The Digital Factory

Rob Carter has served as FedEx's Chief Information Officer for nearly 20 years, developing the company's information infrastructure and implementing new cutting-edge technologies. In this fireside chat with Jeff Immelt recorded at the Digital Factory Conference in 2019, Carter discusses the role of technology at FedEx, how FedEx learns about and evaluates new technologies, and how it puts innovation at the center of its business.

Visit https://www.thedigitalfactory.com/videos/the-digital-supply-chain to watch the video version of this fireside chat, and to watch other videos from the Digital Factory Conference.

Corporate sustainability has its roots in risk management and health and safety management—sort of a conservative, back-office function. Now it’s a competitive differentiator.

In this episode of the Digital Factory Podcast, Jon Bruner talks with Zoé Bezpalko, sustainability strategy manager at Autodesk, about how manufacturers can use new technologies to make products sustainably—and to reach customers, potential employees, and partners who demand sustainability.

Visit http://bit.ly/2mPeK9W for links and notes on this episode.

How sustainable is 3D printing? Ask most experts and you’ll get some hand-waving: it creates less waste than machining and reduces transportation energy, but many materials aren’t recyclable. All of those factors turn out to be overstated when they’re subjected to careful study.

In this episode of the Digital Factory Podcast, Jon Bruner talks with Jeremy Faludi, an assistant professor of sustainable design at TU Delft, about the measurable environmental impact of 3D printing. His conclusions are nuanced and sometimes surprising.

Visit http://bit.ly/2ZnzbNF for links and notes on this episode.

Terry Wohlers, President of Wohlers Associates and author of the authoritative Wohlers Report on 3D printing, joins the podcast to talk about 3D printing at scale, the importance of design for additive, the emergence of metal 3D printing, and the inflection points he’s watching for.

Videos of every presentation at the Digital Factory Conference are now available at https://www.thedigitalfactory.com/videos, and Wohlers is featured on this panel: https://www.thedigitalfactory.com/videos/scaling-additive-manufacturing-from-prototype-to-production

Visit http://bit.ly/2ylwgW2 for full episode notes and links.

3D Hubs reoriented its business last fall, away from hobbyists and toward the professional market. Now it’s planning to invest heavily in AI-driven automation. In this episode: 3D Hubs CEO Bram de Zwart. His co-founder, Brian Garret, is speaking at the Digital Factory Conference on May 7; visit https://www.thedigitalfactory.com to see the program and register.

Visit http://bit.ly/2vzLlSB for full episode notes and links.

The 3D printers at Align Technology turn out half a million parts every day—an exceptional scale that makes the company the largest user of 3D printing in the world. In this episode: Emory Wright, Align's Senior Vice President for Global Operations. Align's CEO, Joe Hogan, is speaking at the Digital Factory Conference on May 7; visit https://www.thedigitalfactory.com to see the program and register.

Visit http://bit.ly/2UoaMjV for full episode notes and links.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST, offers a striking catalog of reference materials that includes peanut butter, New Jersey soil, domestic sludge, Lake Michigan fish tissue, and Spam. These materials turn out to illuminate the fascinating process by which measurement standards are defined in terms of fundamental physical constants and then handed down by NIST as artifacts that anyone can use to calibrate a bathroom scale or detect impurities in molybdenum oxide.

Visit http://bit.ly/nistsrm for full episode notes and links. And visit https://www.thedigitalfactory.com/ to learn more about The Digital Factory Conference, returning to Boston on May 7, 2019. Dayna Grayson will speak along with CEOs, CTOs, and CIOs who are transforming their businesses through manufacturing.

Manufacturing can be an unforgiving sector for startups, but that's changing, says NEA partner Dayna Grayson.

Visit http://bit.ly/2Xco9WR for full episode notes and links. And visit https://www.thedigitalfactory.com/ to learn more about The Digital Factory Conference, returning to Boston on May 7, 2019. Dayna Grayson will speak along with CEOs, CTOs, and CIOs who are transforming their businesses through manufacturing.

The Digital Factory Conference, our advanced-manufacturing leadership summit, is coming back to Boston on May 7, and it’s hosted by Jeff Immelt. Visit https://thedigitalfactory.com/ to learn more about the conference.

For full episode notes, visit http://bit.ly/2HHHwTZ.

Jon Bruner and Andrew Edman talk about the value of proprietary manufacturing technology, the aesthetics of generative design, the influence of social media on product design, and the acceleration of the product lifecycle. For links related to this episode, visit http://bit.ly/2CqLqw7