CADDi, the global technology company behind the AI data platform for manufacturers, today announced an invitation-only executive forum during AUTOMATE 2026 focused on a question shaping every plant operations agenda: what separates automation programs that deliver measurable results from those that stall after deployment.
CADDi Connect AUTOMATE 2026 takes place Tuesday, June 23, from 4:00 to 7:00 p.m. at the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place in Chicago. The session is designed for up to 30 operations, quality, and engineering executives from manufacturers across automotive, aerospace, food, logistics, and pharmaceuticals. Seats are limited and require advance registration.
The session opens with a keynote from Sara Zimmerman, vice president of customer experience and product at Sumitomo Machinery Corporation of America, the U.S. company behind the Sumitomo Drive Technologies brand and an existing CADDi customer. Zimmerman’s keynote, “From AI Curiosity to Operational Impact: How We Applied Automation to Solve Real Manufacturing Challenges,” will examine how automation strategy succeeds or fails based on how clearly on-site problems are defined before equipment is selected. Group discussion among attendees follows, structured around the same question: what changes when the operational problem is defined first, and the equipment second.
The forum draws on signals from CADDi’s recent 2026 Market Research Report. The study found that 79 percent of manufacturers identify the skilled labor shortage as their most significant external challenge, and 56 percent point to poor cross-departmental collaboration as the primary obstacle to using parts data effectively. The average employee spends roughly an hour each day searching for engineering information, and substantial institutional knowledge sits with senior engineers approaching retirement. Tariff and trade volatility add further pressure, with 66 percent reporting a significant impact on their business.
These conditions shape what automation investment can and cannot deliver. Robots, vision systems, and motion control equipment operate on the engineering data, supplier history, and prior decisions feeding them. When that information sits in disconnected systems, teams rebuild context every time a quality, yield, or changeover problem surfaces, and automation outcomes plateau regardless of the equipment installed.
Zimmerman’s organization is already operating against these constraints with measurable results. Sumitomo Drive Technologies partnered with CADDi to transform six decades of engineering data into an AI-powered intelligence hub, reducing research time by up to 90 percent. In one documented case, the engineering team used CADDi to identify a past design that closely matched a new complex order, saving weeks of design work and shortening lead time for the customer. The company plans to expand the centralized knowledge base beyond North America into a global engineering asset. Amerequip, a 100-year-old equipment manufacturer, has applied the same approach, using CADDi Drawer to unify drawings, assemblies, specifications, and cross-referenced part numbers into a single search workflow accessible across its engineering and quality teams.
“Operations leaders are well past debating whether to automate. The harder problem is making sure the data, supplier context, and prior decisions an automation strategy depends on are accessible when a team has to act,” said Patrick Harrigan, vice president of sales at CADDi U.S. “This forum brings executive peers into one room to define the operational problem first, then evaluate the solution.”
The CADDi Connect session is structured to address the operational layer adjacent to that agenda: the engineering, supplier, and decision data that automation programs depend on. CADDi has hosted similar executive convenings adjacent to major industry events, including CES and the Construction Expo.
Registration closes Saturday, June 20, 2026. Executives attending AUTOMATE 2026 can save a seat at: us.caddi.com/owned-events/caddi-connect-at-automate-2026. Seats are limited.
AUTOMATE 2026 takes place June 22 to 25 at McCormick Place and is expected to draw more than 50,000 attendees across robotics, vision systems, motion control, and industrial AI. In addition to CADDi Connect, live CADDi AI data platform demonstrations will be available upon request at Booth 1669.
View copy of this release on us.caddi.com/resources/news/caddi-connect-at-automate-2026
About CADDi
CADDi is an AI-powered data platform that makes design and supply chain data accessible and actionable for manufacturing teams. Headquartered in Tokyo and Chicago, the company was founded in 2017 by industry veterans Yushiro Kato and Aki Kobashi, formerly of McKinsey and Apple. Its flagship product, CADDi Drawer, uses advanced AI to centralize and analyze unstructured design and production data, helping manufacturers improve efficiency, reduce redundancies, and unlock innovation. Recognized globally for innovation, CADDi was listed in Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies and won the SaaS Award for Best Business Intelligence and Engineering Management Software. To learn more, visit us.caddi.com.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260528873945/en/
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