Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1437606
84 PCB007 MAGAZINE I DECEMBER 2021 still planning to come," but they're not ready to commit. To be clear, I am speaking about individual registrations. Most of the exhibitors have signed up, so we are encouraged by that. Matties: Now, on the exhibitor front, do you expect to see as much equipment on the floor? Mitchell: We hope to. We've been instructing and coaching for people not to use Long Beach or some of the more crowded ports but to look for others or just truck it in if you are already in the States. Because, frankly, the port situation is a mess. Matties: We know that there are really tough challenges—supply chain, labor, inflation— going on. How will participation for the attend- ees help them navigate the challenges? Mitchell: I don't think we're going to solve all these challenges at APEX EXPO. Whether it's the labor shortage, parts shortage, transporta- tion costs, or others, we are going to be finding ways to collaborate. To me, the best opportu- nity to work on the supply chain issues is when you're meeting face-to-face. One of the intan- gible values of APEX EXPO is the face-to-face discussions that aren't necessarily scheduled or built into the program. When you're talking to a friend of yours and you say, "Hey, we've got this business we're unable to fulfill," and they say, "Well, we've got these parts we'd love to get to you because we can't use them anymore. We need differ- ent parts," then magic happens. Collabora- tion occurs and problems that were intractable start moving down the solution path. ese lit- tle microcosms of supply chain work will help some people solve some of their challenges. But it'll be more micro impacts than macro changes to these large issues. Matties: Do you have any specific presentations or conferences that are geared toward address- ing or navigating these issues? Mitchell: In my keynote, I'll be talking about what we can do to navigate some of these chal- lenges specifically. We'll talk about what the sit- uation really is vs. what's being reported. And what, in different regions and different types of companies, we might do to overcome some of those challenges. I hope that my keynote will spur people to find solutions on the other issues. Now, as far as other programmatic elements that are deal- ing with these issues specifically, the answer is yes. On the labor front, everybody is hav- ing difficulty trying to hire people. Finding talent or even warm bodies, frankly, is a chal- lenge. IPC has amazing online skills develop- ment programs that can literally take some- body with no experience in the industry, say working at your local fast-food restaurant, and in two days they could be an operator on a line and effective. You don't have to spend weeks trying to train the people anymore. We were fortunate that industry leaders came to us and said, "Here's what we need. ese are the skills we need to teach. Here's the kind of training we would have you do." Our team of education special- ists took that information, leveraged their experience about knowledge acquisition and retaining information, and built this into a pro- gram that meets the industry driven job-spe- cific needs of workers across a broad range of industry roles and skill levels. So basically, very, very quickly you can onboard somebody and get them productive. en there are other programs as well, spe- cifically geared toward engineers. We have The biggest impact really is about making sure everybody is safe at the event.