Workshop on Manufacturing Cost Reduction and Members' Site Visit Meeting and Tour of KEMET Electronics

April 10-11, 2013
Greenville, South Carolina 

NAATBatt is pleased to announce a 2-for-1 deal:  The next NAATBatt program will be a one-day industry roundtable workshop on manufacturing cost reduction on April 11, 2013. The workshop will follow a members-only tour of KEMET Electronics' manufacturing facility in Simpsonville, S.C. (Greenville, S.C.) and networking dinner on April 10, 2013.  

A complete program for the Manufacturing Cost Reduction Workshop can be viewed by clicking here.

NAATBatt is a not-for-profit trade association.  But as any long-time NAATBatt member can attest, it's not that we don't have profits, it's just that our profits go into the stomachs of our members.  We take food seriously at NAATBatt.  Not just because our members like to eat, but because we know that a good meal among good company is the best way to build new relationships within our industry.

The Zen Greenville art gallery is located at 924 S. Main Street in downtown Greenville.  Dinner will start promptly at 7:00 p.m.  As with all NAATBatt member networking dinners, the dinner is for NAATBatt members only.  Attendance at special NAATBatt networking events is a benefit of NAATBatt membership.

Please note that NAATBatt members not attending the April 11 Workshop on Manufacturing Cost reduction may attend the networking dinner and the tour of KEMET Electronics on April 10 for FREE.  Please contact Elena Pitt at (312) 588-0477 x2 for special, dinner and tour only registration.

Workshop on Manufacturing Cost Reduction

Interactive, Participatory Workshop
on How to Meet Price Reduction Targets 

April 11, 2013 (8:00 a.m. EDT)
Marriott Greenville Hotel
1 Parkway East
Greenville, South Carolina  29615

Reducing the cost of lithium-ion batteries is critical to building a broader commercial market for electric vehicles and distributed energy storage on the grid.  While cost targets for advanced batteries are easy to find--from those of the USABC to the U.S. Department of Energy's EV Everywhere Grand Challenge--information about how manufacturers working in the real world are supposed to meet those cost targets is a bit harder to come by.

On April 11, 2013, NAATBatt will gather companies from all across the advanced battery supply chain to talk about the problem of cost reduction at the Workshop on Manufacturing Cost Reduction.  A detailed summary of the Workshop program can be seen by clicking here.

The Workshop will consist of two parts: At the beginning of the Workshop, participants will hear from representatives of Duke Energy and General Motors, two ultimate battery customers, about their internal battery cost reduction expectations and roadmaps.  Next, participants will hear a representative of NREL report on its recently completed study of battery manufacturing costs.  This study is expected to be the centerpiece of the Department of Energy's Clean Manufacturing Initiative, which is expected to be a major policy focus of the DOE over the next four years.  Finally, representatives of Siemens and PARC will talk about next generation manufacturing technologies, which may fundamentally change the cost structure of manufacturing advanced batteries in the United States.

The second part of the workshop, however, will be more important.  After the openning speakers have described the cost objectives, and the next generation technology that might one day be available to meet those objectives, the workshop attendees, who actually have to go back to their factories and make advanced batteries or their components, will have the chance to weigh in on the objectives set by the ultimate customers and the DOE.  We want to hear from you about what can really be done, how realistic are GM's, Duke's and the DOE's expectations, and what your suppliers need to do for you to help you meet those objectives. 

The roundtable discussion will be an interactive program in which all participates will be expected to contribute and participate.  NAATBatt reserves the right to cancel the registration of any registrant whose participation NAATBatt believes will not add meaningfully to the quality of the group discussion.  

We hope you can attend this important workshop.  This will be an excellent opportunity for suppliers within the advanced battery supply chain to hear from their customers about what those customers really need.  It will be a great chance for the battery industry to tell the DOE what the industry really needs to meet those objectives.  And it will be a wonderful opportunity for companies that think they have solutions to talk about them with their industry colleagues.

We hope to see you in Greenville.

Important Note:  All discussions of cost reduction strategies will focus on future technology and processes and cost reductions generally anticipated to be made available by them. Discussion concerning the pricing of current products is prohibited.  The proceedings of the Workshop will be governed by NAATBatt's Antitrust Compliance Policy.

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