''The Manufacturer'' and ''Energy Business'' Magazines...

BOSTON -- Conquest Business Media, publisher of The Manufacturer and Energy Business, has announced "The Manufacturer Live." This two-day symposium and conference will include 64 sessions and 50 exhibits on best practices in US manufacturing and energy, and will take place October 4 and

With manufacturing event attendance on the decline, 2006 seems an unlikely year to launch another event. Publisher Ken Hurst blames the decline on content, and believes "industry is ripe for the right kind of content."

"Our event is about best practices, not about selling you something," said Hurst. "Manufacturers find it irritating to turn up and be subject to a sales pitch, and we deliberately go out of the way to ensure that's not the case at our events."

Conquest is a UK based company, which opened a US office in 2002, to publish an American edition of The Manufacturer. Conquest launched "The Manufacturer Live" in UK since 2002 with attendance rising yearly, topping 2,000 director and C-level executives. Conversely, such significant UK events as the once-enormous "Computers in Manufacturing" have shrunk or disappeared. Hurst attributes "Live's" growth to the symposium's best practices content.

"We believe the best way for manufacturers to learn how to overcome the challenges they face is from those who're doing it successfully. We think that approach is unique to manufacturing, and also, it's a very sincere one. That's the core difference," Hurst feels, between The Manufacturer Live and traditional industry events.

2006 is the right time as well, says Hurst, because "however successful any region or enterprise or industry might be, in a global economy, nobody can live in an insular shell. We have to learn how to live and how to trade, and here's an opportunity to hear from those who do that successfully."

Globalization is one of the key themes, as are lean manufacturing, and energy.

"Those areas are what our readership cares about," says Senior Executive Editor Dann Maurno, "and that's what we'll give them. We have 48 tracks lined up, with leading manufacturers and leading thinkers, sharing how-to. There is no event like that.

"For example, we have a senior executive from Varian Semiconductor to talk about best practices in exporting to Asia - they actually export electronics to a low-cost high-output labor region.

"On lean manufacturing, we have Symbol Technologies to tell you the pratfalls they found in their lean transformation, and Ross Robson, chairman of the Shingo prize US, to talk the importance of lean to US industry, and the US itself in the global economy.

"For energy, we have among others the Environmental Protection Agency and Steelcase to describe how Steelcase cut its energy costs through efficiency alone."

The event will feature "The Manufacturer Awards" on the evening of October 4, hosted by CBS Chicago's Suzanne LeMignot, and presenting awards in eight categories, including leadership and strategy; human resources; energy; supply chain; and world-class manufacturing. Conference sponsors already include Chevron, TBM Consulting, Datacraft and Deloitte.

Details of the event are online at www.themanufacturer.com/us/live.