders and the workforce, and building collaborations across the country and the world to lead at scale and speed. The state of Indiana and the Midwest region, referred to as the Crossroads of America, is the perfect location for the NAE event with more than a century of experience in leading and practicing excellence in manufacturing and operations as an economic engine for the region and the nation. Indiana has the highest concentration of manufacturing jobs in the nation. Twenty-five percent of Indiana's economic output is based on manufacturing, and the state hosts over 7,500 manufacturing operations, exporting $34.8 billion in manufactured goods. Indiana and its neighboring states are America's vanguard for advanced manufacturing.
This follows the successful launch of the Purdue-led national initiative XMO and the launch summit Nov. 6, 2023, in Washington, D.C. More than 250 representatives from industry, government, academia and professional societies gathered in person and online for the inaugural national summit focusing on resilience through excellence in manufacturing and operations. This meeting will further advance that national dialogue with a regional focus.
Opening the event are Ajay P. Malshe, the R. Eugene and Susie E. Goodson Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering, and Stephan Biller, the Harold T. Amrine Distinguished Professor, School of Industrial Engineering and Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr. School of Business. They are co-chairs of XMO and members of NAE. Following are the highlights of the event. (See agenda for the details.)
On Monday, March 25, after the tour of Purdue Manufacturing Gateway — a series of leading manufacturing laboratories — the event will be opened by Purdue President Mung Chiang, NAE President John L. Anderson, NAE executive officer Alton D. Romig, Jr. and Lal Karsanghai, president and CEO of Emerson.
Three keynote sessions will follow:
- A keynote panel on “Transportation and Logistics for Smart Crossroads” will include subject matter leaders from Wabash, Purdue and the University of Michigan who will discuss the future of freight, logistics and supply chain in the coming decades.
- The second keynote session that afternoon will be shared by distinguished presenters from NASA, U.S. Space Force and Northrop Grumman Space Systems who will explore “Defense and Space: Manufacturing and Operational Resilience.”
- A special student debate and interactive poster keynote session on the theme of “Microelectronics Manufacturing, Supply Chain, and Tech Diplomacy” to end the day’s presentations.
A reception will follow with special comments from Karen Plaut, executive vice president for research at Purdue.
On March 26, the event will open with a plenary talk by NASA’s Steven Fredrickson, division chief for JSC’s Software, Robotics and Simulation Division.
Two keynote sessions follow. First, a panel on Agriculture and Food Security for National Security, featuring key presenters from AgriNovus Indiana, the Indiana Department of Agriculture and the University of Illinois Grainger College of Engineering. The second and final panel of the day will share excellence in “Life Sciences Manufacturing: Regional Opportunities and National Impact” with presenters from BioCrossroads, Eli Lilly and Company, and Purdue exploring Indiana’s pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing sector and its significant growth that is outpacing the U.S. average for their respective industry sectors.
The event will conclude with remarks from the XMO co-chairs.
Tours of Purdue’s multiple leading manufacturing laboratories will be given throughout the event. For more information, visit the NAE Regional Meeting website.