Throughout the Midwest, automakers and their Tier 1 suppliers are investing billions to make electric cars and trucks. In Ohio, Ford is retooling portions of its Ohio Assembly Plant to make a commercial electric truck; General Motors and LG Electronics are building an Ultium Cells EV battery plant in Lordstown; Foxconn plans to make Lordstown Motors trucks and Fisker Ocean crossovers at GM’s former Chevy Cruze plant; and Honda is testing electric designs at its Honda Automotive Laboratories of Ohio (HALO) facility near its East Liberty plant. Car companies have committed to producing millions more EVs by 2030, creating new opportunities for suppliers. But what do the companies need? Representatives from Ultium Cells, Eaton eMobility and other players in the Midwest EV production boom will discuss:

• What OEMs and Tier 1s need from their supply chains
• The market potential for EV production
• The state of the industry, and where it's going in the near future
• Challenges unique to making electric vehicles and components 
• How to ensure worker safety as manufacturing processes change

Digital twins are taking over the manufacturing world for the better. With the ability to simulate and evaluate impacts prior to production of a physical product, manufacturers are accelerating innovation while reducing their carbon footprint. In the face of changing market demands, limited resources, and added regulations, manufacturers recognize the power of digital twins and are moving to adopt this technology to advance digital transformation and innovation.

The value digital twins bring to the manufacturing sector is undeniable. However, Virtual Twins offer an even more evolved technology. A virtual twin is not limited to a mathematical model of an object or a system, but instead it consider entire systems, including the environment in which the physical object exists.

Join Guillaume Vendroux, DELMIA’s CEO, for a discussion on how the convergence of the virtual world and the real world, as well as the continuous cycle of information between the two, creates a closed-loop capability. Guillaume will touch on the state of the manufacturing world today and what it looks like in the both the near and distant future.