In a few weeks, the 2026 IndustryWeek Operations Leadership Summit brings together manufacturing leaders responsible for turning strategy into measurable performance.

The summit, held in Spartanburg, South Carolina, Oct. 20-22, will deliver practical, real-world insights on the challenges that matter most—from building stronger teams and sustaining continuous improvement to adopting AI and emerging technologies, strengthening safety cultures, and achieving operational excellence.

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Manufacturers are facing challenges such as cybersecurity concerns, pitfalls in AI implementation, supply chain uncertainties, and others.

For example, one recent report revealed a disconnect between confidence in comprehensive cybersecurity protection and operational risk among organizations, with increased connectivity leading to more cybersecurity risks.

Another report found a gap between manufacturers’ desire to implement agentic AI and the ability to do so. It also found that industrial workers lose 41% of their time to repetitive tasks, creating a capacity gap that companies are trying, with mixed results, to overcome.    

In this episode of Great Question: A Manufacturing Podcast, IndustryWeek editors Thomas Wilk and Jill Jusko as well as Smart Industry's Scott Achelpohl preview the summit, including plant tours at BMW and Spartanburg Steel, and the presentation of the 2026 Best Plants Awards.

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Below is an excerpt from the podcast: 

Thomas Wilk: The reason we are all here together is to bring you a triple threat preview of an upcoming event that's going to take place in a couple of weeks, Oct. 20-22 in Spartanburg, South Carolina. It's the IndustryWeek Operations Leadership Summit. I'll It's a three-day event that combines the best of safety, technology, and continuous improvement content to give operations professionals and their peers a 360-degree view of what's happening in manufacturing right now.

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We're excited to do this event. It's our first one since 2024, and Scott, Jill and I will all three of us be at the event working in various capacities as panel moderators, session chairs, plant tour guides, what have you. We're delighted today to talk with you a little bit about what's going to happen at the event.  

This time in three weeks, we're going to be in a session room talking about continuous improvement. 

Jill Jusko: Yay! 

Scott Achelpohl: From my perspective, it's going to be a lot of fun.

TW: Well, Jill, maybe I can ask you first to talk about some of the non-session content. We went over the general topics, but there's a couple of extra sessions we'll be doing, especially on day one of the event, the plant tours. Can you tell us about the things that are going on alongside all the guest speakers we're going to have? 

JJ: Yes, I am happy to talk about the plant tours. The conference obviously provides an opportunity for in-person learning and networking. And of course, that can't be overstated.

But what has always appealed to me personally is not only being in person but being on the plant floor. So, that is why I give a big thumbs up to plant tours as part of this event.  

This year, we have two plant tours. One is Spartanburg Steel and then the other one is BMW. And just briefly, with regard to the Spartanburg Steel plant tour, I'll be on that one.

Spartanburg is a Tier 1 and 2 supplier, and they've got 575,000 square feet of space, which is a lot. Stamping operations, and if you're on this plant tour, you're going to see a lot about cobots and automation as well as Lean Manufacturing. So, there's always talk about how those work in concert, automation, Lean Manufacturing, and this will be an opportunity to see that. So that was one.  

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The other plant tour is BMW. This tour is a little bit different in that the BMW experience is more of an exploration of BMW's evolution, including innovation and how technology is transforming automotive production.

So, that should be very interesting because the automotive industry typically kind of leads in adopting technologies that help them improve and be more competitive. And I would expect BMW to be right on the front end of that. So, additionally, attendees on this tour will also get an introduction to BMW's final assembly operations there in Spartanburg. So, that's a lot going on there on the BMW tour, a lot going on there on the Spartanburg Steel tour. And this isn't the only time you're going to see both of those names. They'll pop up as our conversation continues.  

I do want to make one comment additionally with regard to these plant tours. Plant tours can be difficult to get on these days, so we're very pleased and happy that BMW and Spartanburg Steel has offered to open their doors while they're up and operating. I also want to mention as well that tour seats are limited and will be shut down once that tour is full. So, if that is of interest to you, the sooner you get registered, the better your chances of getting on one of those plant tours.

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TW: And you mentioned that the conversations from those tours will continue in the main event. We do have the president and CEO of Spartanburg Steel, Mark Whitten, as our day one keynote, which is going to be fascinating. So, anybody who does come to the event and takes that tour can also ask him other questions about the plant and about his experience. 

We also do have a speaker from BMW at the event talking about their experience implementing a continuous improvement program too. So on both those fronts, you not only get the plant tours, you get the expertise from people who are in the plants themselves, helping to lead them. 

JJ: Exactly.

TW: One more note on the keynotes, we have our second day keynote is Darrell Edwards, who's an assistant professor at the University of Tennessee. However, he's had a lot of years before that role leading La-Z-Boy's 9,000-person global operations and supply chain team.

So, on day two, he'll be sharing his wisdom and best practices on building a resilient culture that adapts to change and adversity. I think it's interesting that we're going to get such a wide spectrum of industries here. We have steel stamping, we have automotive, and we have heavy furniture here to help really lead the way in these discussions. 

JJ: There are some manufacturers who think all the value is seeing what's going on only in their own industry. This is an opportunity to kind of see what other industries are doing in terms of best practices, technology adoptions, those sorts of things. 

So, whether or not you can implement anything specifically in your own organization. Maybe you can and maybe you can't, but it's also an opportunity to, how can I adopt something like this to make it work in my plant? Or, oh, this has generated a great idea that I want to follow up on for us.

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TW: Let's follow through on that connection too, because at the conference this year, you'll be presenting the Best Plants program award winners from 2026. And I'm excited that we'll be seeing many people from those plants here at the conference to not only accept their awards but share their knowledge. 

JJ: Very near and dear to my heart is the Industry Week Best Plants Awards, which will be the 2026 winners will be presented at this event. For those of you who don't know, Industry Week annually salutes manufacturing excellence across North America, and earlier in September we announced the winners for 2026 and there are four of them. 

We will be presenting them with their awards, which we call the Pinnacle Awards, during this conference. So, I look forward to that, having been part of the Best Plans program for more than 20 years at this point, I'm almost sorry to say, only because it just speaks to how long I've been around.  

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But I love the program. I think it's one of IW's finest, and I look forward to seeing the winners in person. And not only will we be seeing them and you be seeing them for the awards presentation, but the IW Best Plants winners representing both the current class as well as past classes are also going to participate in what I call the IW Best Plants Winners Panel. 

It's an opportunity for the winning facilities to share some of the practices that help them excel and to talk about some of the lessons learned on their roads to excellence, because nobody's road goes perfectly smoothly and you learn as much from getting something wrong as getting something right.

The panel is meant to be a conversation. So, the more that the audience comes craving knowledge and coming with questions, the more valuable this winner's panel will be both for the panelists and for the attendees. It is what I would call best-practice-sharing at its finest.