2026 Agenda

• Exploring the crucial role of human talent in enhancing efficiencies and overcoming labor challenges
• Comparing traditional staffing methods with revolutionized, tailored solutions and illustrating how blending these approaches can optimize results
• Integrating automation and AI in manufacturing to enhance human roles and improve overall efficiency
• Presenting case studies on real-world successes, along with a live demonstration

With rising costs, labor constraints, and pressure for efficiency, manufacturers are rethinking how to fully optimize their existing facilities. This session explores how leading organizations are redesigning layouts, leveraging automation, and applying lean principles to maximize output without costly expansions.

• Optimizing Plant Layouts: Practical strategies for reconfiguring lines, workcells, and storage to unlock hidden capacity.

• Technology as a Space Multiplier: How automation, robotics, and digital twins can reduce waste and increase throughput in existing facilities.

• Lean and Continuous Improvement: Applying Kaizen, 5S, and value stream mapping to reclaim underutilized space.

• Balancing Flexibility and Standardization: Designing facilities that adapt quickly to product shifts while maintaining consistency.

• When Expansion is Inevitable: Signs that you’ve truly maximized capacity and how to plan scalable growth effectively.

As trade policies shift, labor markets tighten, and supply chain resilience becomes paramount, manufacturers face critical decisions about their production footprints. This panel brings together operations leaders managing complex, multi-site networks to discuss the strategic frameworks, quantitative models, and real-world trade-offs behind major location and capacity decisions. From mega-plants to distributed networks, from insourcing to partnerships, hear how leading manufacturers are redesigning their North American operations for the next decade.

• Strategic Framework: How do you evaluate where to manufacture? (Cost, speed, risk, talent, regulation)
• Centralization vs. Distribution: When does scale trump proximity? When does regionalization win?
• Make vs. Buy vs. Partner: Building internal capability vs. co-manufacturing vs. contract manufacturing
• Reshoring Reality Check: Beyond the headlines—what actually makes economic sense to bring back?
• Future-Proofing: How do you design networks that can adapt to tariffs, automation breakthroughs, and demand shifts?

Mattel has continued to evolve — strengthening its operations, culture, and global supply chain to meet the needs of a rapidly changing market. This session offers a candid look at how transformation was driven from the inside out, the metrics used to track progress, and the leadership lessons learned along the way.

• The Catalyst for Change: What market forces and internal opportunities drove the need for transformation at Mattel.
• Leadership in Action: How leaders at every level were mobilized to guide teams through uncertainty, resistance, and change.
• Defining and Measuring Success: The metrics and KPIs that proved most valuable in tracking progress, creating accountability, and aligning stakeholders.
• Practical Lessons Learned: Insights on the lessons gained and the factors that influenced decision-making, and how pivotal moments were navigated to keep the transformation on track.
• Embedding Change into Culture: Ensuring the transformation is sustainable by fostering resilience, innovation, and continuous improvement.
• Advice for Peers: Actionable takeaways for other leaders seeking to drive large-scale change in complex organizations.

As global disruptions accelerate and technology transforms every link in the value chain, manufacturers must evolve or be left behind. This session explores how to build resilient, intelligent, and human-centered operations to stay ahead of the curve.

• Navigating Global Forces: Examine how macro trends—supply chain volatility, sustainability mandates, geopolitical shifts, and labor dynamics—are reshaping the manufacturing landscape
• Vision 2035: The Next Era of World-Class Manufacturing: Explore what best-in-class manufacturing will look like in the next 5–10 years, from autonomous operations to regenerative supply chains
• Blueprint for Agility and Growth: Learn how to architect a forward-looking strategy rooted in adaptability, real-time data, and empowered talent
• Digital Infrastructure as a Competitive Advantage: Understand how investing in smart factories, IIoT, cloud, and AI enables predictive insights, streamlined operations, and rapid innovation
• Reskilling and Workforce Transformation: Discover how to prepare a multi-generational workforce to thrive in digital-first environments through continuous learning and cross-functional collaboration

With shifting global dynamics, national policy incentives, and renewed focus on self-reliance, U.S. manufacturing is undergoing a transformation. This session explores how the convergence of reshoring, workforce reinvestment, and public-private collaboration is defining the future of American industrial leadership.

• Redefining the Industrial Base: How reshoring, regionalization, and supply chain resilience are reshaping the U.S. manufacturing landscape.
• Rebuilding Human Capital: The critical role of workforce development, skills revitalization, and talent pipelines in restoring innovation capacity.
• Policy in Action: What recent federal incentives, trade reforms, and investment frameworks mean for domestic manufacturing momentum.
• Public-Private Partnerships That Work: Real-world models of collaboration that drive sustainable competitiveness—from R&D to training to infrastructure.
• Future-Proofing U.S. Leadership: What manufacturers must do now to remain agile, globally competitive, and digitally equipped for the next decade.