Field to Suite: Hospitality Workshop

Sessions cover manufacturing profitability; securing operational technology on the plant floor; legal issues facing Georgia manufacturers; leadership, culture, and continuous improvement in high-performance plants; and AI, marketing, and relationship strategies for business growth. The program also features a Georgia Manufacturing Workforce Forum focused on building the workforce manufacturers need.

Hosted by WGA Chair and Hawaiʻi Governor Josh Green, the meeting includes a discussion of Pacific prosperity and U.S. regional security, including how states, territories, and the federal government can identify and mitigate emerging risks, strengthen regional resilience, and advance shared security and prosperity. A panel on energy infrastructure examines how states, developers, and local leaders can align large projects with growing electricity demand while supporting local economies and delivering lasting benefits to host communities. Other agenda topics include workplace substance misuse, mental health, and worker safety under the Health Beyond Healthcare initiative; and tourism policies and educational campaigns that help communities honor their homelands and heritage while supporting sustainable economic development.

Exhibit areas include automation, robotics, smart manufacturing, precision machining, software solutions, industrial IoT, and cybersecurity. The Executive Perspectives series features panels with manufacturing-company executives and technology providers; Knowledge Bars cover advanced manufacturing technologies and how innovation and AI adoption can address technology challenges for small and midsize manufacturers. Other listed features include the SME Mission Critical: Workforce 2030 experience on manufacturers’ workforce challenges; a Pop Up Factory demonstrating an assembly and inspection workflow that captures data and connects apps, devices, and analytics; and a Corporate and Institutional Roundtable addressing the manufacturing skills gap, alignment between academic outcomes and workforce needs, and strategies for manufacturing’s future. The Bright Minds College Experience includes executive chats, student-led sessions, hands-on exposure to advanced manufacturing technologies, industry roundtables, and discussions about the manufacturing workforce.

The workshop focuses on practical well integrity solutions across barrier design, remediation, qualification, and lifecycle risk management, emphasizing applications, new technologies, and process methodologies. Field lessons, technical perspectives, and interactive discussion connect engineering principles with real-world deployment challenges. Session topics include cement as a barrier, including establishing cement barriers in a complex onshore U.S. exploration well with a narrow pore-pressure/fracture-gradient window, cementing best practices, and wellbore cementing. Another session covers production-casing integrity risk management, detecting fluid- and cement-driven casing defects through the production life cycle, and artificial-lift decisions under wellbore constraints. An interactive case study has teams solve well integrity challenges and exchange lessons learned and best practices. Further topics include barrier qualification and P&A operations; rigless well integrity remediation; surveillance technology; integrated monitoring for CCS well integrity; corrosion and materials challenges in CCUS Class VI wells; thermal heavy-oil well design; quantitative risk analysis; DHSV strategies in subsea wells; FEP risk assessment using individual barrier evaluation; alternative barrier materials for conventional Australian well abandonments; Permian well integrity solutions; and sealants for flow through narrow pathways.

The workshop aims to develop the initial structure and key elements of industry-wide guidance on semiconductor traceability and provenance. Presentations will be followed by focused working sessions addressing the data elements and supply-chain events needed for traceability; artifacts and evidence that can substantiate provenance; information that can realistically be shared across organizational boundaries; and common identifiers, definitions, relationships, and formats. Participants will also examine technical, operational, commercial, and security considerations affecting information sharing, along with opportunities for interoperability, standards, and scalable implementation. The intended output is an initial set of data elements, evidence types, artifacts, and information-sharing concepts to support subsequent NIST guidance, standards development, and industry implementation.

The conference combines superintendent and engineer meetings for presentations on new technology, standards, and industry regulations, alongside a joint product show featuring solutions from digital tools to bucket trucks. Agenda topics include automation, leadership, field testing for metering accuracy and hidden losses, AI tools for engineering and operations, advanced distribution operations and faster restoration, and relay testing. A group-led roundtable covers artificial intelligence in electric cooperatives, contractor requirements, dispatching, employee retention, right-of-way and line-extension policies, pole loading and guying, BESS, data center loads, electronic breakers, safety, equipment, and automation. Additional listed issues include ODOT projects, ground-grid and relay advancements, vegetation and asset management using LiDAR and drone mapping, protection engineering, utility construction coordination and constructability, and independent construction oversight and QA/QC. The business meeting includes the election of 2027 officers and new business.

The discussion examines market opportunities, infrastructure requirements, technology pathways, and practical challenges for lower-carbon marine fuels, including differences in commercial readiness, cost, emissions performance, vessel compatibility, and infrastructure needs. Topics include maritime decarbonization and fuel demand; ethanol, biodiesel, renewable natural gas, bio-LNG, hydrogen, and ammonia; Great Lakes and Mississippi River supply chains; port demand; and actionable opportunities for Minnesota agriculture and renewable energy. The keynote addresses agricultural supply, slowing food demand, pressure on traditional ethanol markets, and the potential for new fuel markets to support farm profitability. A pathways panel compares ethanol, biodiesel, and bio-LNG, covering supply infrastructure, engine and vessel compatibility, carbon accounting, costs, deployment at commercial scale, pipeline access, and coastal liquefaction. A logistics panel examines Midwest-to-vessel supply chains, Great Lakes opportunities, vessel-size limits, and fuel requirements at major ports. An interactive session considers bio-methanol and green ammonia, hydrogen investment and availability, CO₂ sourcing, fuel handling and combustion, and tradeoffs among fertilizer, transportation fuel, and other hydrogen uses. The closing discussion focuses on Minnesota’s next steps.

The program includes keynotes, panels, breakouts, and interactive roundtables on steel-industry conditions; fabrication businesses, leadership, and industry outlook; AI and digitization in manufacturing; shop-floor equipment use cases and return on investment; and manufacturing’s economic and financial outlook. Sessions also address profitability, capital investment, business growth, tariffs, steel, leadership development, recruitment, small- and midsize-manufacturer growth, and potential changes to tax policy, OSHA and EPA regulations, and tariffs. Roundtable topics include culture, marketing, AI, and operations.

The program combines manufacturing exhibits with an executive perspectives keynote panel series and featured presentations across manufacturing disciplines. Exhibit and technology areas include automation, robotics, smart manufacturing, precision machining, additive manufacturing, software, industrial IoT, advanced materials, cybersecurity, and energy and environmental efficiency. The Smart Manufacturing Experience Knowledge Bars focus on advanced manufacturing technologies and how technology, innovation, and AI can help small and medium-sized manufacturers address technology adoption challenges. The event also features SME Mission Critical: Workforce 2030, focused on manufacturers’ workforce challenges, and the Bright Minds College Experience, with panels, roundtables, executive insights, peer learning, and hands-on exploration of manufacturing technologies.