Advanced Manufacturing Summit Saskatoon 2026

About This Event

Advanced Manufacturing Summit Saskatoon is a one-day CME Prairies event for manufacturing leaders, innovators, and professionals working on manufacturing excellence, smart manufacturing, technology adoption, lean operations, and practical modernization. The official CME page lists the Saskatoon edition for June 18, 2026, from 7:30 AM to 2:15 PM at Holiday Inn Express & Suites Saskatoon East – University by IHG, 1838 College Drive Building 2.

The official program includes lean management and new technology integration, human collaboration and technology adoption, ERP decision-making, plant tours, and a session titled “From Pilot to Plant: How to Roll Out Industrial AI in Real Operations.” That framing is directly relevant to organizations trying to move beyond AI experiments and into operating environments where data, people, process stability, and measurable outcomes matter.

• Format: In-person, one-day summit with keynotes, panel discussion, practitioner sessions, networking, and facility or plant tour programming.
• Best for: Manufacturers, operations leaders, plant managers, continuous improvement teams, digital transformation leads, AI adoption teams, ERP decision-makers, workforce leaders, and industrial technology providers.
• Core themes: Smart manufacturing, industrial AI, lean management, operational excellence, ERP selection, human collaboration, technology adoption, data integration, and Prairie manufacturing competitiveness.
• CPAI relevance: The event focuses on the practical conditions that determine whether AI, digital workflows, automation, and advanced manufacturing tools can be adopted safely and usefully in real operations.

Why this topic matters

Many manufacturers are interested in AI, automation, and smart manufacturing, but the hard part is not usually buying a tool. The hard part is making sure that production data is trustworthy, daily management is disciplined, people understand why a change matters, and technology is introduced into processes that are stable enough to improve. This is why events that connect lean thinking, technology adoption, ERP, plant tours, and industrial AI are useful for CPAI’s audience.

The official CME page describes the summit as a practical event for manufacturing excellence across the Prairies. It emphasizes measurable results, operational excellence, peer-to-peer learning, real-world examples, and tools that participants can apply in their own organizations. That is the right frame for industrial AI adoption: it has to serve production performance, not distract from it.

• AI needs connected production data: Fragmented machine, operator, maintenance, quality, and ERP data can prevent AI from becoming actionable.
• Lean and AI should work together: Lean practices can reveal process instability and waste before teams layer new digital tools onto weak workflows.
• People determine adoption outcomes: Technology projects often fail when frontline teams, managers, and cross-functional groups are not aligned.
• ERP choices shape execution: Business systems influence visibility, traceability, planning, quality, and the ability to scale digital workflows.
• Plant tours make modernization concrete: Seeing facilities and applied examples helps leaders connect strategy to operational reality.

What participants can expect

The official page lists an agenda beginning with registration and breakfast, followed by opening remarks, keynote sessions, a Women in Manufacturing panel, networking, practitioner-led breakout sessions, lunch, tours, and closing remarks. It also describes the summit as a personalized learning journey where attendees can select from concurrent sessions and immersive experiences.

For CPAI readers, the most important part of the program is the combination of human, process, and data themes. The event is not only about advanced technology. It is about the management systems, workflows, collaboration practices, and operational maturity required to make technology useful.

• A panel on Women in Manufacturing focused on operational and people-centric innovation.
• Keynote content on operational excellence, lean, innovation, leadership, and technology adoption.
• Practitioner-to-practitioner breakout sessions on lean management and new technology integration, human collaboration and technology adoption, industrial AI rollout, and ERP selection.
• A session on moving industrial AI from pilot to plant by connecting machine, operator, maintenance, and quality data into a real-time operating view.
• Tour programming and facility experiences designed to show how advanced technologies and modern operational practices are driving results.

Who should attend

This event is best suited for people who need to make technology adoption work inside real manufacturing organizations. It should be useful for leaders who care about competitiveness and modernization, but also for practitioners who know that process stability, data quality, and team adoption are what make or break implementation.

• Manufacturing executives and owners: Useful for connecting innovation goals to operating discipline, investment decisions, and measurable business outcomes.
• Operations and plant leaders: Useful for understanding how lean, daily management, data visibility, and workforce engagement support technology adoption.
• AI and digital transformation leads: Useful for learning how industrial AI depends on trusted, contextualized production data and practical change management.
• Continuous improvement teams: Useful for seeing how lean methods can reduce technology implementation risk and improve readiness.
• ERP and business systems decision-makers: Useful for evaluating business systems beyond feature lists and focusing on operational fit.
• Students and emerging manufacturing professionals: Useful for understanding the practical relationship between technology, people, systems, and competitiveness.

How this connects to CPAI’s mission

CPAI focuses on practical AI adoption, Physical AI, robotics, governance, and operational implementation. Advanced Manufacturing Summit Saskatoon connects directly to that mission because it addresses the real transition from interest to execution. The session on rolling out industrial AI in real operations is especially relevant: it recognizes that AI becomes useful only when production data is trusted, connected, contextualized, and tied to the decisions people actually make on the shop floor.

The event also helps frame a common CPAI concern: technology should not be layered onto unstable processes. Organizations need readiness across people, workflows, systems, data, governance, and measurement. A summit that combines lean, human collaboration, smart manufacturing, ERP, and industrial AI gives manufacturers a more realistic view of what adoption requires.

• It links industrial AI to measurable production outcomes rather than abstract experimentation.
• It treats people and collaboration as central to successful technology adoption.
• It highlights operational maturity, lean thinking, and daily management as foundations for advanced tools.
• It gives CPAI’s manufacturing audience practical questions to ask before launching AI or automation projects.

Practical questions to prepare

Visitors can use the summit as a working session for their own modernization priorities. Before attending, it may help to identify where the organization is stuck: data fragmentation, process instability, unclear ownership, ERP limitations, low frontline engagement, or uncertainty about which use cases are worth pursuing.

• Which production data is trusted enough to support decisions, and which data still needs cleanup, connection, or context?
• Where are dashboards failing to change behavior because teams still disagree on what is true?
• Which lean practices should be strengthened before automation or AI tools are introduced?
• What role should operators, supervisors, maintenance, quality, and IT play in an industrial AI rollout?
• How should ERP selection or improvement be tied to execution visibility and business growth?
• What should a pilot prove before it is rolled out across a plant?

Practical takeaways

• Assess readiness before buying technology: Use lean and operational maturity questions to reduce the risk of implementing tools on unstable workflows.
• Connect AI to real operating data: Look for ways to bring machine, operator, maintenance, and quality data into a shared view that supports better decisions.
• Bring people into adoption early: Treat collaboration, communication, and frontline engagement as implementation requirements, not soft extras.
• Evaluate ERP through operational fit: Ask how systems support execution, traceability, planning, quality, and growth rather than comparing feature lists alone.
• Use tours to sharpen questions: Observe how advanced technologies and modern practices are actually deployed in facilities, then compare those lessons to your own environment.
• Define pilot-to-plant evidence: Decide what performance, adoption, data, and governance evidence is needed before scaling an AI or smart manufacturing project.
• Translate learning into a short roadmap: After the summit, identify the next two or three actions that would improve readiness in your organization.