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Speaker at WEST: Mary Miller, Director of Marketing, PayTrace

WEST Session: Digital twins are rapidly becoming a cornerstone of advanced manufacturing, enabling companies to simulate, optimize, and validate their production processes in a virtual environment before committing to physical execution. This presentation explores the value of digital twins specifically in the domains of CNC machining, robotic automation, and the broader virtual factory. In CNC machining, digital twins replicate the behavior of machines, tools, and part geometries, allowing for precise simulation of toolpaths and real-time detection of potential collisions, over-travel, and inefficiencies. By simulating the exact machine kinematics, spindle dynamics, and tool libraries, manufacturers can reduce setup times, improve part quality, and significantly lower the risk of costly rework or downtime. In robotic work cells, digital twins mirror robotic behavior, motion, and task sequences. This enables manufacturers to program, test, and optimize robot trajectories and tool interactions virtually - ensuring safety, cycle time optimization, and maximum utilization of expensive automation assets. Collision detection, reach analysis, and process synchronization can all be handled digitally before deployment on the shop floor. At the virtual factory level, digital twins provide a holistic view of the entire manufacturing environment - integrating machines, robotics, material flow, operators, and logistics into a unified simulation. This enables strategic decision-making, accurate capacity planning, and the ability to test process changes in a risk-free virtual environment. The result is greater agility, resilience, and efficiency across the entire production lifecycle. Attendees will gain insight into how digital twins reduce risk, increase productivity, and enable smarter planning across manufacturing operations. By harnessing digital twins in CNC machining, robotic systems, and factory-wide simulations, companies can accelerate their journey toward digital transformation and fully realize the promise of Industry 4.0.

Speaker at WEST: Joe Mattekatt, CEO, Mesoware Inc.

WEST Session: Robotics is advancing at a remarkable pace. Smarter AI models and improved hardware have made robots more capable and accessible than ever before. These shifts are transforming how we can make use of automation in fundamental ways: 1. Expand use cases through adaptability. Flexible robotic deployments open up opportunities to capture value from a wider range of applications. Adaptive automation becomes a tool for navigating uncertainty rather than a rigid asset. 2. Deploy faster with simplified programming. Your team no longer needs to spend days learning how to program the robot. Instruct robots in plain English instead. 3. Scale through modularity. Ecosystems designed around modular components allow deployments to grow and evolve with your operations. The cost of integration falls as automation spreads across your workflows. 4. Empower your workforce. Automation learns and scales the manufacturing knowledge of your company, enabling your team to focus on higher-value, higher-impact work. Join us to explore how these changes are reshaping both the economics and the role of automation, and what they mean for the future of your operations.

Speaker at WEST: Kevin Rankl, VP Tech Support, SolidCAM

Speaker at WEST: Michelle Leon, Operations Manager, Levil Technology

Speaker at WEST: Errol Burrell, National Product Manager, Matsuura USA

WEST Session: In a manufacturing landscape where production has evolved to be lean, automated, and connected, post-sales support remains outdated—fragmented across PDFs, portals, and manual processes. Impaqx’s Pikclix redefines this landscape with SupportOps 3.0, a transformative, AI-powered platform built to modernize maintenance, service, and parts ordering. By integrating Generative AI, Agentic AI, LLMs, RAG, and Vision AI, Pikclix delivers intelligent, contextual, and actionable support experiences across the customer and technician journey. From conversational AI assistants trained on proprietary documents to clickable assembly diagrams that link directly to live parts catalogs, Pikclix simplifies complex tasks, enhances part identification accuracy, and improves customer satisfaction. The platform empowers manufacturers to scale rapidly—requiring no infrastructure overhaul, integrating with existing systems, and going live in under a month. Business impact is significant: reduced return rates, increased part order volume, and improved customer loyalty. With built-in analytics and automation, Pikclix not only answers support queries but uncovers trends, predicts failures, and drives engineering improvements. In an era where 40% of revenue can stem from aftermarket services, Pikclix transforms post-sales support into a strategic growth engine—bridging the modernization gap and preparing manufacturers for the future of intelligent support.

Speaker at WEST: Brian Liles, Vice President, R&D, Cost Segregation &179D, CSSI-Specialty Tax Services

WEST Session: The R&D Tax Credit is a powerful federal incentive that rewards manufacturers for innovation in product design, process improvements, and new technologies. It directly reduces tax liability or payroll tax, freeing up cash to reinvest in equipment, workforce, and growth. Manufacturers often face challenges such as rising production costs, global competition, supply chain constraints, and the need to modernize with automation, robotics, and sustainable practices. The R&D Tax Credit helps offset these pressures by turning day-to-day problem-solving—like improving tooling, enhancing production efficiency, or developing prototypes—into measurable tax savings. To qualify, activities must pass the IRS “Four-Part Test”: seeking to resolve technical uncertainty, relying on science/engineering, involving experimentation, and aiming to improve a product or process. Eligible expenses include wages, materials consumed in development, and contractor costs. Two paths provide benefits: the Standard Credit , which reduces income taxes, and the Payroll Credit , which offsets up to $500,000 annually in employer payroll taxes—especially valuable for manufacturers reinvesting in growth. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (2025) restored immediate expensing of domestic R&D costs, eliminating the burdensome 5-year amortization. It also allows companies that capitalized expenses since 2022 to retroactively accelerate deductions. Strategies for manufacturers include building stronger documentation systems, aligning R&D tracking with engineering workflows, and leveraging tax planning to maximize credits year after year. Together, these updates give manufacturers powerful tools to manage costs, stay competitive, and invest confidently in new technologies.