The Community Behind the i3X Breakthrough

The live i3X Open API demonstration at ProveIt! was a team effort and the names behind it deserve recognition.

Alongside CESMII’s John Dyck and Jonathan Wise, the demonstration brought together Craig Egan (ACE Technologies), Travis Cox (Inductive Automation), Graeme Welton (Flow Software), Aron Semle (HighByte), Scott Robertson (AWS), and Caleb Eastman & Todd Malone (Siemens). On stage representing the manufacturer perspective: Matthew Parris from GE Appliances and Anthony Huffman from Georgia-Pacific.

Together, they showed a fully functioning model of next-generation industrial interoperability, self-aware infrastructure powered by a single, open, scalable API, accessible across vendor platforms and to a free external i3X client. No slide deck. No future-state concept. Live and working. (i3x.dev)

This milestone belongs to the entire CESMII community, the manufacturers demanding openness, the vendors committing to it, and the innovators willing to collaborate across traditional boundaries.

Full Keynote Video

“Just the Tech” Video

Explore the full i3X Playlist

Executive Program for Manufacturing Leaders

Digital Transformation Leadership Program

Manufacturers are moving beyond pilots and asking the harder question:
How do we scale digital transformation across the enterprise?

The Manufacturing Leadership Council and Kellogg School of Management are offering a 5-day, in-person executive program designed specifically for manufacturing leaders ready to move from experimentation to enterprise impact. Participants will explore how to:

Scale Manufacturing 4.0 technologies across plants and geographies
Embed AI into business workflows
Align digital investments with strategic roadmaps
Strengthen supply chain resilience and agility

2026 MLC DTLP Info Sheet

📍 Evanston, IL
📅 July 27–31, 2026
💲 Register by March 6 to save $1,000

If you are leading digital transformation initiatives and looking to accelerate executive alignment and impact, this program is worth considering.

Learn More & Register

Webinar: Smart Manufacturing Strategy & SMARP Certification Overview

📅 Wednesday, March 11 • 12:00 PM EST
📍 Virtual

Curious about what it takes to become a CESMII Smart Manufacturing Acceleration Roadmap Professional? Here’s your chance to find out.

Join Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute for a free 30-minute webinar exploring smart manufacturing strategy and the SMARP certification program. Hear directly from instructor Tim Stuart and certified professional Benjamin McGlaughlin about what the program involves, what you’ll walk away with, and how it’s helping manufacturing professionals drive real operational change.

The next cohort kicks off April 14, don’t miss your chance to get all the details before registration fills up.

Free 30-Minute Webinar

Workshop: Starting Your Smart Manufacturing Roadmap Journey

📅 Wednesday, April 8 • 1:15PM EST
📍 MX.0 Southeast • Greenville, SC

Smart Manufacturing is no longer a future aspiration; it is a competitive necessity. As global manufacturers face increasing pressure to improve productivity, energy efficiency, sustainability, and supply chain resilience, the ability to leverage real-time operational data has become a defining differentiator. Yet many organizations struggle to move beyond isolated pilots, stalled by misalignment between business strategy, technology investments, and workforce readiness.

In this interactive session, CESMII – The Smart Manufacturing Institute will explore why Smart Manufacturing matters now more than ever and how to implement it successfully. Participants will examine the critical shift from tactical technology deployments to a strategic, enterprise-wide approach that integrates people, process, and technology. The session highlights Smart Manufacturing building blocks, the importance of an interoperable information platform, the synergy between Lean principles and digital capabilities, and the key failure points organizations must avoid.

Qualifying manufacturers can register for free using code CESMX0 at checkout or apply directly for a complimentary VIP ticket below.

Please note: this offer is intended for practicing manufacturers and is not applicable for vendors, consultants, or sales professionals.

Complimentary VIP Ticket

Smart Manufacturing Mindset™: i3X™ Explained

Finally! A Path to Manufacturing Interoperability and OT/IT Convergence

📅 Tuesday, March 31 • 1:00PM EST
📍 Virtual

Over 100 registrations in less than 24 hours. The interest is real and we’re just getting started.

What if manufacturing applications could finally speak the same language?

The i3X™ initiative is tackling one of the biggest challenges in smart manufacturing today: the explosion of incompatible APIs across platforms, historians, and industrial software. And clearly, this is a conversation the industry has been waiting for.

In the next Smart Manufacturing Mindset™ LinkedIn Live, we’re sitting down with three core members of the i3X™ working group to talk about:

What is i3X™
What problems does i3X address?
How will i3X transform manufacturing architectures?

Whether your roots are in OT or IT, if you’re a manufacturer, systems integrator, application developer, or technology provider trying to make sense of industrial data architecture, this one is for you!

Don’t Miss It!

Manufacturing Information Modeling & Namespace Foundations Course™

Building the Foundation for Smart Manufacturing

📅 April 29-30, 2026
📍 Virtual

If your organization is struggling with fragmented systems, costly integrations, and data that doesn’t talk across platforms, this course was built for you.

CESMII’s Manufacturing Information Modeling & Namespace Foundations Course is a 2 day (12 hours) online training course designed for controls engineers, system integrators, OT/IT professionals, and technology providers involved in building, architecting or implementing modern manufacturing data architectures, and more effective UNS solutions.

You’ll walk away knowing how to build Smart Manufacturing Profiles that enable plug-and-play interoperability, support strategies to unify your namespaces, and lay the groundwork for AI-ready manufacturing systems.

More Information

Small and Medium-Sized Manufacturers Improve Business Performance by Networking Legacy Manufacturing Equipment

Implementation of IoT Hardware at Scale for Small & Medium-Sized Manufacturers

Project Objective: To make IoT hardware implementation frictionless for small and medium-sized manufacturers while improving their planning, production, and energy efficiency and establishing clear metrics to measure the impact of equipment connectivity.

⬆15%

Potential for a 15% improvement in Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) when a typical SMM implements connectivity hardware and software.

⬇8.7%

Potential for an 8.7% reduction in energy utilization when a typical small manufacturer implements connectivity hardware and software.

Learn More

Case Study

Podcast Spotlight: Interoperability as the Catalyst to AI

CESMII CEO John Dyck recently joined a podcast hosted by Schneider Electric to discuss one of the most critical challenges facing manufacturers today: interoperability. Drawing on decades of experience across automation, IoT, and smart manufacturing, John shares why interoperability is no longer optional for manufacturers looking to scale digital transformation and unlock AI-driven value. The discussion explores what interoperability really means inside modern factories, how leaders can build the business case for investment, and why connected data is the foundation for competitive advantage.

Watch & Listen

Member Spotlight: Flow Software

Better Data. Better Decisions.

Your engineers are sharp. Your systems are running. And yet, when it’s time to make a critical call, nobody fully trusts the numbers on the screen.

That’s not a people problem. That’s a data problem, and it’s more common than you think. Raw signals without context, metrics without history, systems that weren’t built to talk to each other, even the best teams end up second-guessing themselves.

Flow Software helps close that gap. By giving your team a clear, repeatable process for turning raw operational data into information you can stake a decision on, Flow removes the uncertainty that slows manufacturing teams down.

Your engineers don’t need more data. They need to trust the data they already have.

Get to Know Flow Software

CESMII Hits the Stage at Manufacturing Happy Hour

📅 March 24 • 5:00 – 8:00PM
📍 Collision Bend Brewing, Cleveland, OH

CESMII is teaming up with Chris Luecke and the Manufacturing Happy Hour podcast for a live recording in Cleveland on March 24 and you won’t want to miss it.

As part of Manufacturing Happy Hour’s Rust Belt Renaissance Tour (and its 10-year anniversary!), Chris is bringing his live podcast format to Collision Bend Brewing for a night of real talk about how manufacturing is accelerating across Northeast Ohio.

CESMII will be front and center, joining the conversation about how regional manufacturers are leveraging CESMII Smart Manufacturing Roadmapping tools, in partnership with Manufacturing Works, to improve their operations and stay competitive.

This is a rare chance to hear directly from manufacturers about what smart manufacturing looks like in practice, not just in theory.

Spots are limited and these events are expected to sell out register now and we’ll see you there. 🍻

Reserve Your Spot

All Upcoming Events

2026 Meeting Schedule

All meetings will take place from 1:00PM PST / 4:00PM EST

April 8, 2026 – Register

June 17, 2026 – Register

August 19, 2026

October 21, 2026

December 16, 2026

About CESMII

CESMII – the Smart Manufacturing Institute – has a total current investment commitment of $201M from Department of Energy funding and public/private partnership contributions, with a mandate to create a more competitive manufacturing environment here in the US through advanced sensing, analytics, modeling, control and platforms. CESMII is one of 18 Manufacturing USA institutes on this mission to increase manufacturing productivity, global competitiveness, and reinvestment by increasing energy productivity, improving economic performance and raising workforce capacity. University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) is the program and administrative home of CESMII. For more information about CESMII, its history and Smart Manufacturing, visit cesmii.org.

February 2026 Newsletter