Every two years, tens of thousands of people from around the world attend the International Manufacturing Technology Show (IMTS) at McCormick Place in Chicago, Illinois. The trade show is one of the largest in the world, and this year, more than 89,000 attendees were able to visit 1,737 exhibits and view 40 million+ pounds of machinery during the six-day event.

Acumatica was thrilled to be a part of IMTS 2024 (September 9-14), as we showcased  our innovative, problem-solving, and user-friendly solution to the global manufacturing community.

Acumatica at IMTS 2024

During the event, Angie Rowley, product manager, manufacturing, and other team members manned Acumatica’s attendee-friendly  booth, highlighting Acumatica’s customer-driven Manufacturing Edition ERP solution with its new features and capabilities. Attendees were impressed with the recent updates made to our Material Requirements Planning (MRP) application, including:

• Forecasting optional stock and non-stock kit components to drive material demand planning.
• Planning horizons that enable organizations to define time-constrained data for inclusion in supply and demand calculations.
• MRP and Distribution Requirements Planning (DRP) configuration to include or exclude sales order types, improving planning by excluding returns and other orders from inventory planning calculations.
• The ability to mark warehouses inactive in MRP/DRP configuration, enabling manufacturers to exclude warehouses from inventory forecasting.

Says Angie, “The number of small manufacturing companies walking the show was high. For many of them, our full estimate-to-invoice functionality stood out, and of course, built for the cloud was a big selling point.”

The team also demonstrated our exciting new user interface (UI)—currently in developer preview—designed to enhance usability, deliver personalization, and improve customization. “Several people walking by commented on how clean the UI looked in comparison to other vendors. And when they were navigating the system, they said it was very intuitive.”

But more than manufacturers were drawn to the Acumatica booth. Vendors demonstrating their own applications at IMTS 2024 stopped by to learn more about Acumatica.

“The vendors wanted to know more about our APIs so they could offer their service on our marketplace,” Angie says. “They definitely saw Acumatica as a company to which they wanted to be associated.”

IMTS 2024 Brings the Future to Manufacturing

Though busy exhibiting Acumatica’s powerful, industry-specific solution, the Acumatica team eagerly explored the thousands of manufacturing solutions covering the 1,226,523 square feet of show space. One theme that stood out for Angie was AI and ML.

“I noticed a heightened focus on AI and ML, such as extending robots and cobots to have AI capabilities,” she says. “For example, we saw a robot that can pick an unknown item based on vision learning software.”

Other examples included robots taking on the expanded roles of inspection, welding, and painting. Some robots were autonomous as well as mobile on the shop floor. There were also exhibitions of technology not previously seen in manufacturing, like CT scanning of parts for quality comparison of manufactured goods to CAD model. And additive manufacturing was a hot topic.

“Large format machines are allowing companies to build customizable furniture,” Angie says. “3D printing isn’t just for parts.”

She adds, “Companies are redefining their manufacturing strategy by using additive manufacturing.”

Taking Manufacturing to the Next Level with Acumatica

Though the manufacturing industry stumbled during the pandemic, its quickly regaining its footing, according to the BlackRock Advisor Center. “Early signs that manufacturing activity in the U.S. is picking up are emerging – from more construction spend, to hiring, and corporate interest. As of May 2024, annual construction spending in manufacturing soared to $234 billion, tripling since January 2020.”

With Acumatica, manufacturers have the single tool they need to take advantage of the potential growth and innovation coming their way. Every aspect of their business can be managed in one, comprehensive solution, which includes core manufacturing, distribution, financial, and reporting applications as well as optional, connected applications—applications which manufacturing customer Sunshine Lighting has happily taken advantage.

“With Acumatica, we have the ability to take a problem and solve it, and take another problem and solve it, and then just keep solving problems as we grow and grow,” says Yisroel Hartman, Chief Operating Officer and full stack developer at Sunshine Lighting.

Adds Sr. Technical Project Manager and Business Development Manager Schneur Perl, “Acumatica is an easy-to-use tool that gives us the flexibility to do business our way.”

At IMTS 2024, the power of Acumatica to take manufacturing to the next level—as it has for Sunshine Lighting—was on full display. To learn more, contact our team today.