Protolabs’ CEO, Vicki Holt, shares key insights for digital manufacturing, efficiency, and workplace culture at CAMX’s sixth General Session in Anaheim, CA.
September 25, 2019 (Anaheim, CA) CAMX, the industry’s largest composites and advanced materials conference and trade show in North America, began on Tuesday, September 24, at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, CA, with the dynamic General Session featuring keynoter Vicki Holt, CEO of Protolabs. She delivered a compelling presentation and offered an exclusive inside look at how the company has grown and expanded scope over the last 20 years.
The company has seen tremendous success by adopting digitization to deliver personalized product solutions for clients. Holt—who has an extensive background with plastics, composites and materials technology at Monsanto and PPG—shared how the company’s fresh, unconventional business model digitizes traditional manufacturing processes and enables Protolabs’ clients to design, test, and produce parts quickly, with faster market placement and smaller runs of customized products. Protolabs uses this model to successfully keep up with global trends and constantly changing customer expectations.
Holt praised the composites manufacturing industry for its innovation. “The amount of solutions that your innovations can bring are second to none,” she said. “Composites and advanced materials are one of the leading innovative industries that are going to continue to change the future.” But she also challenged the industry, particularly business leaders, to rethink the way manufacturing is done within their companies from robotics, augmented reality, and AI to 3D printing and prototyping. As manufacturers look for solutions to issues like flexible supply chains, faster product development cycles, and more efficient product design, Holt declared, “Digital manufacturing is the key to solving these problems!
Additionally, Holt shared how the company adopts a workplace culture that is built on values like trust, collaboration, and embracing change. Protolabs encourages new ideas, incorporates cutting-edge technologies, and rewards behavior that encourages these key company values. “We take culture very, very seriously. If it gets away from us, we know that we will not become the company that we want to become,” she said.
More information and updates from CAMX 2019 are available at www.thecamx.org.