Hexagon’s Manufacturing Intelligence division announced two special guest speakers for the Manufacturing Intelligence track keynote at the 2019 edition of HxGN LIVE, Hexagon’s digital solutions conference. Division President Norbert Hanke will be joined on stage by Doug Woods, President of AMT – The Association For Manufacturing Technology, and Erik Josefsson, Vice President, Head of Advanced Industries at Ericsson, for the ‘Smart is Hiding in Plain Sight’ presentation exploring the road to the Smart Factory.

During the keynote, Norbert Hanke will lead attendees on a search for ‘smart’ – challenging manufacturers to find the data in their factories and put it to work. Doug Woods will share his insights on the state of the manufacturing industry, assessing its readiness for digital transformation and discuss-ing the risks and rewards of pursuing a smart manufacturing strategy. The session will then focus on establishing a practical route to the Smart Factory by looking at the imperatives for success and exploring the enabling technologies driving this trend. Here, Erik Josefsson will bring his expert knowledge of 5G connectivity for industry, explaining why it holds so much potential for manufacturing and showing how businesses can get started with this technology today.

“Data-driven manufacturing promises so much in terms of quality, productivity and sustainability, yet as an industry we have so far been slow to adopt digital approaches or even to fully utilize the data we already capture,” says Norbert Hanke. “It’s important to realize that waiting for the ‘right time’ to go smart will put you at a huge competitive disadvantage. Together with our industry peers from AMT and Ericsson, I want to show our audience that they can and should start their journey towards the Smart Factory of tomorrow by making it smarter today; I look forward to hearing what our attendees think and discussing new ideas with them.”

HxGN LIVE 2019 takes place June 11-14 at The Venetian, Las Vegas, NV. The event brings together industry experts and thought leaders in six tracks aligned to Hexagon’s cross-vertical business areas – Manufacturing Intelligence, Geospatial, Geosystems, Mining, PPM and Safety & Infrastructure. The Manufacturing Intelligence track keynote takes place in the Venetian Ballroom on Wednesday June 12 at 1:30 p.m. (PDT) and will also be live streamed on HxGN TV.

For more information, visit www.HexagonMI.com.