Happy New Year! There are many supply chain conferences scheduled in 2015. If you are like me, you only have so much time to spend at conferences and must choose the ones that best suit your needs. I believe that the best conferences are large enough to support networking and diverse topics, but personal enough to facilitate the common interests of the attendees. Also, I personally find conferences with a solid educational and/or workshop agenda to be the most valuable. Here is a list of what I consider to be the premier supply chain industry conferences.
First and foremost, I agree with my colleague Steve Banker that the CSCMP Annual Global Conference is a “must attend” event. This past September was my first time attending this conference, and I found the sessions informative and the networking and overall atmosphere to be very collegial. Plus, this year’s conference is in San Diego. As a note, Steve Banker is the chair for the Planning, Forecasting and Inventory Management track. If any manufacturers have an interesting story to tell, contact Steve at sbanker@arcweb.com.
Industry Associations (in chronological order)
Retail’s Big Show (NRF); January 11-13; New York City
LogiMAT 2015; February 10-12; Stuttgart
Retail Supply Chain Conference (RILA); February 22-25; Orlando
Promat 2015 (MHI); March 23-26; Chicago
SITL Paris; March 31-April 2; Paris
2015 WERC Conference; May 3-6; Orlando
Omni-Channel Fulfillment 2015; June 9-11; Atlanta
3PL Summit (eyefortransport); June 16-18; Chicago
CSCMP Annual Conference; September 27-30; San Diego
APICS 2015; October 5-7; Las Vegas
Supply Chain Software Conferences (Alphabetical)
Descartes Evolution; May 19 -21; Miami, FL
HighJump Elevate; April 19-22; Las Vegas, NV
IBS Connect; May 12-14; Chandler, AZ
JDA Focus; April 26-29; Orlando, FL
LLamasoft SummerCon 2015; June 24-26; Park City, UT
Manhattan Momentum; May 17-20; Phoenix, AZ
MercuryGate User Conference; September 13-16; Las Vegas, NV
Oracle Value Chain Summit; January 26–28; San Jose, CA
ORTEC Optimus 2015; March 23-25; Atlanta, GA
SAP Insider Logistics and SCM; March 30-April 1; Las Vegas, NV
Transplace Shipper Symposium; May 4-6; Dallas, TX
TMW Transforum; September 13-16; Orlando, FL
Steve, Chris, and I will be attending many of these events, including next week’s NRF Big Show. Please reach out to us if you are attending any of these events and would like to meet up.
Steve Banker sbanker@arcweb.com
Chris Cunnane ccunnane@arcweb.com
Clint Reiser creiser@arcweb.com
The only one I might add to the list is the Trans Pacific Maritime (TPM) conference in Long Beach put on by JOC. It runs March 1-4 2015.
I would also add Last Mile Advantage (LMA) in Phoenix, Arizona
March 11-13, 2015.
You’ve left an important one out! – The E-Commerce Supply Chain event of the year! – http://www.ecommerce-supply-chain.com/
Taking place on Jan 28th-29th, in London, this is the only e-commerce congress designed specifically for supply chain professionals, focusing 100% on fulfilment strategies specific to e-commerce & omni-channel operations.
I’d also add the MHI Annual Conference to this list. Oct 5-7 in Jacksonville, FL.