FutureCite Speaking at Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters
2026-05-20 08:00 - 16:00 (America/Edmonton) | NAIT Productivity Centre, 10210 Princess Elizabeth Ave NW, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Manufacturing will play an ever increasing role in Canada’s future economy. All what was in terms of materials, resources and labour will shift as the new age of automation kicks in. The challenge and the opportunity will lie with how we prepare to reallocate resources, the timing window and distribution, in part due to recent geopolitical events.
Still there are always silver clouds. It’s not a magic wand, but having a big vision, knowing when and where to reallocate resources to have the most impact in a way that still lets you operate while you roll out each objective of your mission. Core to this, you’ll need to learn how to convince your colleagues, co-workers and collaborate to build a new playbook.
SMBs and Enterprise Corporations, and the Educators and Trainers working with the OEMs all form a key role in building the future manufacturing ecosystem in Canada. Time isn’t standing still.
Start planning from the shop floor to management and the Csuite, so that the priority objectives are attainable (for a pilot) to provide outcomes that generate ROI (finance, product, marketing) outcomes. As well, upskill current and new hires as you transition from legacy systems to new digital formats that companies can access. Start to build trust and reliance on relevant data. Yes, cyber security plays a key role too, as does preventative maintenance.

Engage early with employees, and OEMs on training gaps and be prepared to be agile when considering new changes or upgrades to systems and 10 year legacy models fall behind – it will impact your speed to market and agility to create new products and technology keeps spinning faster. .
This is a group journey rather than a helicopter skii run. Getting to the bottom fast won’t do in the future unless you have funding to host multiple. Event with the funding, you won’t catch up with the time lag.
Get the data structured, cleaned and relevant. Legacy systems that project for 10 years to implement may be outdated by competition. And it’s important that the employees who know your current systems and who you can engage and share operations knowledge that may not be in your data files and the engineering and maintenance know-how to share with the organization. You’ll need this to build a a pilot to test on the shop floor where they said they wanted resources to build innovative processes and save time in doing it!
It’s really about exciting and engaging the people who will augment their skills, and gain human super powers, so that robots can continue to chug away on the night shift, and humans verify and add inputs in the morning!
Panel Session May 20, 2026 9:AM MST

Eva will also be at UPPER Bound AI Conference on May 19th and 21st at the Edmonton Convention Centre!
