ARM Institute Members vary in their focus areas, sizes, and history, but one common thread unites each organization: a drive to build the future of US manufacturing. Each member organization leverages their strengths and areas of expertise to secure a brighter future for the US workforce, drive national security, and build a resilient manufacturing economy. We bridge the gaps between industry, academia, and government to solve complex issues inhibiting the ability for the US to be a global leader in manufacturing output. To do this, we convene every stakeholder across manufacturing – from manufacturers themselves, technology providers, and defense suppliers to universities and community colleges, start-ups, and other types of organizations.
This month, our five questions interview features Daniel Friedman-Brown, a Solution Engineer from Lumivero!
Get to know Daniel and Lumivero in just five questions below! Plus, meet Lumivero in-person at our 10th Annual Member Meeting taking place Nov. 17-19 in Pittsburgh! There, you can find both learn more about this member collaborator as they sponsor our Opening Night Reception and you can find Lumivero in our 10th Anniversary Member Showcase Hall!
Haven’t registered for our largest event of the year yet? Secure your place by November 13th before registration closes! Email us at [email protected] for assistance or to learn more.
1. Can you start by telling us about your background, your role at Lumivero, and a bit about the company?
I’m Daniel Friedman-Brown, a Solutions Engineer at Lumivero. I worked with SharpCloud for four years and have been with Lumivero since SharpCloud was acquired in January.
Every field is dealing with more data and more uncertainty than ever, and the teams making big decisions need a way to see how it all connects. That’s what SharpCloud does. It’s now part of Lumivero, a leading provider of research and decision software trusted by customers worldwide. The SharpCloud team and technology you know are still here, backed by a company built around helping organizations turn data complexity into clarity.
At Lumivero, I support organizations in manufacturing, defense, and other complex sectors as they bring their data together, see how their decisions connect, and move forward with confidence.
2. Can you discuss some ways that manufacturers and government stakeholders can leverage Lumivero to transform how they work?
I think of Lumivero, and specifically SharpCloud, as solving one fundamental problem: facilitating alignment and decision making around current data instead of working from stale reports and fragmented spreadsheets.
In manufacturing, that could look like managing a complex capital project portfolio, understanding risk across the organization, or planning a roadmap for future product and technology development. Take plant modernization, new product introduction, and supply chain projects as an example. These projects run across different engineering teams, procurement, and finance, with each team owning their piece in a different system. A delay in one project cascades across others, but nobody sees that in time. SharpCloud connects all of that data into one visual model, so leaders see how decisions in one area impact the whole portfolio.
For government and defense stakeholders, the challenge is even more complex. You’re coordinating across primes, subcontractors, government agencies, and multiple functional areas. Programs are measured in billions of dollars and years of delivery. You need to see how risks, schedules, and budget trade-offs connect across the entire enterprise, not just within one program. SharpCloud is built for that scale, with defense-grade security and the ability to bring together disconnected systems without forcing a rip-and-replace.
The common thread: stop working from spreadsheets that were accurate last Tuesday. Move to one visual, always-current environment where decisions are made with the full picture, not partial information.
3. How did you learn about the ARM Institute and what compelled you to join our consortium? What do you hope to accomplish with your membership?
I learned about the ARM Institute through a recommendation from a current member, who has used SharpCloud with great success for many years. The Institute has always been at the center of where manufacturers, government stakeholders, technology providers, and academics come together around shared challenges. That alignment is exactly where I believe Lumivero and SharpCloud belong.
What drew me to want to formalize Lumivero’s membership is that the ARM Institute’s mission and ours complement each other. The ARM Institute brings manufacturers, government, and technology providers together to strengthen the U.S. manufacturing base, and Lumivero helps those organizations make confident decisions about the programs and investments that get things built. Manufacturing and defense leaders face impossible complexity. They’re managing portfolios spanning billions in capital investment, global supply chain uncertainty, regulatory and compliance requirements, and geopolitical risk. They’re trying to make decisions with data scattered across disconnected systems. That’s the problem SharpCloud solves.
With our membership, I hope to connect with ARM members who are wrestling with portfolio and program visibility and cross-functional alignment, to learn more from ARM’s community about where the industry is moving and what challenges are emerging, and to build relationships with fellow members who understand that better decisions require better data visibility and alignment.
I see Lumivero as part of the ARM Institute’s ecosystem. We’re here to help members move from fragmented reporting to confident, connected decision-making.
4. Why are you excited about this year’s event, and what can ARM Members expect to see from Lumivero in the 10th Anniversary Member Showcase Hall?
I’m very excited about this year’s event because the moment for portfolio and decision intelligence in manufacturing and defense is now. Global supply chain volatility, tariff and trade policy shifts, geopolitical risk, new technology adoption, and accelerating capital investment plans are all converging at once. Manufacturing and defense leaders are asking themselves: How do I make confident decisions with this much uncertainty? How do I see what’s truly at risk across my entire portfolio, not just one program? How do I align my teams around a shared understanding of trade-offs?
That’s the problem we’re here to solve.
In the showcase hall, we’ll be demonstrating SharpCloud with real manufacturing and defense data, showing how portfolio leaders, risk managers, and executives use it to bring together their most critical data (schedules, risks, budgets, infrastructure plans) into one visual decision environment. We’ll have interactive scenarios running, so you can see how SharpCloud helps leaders model decisions before they commit resources. We’re also bringing case studies from organizations in sectors ARM represents, manufacturers managing capital portfolios, defense programs coordinating across multiple contractors, large organizations managing supply chain risk.
If you’re wrestling with portfolio fragmentation, cross-team misalignment, or risk visibility challenges, bring them to our booth. Let’s talk about whether SharpCloud can help. The ARM Institute’s strength is its community, and our goal is to be a partner who understands that community’s real challenges and can help solve them.
5. What would you tell ARM Members who are interested in collaborating with Lumivero?
If you’re interested in exploring whether SharpCloud could help with portfolio, program, or risk management, let’s start with a conversation. There’s no one-size-fits-all path.
Some members might want to run a proof-of-concept with a specific program or portfolio to see how SharpCloud would work in their environment. Others might want to see how it handles their particular integration challenges, connecting P6, SAP, Jira, or Power BI to one visual decision model. Others might want to explore a specific use case: capital portfolio consolidation, supply chain risk management, cross-functional program alignment.
What I’d emphasize is that we’re not asking you to replace the systems you’re already running on. SharpCloud integrates with the tools you already use. We’ve worked with the UK Ministry of Defense, large shipbuilders, and other complex organizations across aerospace, defense, and manufacturing to bring together massive amounts of data without disrupting the systems and processes programs depend on.
About the ARM Institute Member Meeting
Taking place November 17-19, 2026, the 10th Annual ARM Institute Member Meeting is our largest event of the year and open only to ARM Members. This event convenes representatives from across our 500+ member organizations for 2.5 days of networking, collaboration, and knowledge-sharing. Attendees will enjoy plenary sessions, expert-led panel discussions, keynote presentations, personalized match-making, a robust Member Showcase Hall featuring member exhibits, interactive activities to drive our priorities and help you learn best practices, two evening networking receptions, our Champions Awards Dinner, and so much more.
Learn more about our Member Meeting here or email us at [email protected] for more information.
Join Lumivero and 500+ Other Organizations in Driving the Future of US Manufacturing
ARM Institute Members lead the way to a future where people and robots work together to respond to our nation’s greatest challenges and to develop and produce the world’s most desired products. By becoming a member of our 500+ member organization consortium, you’ll join thousands of subject matter experts in building the future of US manufacturing through robotics, AI, and workforce innovations. Your membership unlocks not only access to member-exclusive events and webinars, including our Annual Member Meeting, but also project funding opportunities, project outputs, networking, a digital platform for collaboration, and more.
Explore membership here or email us at [email protected] to learn how you can contribute to this work. Join by the middle of November to be eligible to attend our 2026 Member Meeting.
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ABOUT THE ARM INSTITUTE
The ARM (Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing) Institute is a Manufacturing Innovation Institute (MII) funded by the Office of the Secretary of War under Agreement Number W911NF-17-3-0004 and is part of the Manufacturing USA® network. The ARM Institute leverages a world class consortium of 500+ member organizations and partners across industry, academia, and government to assert the US as the leading nation in manufacturing output through the adoption of robotics and AI. Based in Pittsburgh, PA since 2017, the ARM Institute has a dual focus on catalyzing innovative yet practical robotics and physical AI solutions while growing and preparing the US workforce for advanced manufacturing careers.
For more information, visit www.arminstitute.org and follow the ARM Institute on LinkedIn.