Champions of Manufacturing Is Coming: CP and F&B Manufacturers, This Event Is Worth Your Time

If you are running a consumer goods or food and beverage operation today, you are under pressure. Margins are tighter. Supply chains are unpredictable. Your teams are doing more with less.

Let’s be honest. The last thing you need is two days away from the floor listening to presentations that do not change what happens when you get back.

I have been in your seat. I know what it costs to take time away. So when I say Champions of Manufacturing is worth the trip, Chicago this September and Munich this October, let me tell you why.

The Problem Nobody Is Saying Out Loud

Most manufacturers have invested heavily in technology. ERP systems. Quality platforms. Supply chain tools. Now AI. But when it comes to AI for food and beverage manufacturing, or consumer products manufacturing, the technology is rarely the bottleneck. It’s the disconnection between systems.

For most CP and F&B manufacturers, the systems do not talk to each other, the data lives in silos, and the people who need to make decisions are still manually bridging the gaps. And in consumer goods and food and beverage, those gaps are not abstract. They show up in ways that cost you every single day.

A quality exception is flagged but does not trigger a production hold. Product keeps moving when it should not. An ingredient shortage shows up in procurement but does not reach the scheduler in time. The line is already running. Now you are scrambling to resequence. A co-packer misses a specification. You find out from the retailer instead of your own operation. An FSMA 204 traceability request arrives. Your team spends days pulling data from systems that were never built to work together. A commodity price spike hits. Your procurement team is still working from last week’s numbers because the signal did not reach them in time. In today’s environment, these are not exceptions, it’s a normal day in the life of a consumer products or food and beverage operation.

And the pressure is not letting up. Retailer scorecards are getting stricter. Traceability requirements are expanding. Consumer expectations around quality and transparency are rising. Margins that were already thin are getting squeezed further by input costs, logistics volatility, and a labor market that does not cooperate.

This is not a technology problem. It is a connectivity problem. And it is exactly the kind of problem that separates manufacturers who are competing effectively today from the ones who are falling behind.

The gap costing your operation money today is not a strategy gap. It is an execution gap. The leaders in consumer products and food and beverage are already closing it. Others are still waiting to see what happens.

An Honest Conversation About AI for Food and Beverage Manufacturing

QAD’s ChampionAI is built to solve this problem. It uses agentic AI to connect people, processes, and systems in one coordinated flow. It monitors across platforms, connects signals, and gets the right information to the right person at the right time. It brings disconnected work together so teams can act from the same information. It does not replace human judgment. It removes the manual work and system gaps that slow decisions down. 

That’s what AI for consumer goods manufacturing and food and beverage operations actually needs to look like. Not a better dashboard, but a system that closes gaps automatically. Thin margins, retailer scorecards, FSMA 204 traceability requirements, co-packer visibility, commodity volatility. These are not problems you solve with a better dashboard. You solve them by building an operation that sees across systems, surfaces exceptions automatically, and moves without waiting for someone to connect the dots manually.

The manufacturers getting this right are not waiting for perfect conditions. They are deploying ChampionAI where it delivers measurable ROI inside their existing operations, without ripping out the systems and processes that make their businesses run. They are the ones building championship operations. And if your organization is still running on disconnected systems and tribal knowledge bridging the gaps, the cost of waiting is going up every quarter.

AI is already changing how companies compete. The leaders in your category are already using it to move faster and operate smarter. The question is not whether to adopt AI. It is when you will join them and become a champion.

See It. Hear It. Take It Back to Your World.

Champions of Manufacturing Americas | Chicago, September 21–23, 2026

This year, Champions of Manufacturing and the QAD Midwest Fall User Group meeting are happening together.  This combined event will feature live QAD demonstrations, real manufacturer stories, and peer led practitioner sessions into one event. One trip. Everything you need to bring new ideas back to your operation. 

You will see ChampionAI agents executing real procurement, sourcing, and supply chain work. Not a concept. Not a roadmap. Agents doing the work in a live manufacturing environment. You will hear directly from manufacturers who have deployed AI within their existing operations and are seeing measurable financial results today. No large scale transformation required. No rip and replace.

Hear directly from QAD customers during the User Group sessions covering ERP upgrades, shop floor automation, AI enabled cash application, supplier onboarding, IT and OT convergence, and more. These are practitioners sharing what is actually working, without a vendor agenda. On Monday, September 22 at 4:00 PM CT, I am leading a session built specifically for consumer products and food and beverage manufacturers: ChampionAI: Helping Consumer Products and Food & Beverage Manufacturers Compete in Today’s Disruptive Economy. We will focus on how manufacturers in these industries are addressing their specific challenges, including supply chain visibility, traceability, disruption management, supplier collaboration, and the technologies making a measurable difference today.

Champions of Manufacturing Europe | Munich, October 8–9, 2026

For manufacturers in EMEA, Champions of Manufacturing comes to Munich on October 8 and 9. The focus is the same: practical AI, peer conversations, and content that translates directly to operational improvement. You will see ChampionAI live, connect with manufacturers across the region navigating the same cost pressures, supply chain volatility, and workforce productivity challenges, and leave with specific frameworks for implementing AI where it can deliver ROI without disrupting the operations you depend on every day.

Registration for both events is complimentary.

The manufacturers who show up in Chicago and Munich are the ones already thinking and acting like champions. They are not waiting for the future to arrive. They are figuring out how to win in it. If that describes you, or if that is where you want to be, register today.