The ARM Institute Annual Member Meeting is a key member-exclusive event that convenes representatives from across our 400+ member organization consortium that spans industry, government, and academia. The agenda was just recently released for our 2024 Annual Member Meeting taking place September 23-25 in Pittsburgh!
This month’s Five Questions interview features Lou Troilo from ARM Member SharpCloud. In this interview, Lou explores how he made connections through prior ARM Member Meetings and what he’s looking forward to during this year’s event.
1. Can you tell us about SharpCloud and the kind of work that you do?
SharpCloud is a strategic visualization platform that instantly transforms business data and complex program interdependencies into simple and clear visual stories. SharpCloud is the only software that easily takes your current data (multiple spreadsheets, or existing LOB tools i.e., reductive data) and allows you to build and visualize the relationships between (system thinking) them so you can see YOUR golden thread from any perspective. SharpCloud has been in business and worked in this industry for 12 years and have a number of clients solve a number of critical business issues related to road-mapping and strategic portfolio management. I lead all business initiatives for SharpCloud within the US.
2. How did you get involved in SharpCloud?
Starting in 1991, I worked for Primavera Systems and spent 27+ years with the company. In 2006, Primavera Systems bought a company PertMaster. The co-founders of PertMaster were Sarim Khan and Rusty Johnson. I was able to work with Sarim and Rusty for many years and we developed a friendship. Sarim and Rusty created SharpCloud in 2012. In 2019, I was hired by SharpCloud to lead the US business. Sarim and Rusty have created an amazing company and I feel fortunate to be a part of it.
3. You’ve attended past Member Meetings and told us that you found an important partner through our event. Can you tell us about this partner, how you connected, and the kind of work you’re now doing together?
We are fortunate to have many customers who are also a part of the ARM community. At the 2022 ARM Institute Member Meeting, we met HII-NNS (the largest military shipbuilding company in the US). They were first intrigued by our platform to visualize their multiple R&D roadmaps. We continue to work across various areas within their organization to increase the speed of building naval assets.
4. You have a table in our new Member Showcase Hall at our Member Meeting this year! What can Members expect to see and learn at your table?
We will be showcasing the creativity that some of our customers have built leveraging our solution. For example, an R&D strategy needs to link to board-level priorities with the technologies that are the organization’s focus – ultimately answering 3 questions: what we want to deliver, what we need to deliver it and how it will be delivered. SharpCloud allows you to visualize the connections and relationships across these components.
5. What is something that you learned at last year’s Member Meeting?
Last year was the first ARM event our organization attended. I did not truly understand the broad reach the ARM Institute has across different government agencies, manufacturing groups, etc. That was amazing to learn.
6. Bonus question: Is there anything else you’d like to add?
Complexity is not a bad thing, but you can’t manage it if you can’t see it.
More About the ARM Institute’s Annual Member Meeting
Our 2024 ARM Member Meeting will take place Sept. 23-25 in Pittsburgh, PA! Open only to ARM Institute Members, this event opens the door to collaboration between organizations that otherwise might not know each other exist or may be considered competitors. ARM Members can register to attend via the ARM Member Community or by emailing [email protected].
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ABOUT THE ARM INSTITUTE
The Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing (ARM) Institute is a Manufacturing Innovation Institute (MII) funded by the Office of the Secretary of Defense under Agreement Number W911NF-17-3-0004 and is part of the Manufacturing USA® network. The ARM Institute leverages a unique, robust, and diverse ecosystem of nearly 400 consortium members and partners across industry, academia, and government to make robotics, autonomy, and artificial intelligence more accessible to U.S. manufacturers large and small, train and empower the manufacturing workforce, strengthen our economy and global competitiveness, and elevate national security and resilience. Based in Pittsburgh, PA since 2017, with a satellite office in St. Petersburg, FL, the ARM Institute is leading the way to a future where people & robots work together to respond to our nation’s greatest challenges and to produce the world’s most desired products. For more information, visit www.arminstitute.org and follow the ARM Institute on LinkedIn and Twitter.