Recap: ARM Institute Hosts 9th Annual Member Meeting
The institute’s Annual Member Meeting convenes experts from across industry, government, and academia for several days of in-person networking, collaboration, and knowledge-sharing.
The ARM (Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing) Institute’s 2025 Annual Member Meeting took place Sept. 3-5 in Pittsburgh, convening a record number of individuals and attracting a record number of sponsoring organizations and Member Showcase Hall participants. Since the Member Meeting’s creation in 2017, the event has played an integral role in catalyzing connections between ARM Institute Member organizations and bridging gaps between industry, government, and academia to spur innovations in robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), and workforce development to strengthen US manufacturing.
Dive deeper into our robotics institute’s 2025 event below!
Plus, save the date for our 10th Annual Member Meeting, scheduled to take place November 17-19 in Pittsburgh, PA! Not yet a member? Explore membership here or contact us at [email protected].
The Basics: What is the Annual ARM Institute Member Meeting?
The Annual Member Meeting is our largest event and networking opportunity of the year. Open only to individuals from across our 450+ member organization consortium and the government, the Member Meeting provides a unique platform for organizations to collaborate that would otherwise be considered competitors. It’s an unparalleled opportunity for experts to work together to advance US manufacturing and strengthen both the Organic Industrial Base and Defense Industrial Base.
What was New in 2025?
Networking: From Open to Curated Opportunities to Connect
The top two reasons ARM Members attend our event are to network and to connect to project funding opportunities. This year, we provided even more time for ARM Members to connect, whether that was in the Member Showcase Hall where organizations had the opportunity to set up technology demonstrations and booths, or through our increased focused on curated networking through interactive activities in the Technology and Education/Workforce Development Concurrent sessions.
In addition to even more open networking time, this year our interactive activities, taking place on the first and second day in each concurrent track, gave attendees the opportunity to solve problems together and connect to individuals they may otherwise not have.
For example, our Tech Concurrent Track hosted an interactive activity on the first day where Members self-selected table networking topic areas that centered on different project funding opportunities to help members find project team members. These tables also included broader topics, 
such as our Robotics Manufacturing Hub and a table about the work the ARM Institute has completed in robotics for sewn goods. Our interactive activity on the second day in the Tech Concurrent Track enabled members to select ARM Institute-funded projects that they were interested in and gave attendees the opportunity to provide feedback into the projects’ tech transition plans in small groups. This not only strengthened the project team’s tech transition plans, but also helped members better understand how they can leverage project outputs.
Our Education/Workforce Development Concurrent Track on the first day challenged participants to work together to develop strategies to understand if workers are truly competent in a given skill from our competency frameworks. On the second day, attendees walked through concepts that the institute is prototyping for learning capabilities, including an activity that leveraged virtual reality (VR) and an activity that leveraged mixed reality (MR). These activities aim to bring greater awareness to the job opportunities that exist in robotics for manufacturing.
Increased Connections to Project Funding
2025 has been a record year for project funding opportunities! Since January 2025, the ARM Institute has issued three Project Calls (with several more on deck for this calendar year), resulting in approximately $4.5M being awarded to ARM Members for a total investment of approximately $8.8M across the projects.
ARM Institute Tech Days offer ARM Members ways to ask detailed questions about the Project Calls, get feedback on their initial project concepts, and connect to potential team members. The 2025 Member Meeting offered two mini Tech Days during our Tech Concurrent Track.
The first Tech Day was in support of an Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) driven Project Call that centers on Adaptive Incremental Forming through Optimized Robotic Manufacturing (AI-FORM). This Project Call is currently available in draft format only to ARM Members in the Member Community.
The second Tech Day centered on our forthcoming 26-01 Core-Funded Tech Project Call, giving ARM Members early access to the Special Topic Areas in the Project Call and providing a mechanism for members to connect to each other in mutual areas of interest.
Expert Presenters
Breadth of Perspectives Represented in our Keynote Presentations
We were honored to welcome a number of esteemed keynote presenters to our event. These experts centered their presentations on problems that the ARM Member Consortium can help to solve from the government side and best practices and trends on the industry side. We were honored to host keynotes by the following experts:
- Michael Holthe, who is performing the duties of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Science and Technology, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering,
- Stephanie M. Hoaglin, Director, Organic Industrial Base Modernization, Army Materiel Command
- Alex Shikany, Executive Vice President of A3
- Jeannine Kunz, CEO of SME
- Brad Conrad, Education and Workforce Development Manager within the Partnerships and Outreach Division at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Office of Advanced Manufacturing (OAM).
Lively Knowledge-Sharing through Panel Discussions
You gave input and we listened! This year, our members let us know that they wanted to learn more about artificial intelligence (AI) for manufacturing. It was a logical request given that the ARM Institute has been at the forefront of AI for manufacturing since our institute’s inception in 2017. To address this, we hosted a number of panel discussions centered on AI:
- Chuck Brandt, ARM Institute Chief Technology Officer, hosted a panel presentation on AI’s Disruption and Opportunity for Manufacturing alongside SK Gupta (University of Southern California and GrayMatter Robotics), Phil Freeman (Boeing), Joe Williams (General Motors), and Tom Kelly (Automation Alley).
- Suzy Teele, ARM Institute Chief Strategy Officer, led a panel about the skills workers need to use AI in manufacturing roles with John Zappa (ARM Institute), Davis McGregor (University of Maryland), and Clint Chapman (Yaskawa).
- Elizabeth DeVita (ARM Institute Education and Certification Manager) explored training programs that are leading the way to teach AI skills with Kevin Beamish (BG Workforce), Ted Rozier (Festo), and Dr. Abu Islam (Rochester Institute of Technology)
Member Favorites Back for Another Year
While we always iterate on our event and improve it using feedback from our members, we also continue to feature the pieces that are most valued by our Members.
Rapid Connections through Five-Minute Pitches
In the five-minute pitches, ARM Members can apply to present an overview of their capabilities, a problem they want the consortium’s help solving, or present their insights on a given topic. These rapid-fire presentations are hosted before lunch networking times to enable further connections after the presentations.
This year, we welcomed five-minute presentations by:
- AIVOT Robotics, Inc.
- Analatom Incorporated
- ARCTOS Technology Solutions
- Carnegie Mellon University
- Commonwealth Center for Advanced Manufacturing
- NIST
- The Ohio State University
- Orbbec
- Perforated AI
- ReadyOne
- SICK
- Vincennes University
- Huntington Ingalls Shipbuilding
- SFSA
- Sensate Robotics
- Westinghouse Electric Company
- ThoughtForge AI
- Force Robotics
- General Motors
- BG Workforce
- Unmudl
- Realtime Robotics
- AMT – the Association for Manufacturing Technology
Learn more about the topics that were presented here
ARM Champions Awards Dinner & Networking sponsored by Yaskawa
The ARM Institute Champion Awards celebrate ARM Members who go above and beyond the call of membership to further the ARM Institute’s impact and advocate for manufacturing. This year, Yaskawa (who has two ARM Champions on their team: Roger Christian and Clint Chapman) sponsored our seated dinner celebration that also included pre-dinner and post-dinner networking in the Member Showcase Hall.
Meet our 2025 class of ARM Champions here.
Networking Reception at Mill 19 sponsored by Corsha
During our second night reception, we shuttled attendees over to our Pittsburgh headquarters to explore robotics, AI, and workforce demonstrations. Corsha sponsored this evening’s networking, as our members saw from the branded cookies. While it was the rainiest day Pittsburgh had seen all summer, the sun came out in time for our indoor/outdoor reception.
Attendees had the opportunity to explore demonstrations from the ARM Institute’s Robotics Manufacturing Hub throughout our building. The Robotics Manufacturing Hub helps manufacturers of all sizes implement robotics and AI solutions, better leverage unused or under-utilized robotics, and more. Services in the Robotics Manufacturing Hub are free for small and medium-sized manufacturers in the Southwestern Pennsylvania Region until around Sept. 2026.
Capability Demonstrations & Connections in the Member Showcase Hall
We had a record number of members opt to participate in our Member Showcase Hall where members purchased table space to demonstrate their capabilities! With all meals served in the Showcase Hall, there was ample engagement at the member tables; Mr. Michael Holthe also made the time to stop and speak with members in the Showcase Hall.
Email [email protected] to learn more about securing a space at our 2026 Showcase Hall.
2026 Annual Member Meeting & Drive Next Year’s Content
Save the date for our 10th Annual Member Meeting, scheduled to take place November 17-19 in Pittsburgh, PA! Not yet a member? Explore membership here or contact us at [email protected].
As a reminder, recordings from our 2025 Member Meeting will be made available in the ARM Member Community later this year.
Plus, responses to our post-event Member Meeting surveys combined with responses to our Annual Member Survey and insights from our member-driven councils and committees directly drive the content we feature in our Annual Member Meeting. For example, this year, a resounding theme was AI for manufacturing. Take our post-event survey here to inform next year’s Member Meeting.
Want to provide more direct feedback or ideas? Email us at [email protected].
Thank You to Our Sponsors
Thank you to our sponsors for supporting this important event and, by doing so, helping to strengthen U.S. manufacturing!
Want to get a head start on securing your sponsorship for our 2026 Annual Member Meeting? Contact us at [email protected] to indicate your interest!
Platinum Members
Event Sponsors
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 consortium of 450+ 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, 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 X (formerly Twitter).