2017 Schedule

C3927DC8-5C3A-442C-9D1D-51BD87399904@1.00xCreated with sketchtool.
Back to schedule

Maker

Monday, Sep 25
4:00pm — 5:30pm
Enterprise Coworking
174 attending

THE HIDDEN ITERATIONS OF MANUFACTURING

When a hardware product begins its way through the manufacturing process, the process isn’t just making the product, but it is also building the infrastructure to make the product. We will follow a product as it travels through the process of building of the infrastructure and iterations that occur on its way to stabilized production and see the impact tolerance has in manufacturing. Four main areas will be covered in this overview: tooling iterations, process window development, product correction, and personnel transitions.

We will look at 2 different processes:
Plastic Injection Molding, Matt Saunders (PTA Plastics)
Contract Manufacturing, Diana Precht (Vergent Products)

Bios:
Jenney Loper (panel moderator) Fractional COO @ JSL Solutions
Jenney began in manufacturing at age 6 working in her father’s machine shop in Boulder county. In 1997, she completed a degree in physics at Bethel University and returned to Colorado to begin her professional career in a telecom start-up. In the past 20 years, she gained first-hand knowledge of the challenges of product design and how poor planning during the design phase can cause long-term and expensive ramifications in production. In 2007 she began JSL Solutions primarily as a sourcing agency, but after seeing the biggest needs of her clients were not the right suppliers to work with, but the right plan for bringing hardware to market, she pivoted her firm in 2016 to provide project-based operations services to help start-up and young companies plan for manufacturing throughout the design process before helping them find manufacturers who are a good fit in size, technology, and location.

Diana Precht, VP of Business Development @ Vergent Products
As VP of Business Development at Vergent Products, Diana has been instrumental in the successful launch of new products for the past 21 years. She engages with clients in the early stages of development through collaboration with the client’s design team to ensure that products meet the requirements, are manufactureable and reliable. Over the last five years, Diana’s company has helped dozens of start-ups launch their new products and guided them to commercial success. Vergent has been a key partner for Rachio, the Denver-based smart sprinkler controller company, introduce and grow their IOT product, now shipping several hundred thousand units.

Matt Saunders, Business Development Manager @ PTA Plasics
Matt has worked in manufacturing since he was a junior in high school as an intern at Central Quality Industries in Illinois, followed by emploment at Wahl Clipper as a Journeyman Tool and Die Maker. Both of these companies had manufacturing processes that were vertically integrated such as injection and compression molding, sheet metal stamping, tube bending and stamping, and assembly. In 1996, Matt moved to Colorado and joined PTA Plastics, which specializes in injection molding including a fully staffed tool room for building molds.