´óÏó´«Ã½

In his 1962 book, Diffusion of Innovations, Everett Rogers first posited the concept of a technology adoption curve that many of us are familiar with more than 50 years later. Five categories of adopters—innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, laggards—spread across a bell curve with most falling in the middle three categories.

As interesting as the curve, however, are Rogers’ five stages of technology adoption:

• Knowledge
• Persuasion
• Decision
• Implementation
• Confirmation

It’d be hard to work in injection molding and not have knowledge of Industry 4.0 by now. In fact, at least on a small scale, I’d guess many molders have been persuaded one way or the other and are on the precipice of making a decision about Industry 4.0.

To help those folks along and to hear from companies that have already implemented Industry 4.0 and confirmed its benefits (and challenges), we have created an entire track at (Feb. 27-March 1; Long Beach, Calif.) looking at “Practical Application of Industry 4.0”.

Injection molding machinery suppliers have been at the forefront of Industry 4.0 in our space, and they are well represented in the track with speakers from Arburg, Engel, KraussMaffei and Wittmann Battenfeld. Speakers from these companies will discuss how their customers are already utilizing the power of Industry 4.0 and how molding machines are enabling that utilization.

In addition, we’ll have auxiliary supplier, Piovan, discussing the installation of an Industry 4.0 compliant molding facility here in the U.S., and we will also hear from two vendors of powerful hardware/software solutions to bring 4.0 functionality to the plastics shop floor.

Whether you’re an innovator or a laggard or you’re in the process of gaining knowledge or confirming your decision regarding Industry 4.0, you will stand to benefit from the collective experience of our speakers.

Wednesday, Feb. 28
Practical Application of Industry 4.0

1:30 - 2:00 pm
Installation of an Industry 4.0 Compliant Production Facility in the U.S.
Giorgio Santella, VP service and sales North America, Piovan
Read More about Industry 4.0 and Piovan: Industry 4.0 Connects Auxiliaries

2:00 - 2:30 pm
Real World Examples of Condition Monitoring & Predictive Maintenance
Joachim Kragl, director advanced injection molding systems & processing, Engel
Read more about Engel and Industry 4.0

2:30 - 3:00 pm
Condition Monitoring Systems for Modern Day Work Cells
Markus Klaus, injection molding machines USA division manager, Wittmann Battenfeld
Read more about Wittmann Battenfeld and Industry 4.0

3:30 - 4:00 pm
The Competitive Advantage of Industry 4.0
Willem Sundblad, CEO & founder Oden Technologies
Read more about Oden Technologies and Industry 4.0

4:00 - 4:30 pm
Industry 4.0 Used in the Real World
Juergen Giesow, director of technology & engineering, Arburg
Read more about Arburg and Industry 4.0

4:30 - 5:00 pm
Production Monitoring And Time—The Benefits Of Making Effective Decisions Faster Than Ever Before
Max Preston, director of marketing and sales, Smart Attend
Read more about Smart Attend and Industry 4.0

5:00 - 5:30 pm
Self-Correcting Machines & Auxiliary Integration as Elements of Industry 4.0
Jason Holbrook, sales manager, KraussMaffei
Read more about KraussMaffei and Industry 4.0

There’s more at

Read more about the 2018 version of the industry’s preeminent injection molding conference from previous posts:

Entire Track Dedicated 3D Printing
Emerging Technologies
Special Pre-Conference Hands-On At-the-Press Design of Experiments Workshop