HERNDON, Va. (August 26, 2008) — A two-day summit organized by the International Electronics Manufacturing Initiative (iNEMI) will focus the attention of the electronics supply chain on the challenges of creating a more sustainable industry.  The goal of this summit, scheduled for September 22-23 in Schaumburg, Illinois, is to define specific actions for the electronics industry and to organize programs to execute these actions.

“We will look at the electronics manufacturing sector from a lifecycle point of view — from product design through end of life,” says Jim McElroy, CEO of iNEMI.  “How can products be designed to minimize their impact through the lifecycle?  How much energy is consumed to produce the product and, more importantly, how much will be consumed over the life of the product?  How difficult will the product be to deal with at end of life?  We will take a systems view across the supply chain to identify where there are major gaps – and where we think we can make a difference.”

Mark Brillhart, Vice President of Manufacturing Operations for Global Supply Chain Management at Cisco, will help kick off the first day of the summit.  Brillhart, a widely published author and speaker on process and materials engineering, will address how collaboration can serve as a catalyst for sustainability innovations.  He’ll share best practices and actionable advice for driving meaningful change through collaboration inside the organization, with supply chain partners, and across the industry.

Brillhart leads a global operation responsible for ensuring supply chain excellence, including assembly, material planning, logistics and transportation, as well as manufacturing engineering and protective packaging.  His team of approximately 600 employees work in two dozen manufacturing and logistics sites around the world and are responsible for manufacturing and shipping more than 250 Cisco product lines, representing more than 120 surface mount lines, to distributors, retailers and customers.

He joined Cisco in 1999, first as a technical lead and then as manager of the Interconnect Reliability and Electronic Packaging teams.  He has also served as Director of Hardware Reliability, Senior Director of Component Quality and Technology, and Vice President of Manufacturing Operations Engineering.  In addition to his current responsibilities, Brillhart sits on Cisco’s Federal Business Council and is a member of IEEE’s CPMT Society.  Prior to Cisco, he held a variety of engineering and technical lead positions at HP, as well as research and development positions in the medical products industry.

Brillhart has Bachelors and Masters degrees in Civil Engineering from the University of Illinois, along with a Masters in Polymers from MIT where he was the recipient of the NASA Graduate Research Award and a Department Graduate Fellowship Award. Brillhart has also earned 10 US patents, primarily in the fields of surgical devices and assembly processes.

Brad Allenby of Arizona State University is the featured speaker at the summit banquet, scheduled for the evening of September 22. Allenby has published extensively on the many aspects of industry and ecology and is a frequent speaker at industry events. His topic for the iNEMI summit — “Journey to a Sustainable World” — will look at the challenges and opportunities presented by the design and management of emerging technologies in a rapidly shifting social, cultural, environmental, and economic landscape.

“Most of the time, we appropriately focus on the details of the task presented to us,” Allenby notes, “but every now and then it's a good idea to take a look at the context within which we're operating, especially given the accelerating rate of change of technology, natural systems, and social considerations. In fact, some scientists are now claiming that we are entering the Anthropocene, the Age of Humans. That has a lot of implications for us as technologists, which we ignore at our peril.”

Allenby is Lincoln Professor of Engineering and Ethics, and is also Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and of Law at Arizona State. He was previously Vice President of Environment, Health and Safety for AT&T. During his 20 years with AT&T, he also served for two years as Director of Energy and Environmental Systems at Lawrence Livermore National Labs and taught as an adjunct professor at Yale University’s School of Forestry, Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, Princeton Theological Seminary, and the University of Virginia’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

Allenby’s principal areas of research and teaching include: design for environment, earth systems engineering and management, industrial ecology, NBIC (nanotechnology, biotechnology, information and communication technology, and cognitive sciences) convergence and technological evolution. Publications include:  Reconstructing Earth (2005); Industrial Ecology, 2nd ed. (2004, co-authored with T.E. Graedel); and Industrial Ecology: Policy Framework and Implementation (1999).

He holds a BA from Yale University, a J. D. from the University of Virginia Law School, a Masters in Economics from the University of Virginia, plus a Masters and Ph.D. in Environmental Sciences from Rutgers.

In addition to Brillhart and Allenby, the summit will feature speakers from industry, associations and university research programs on topics that cover the full spectrum of the supply chain.  The agenda has been structured to include several open discussions and brainstorming sessions, all organized around a series of panel discussions (see agenda highlights, next page).

Panel/Topic	Session Chair
Leading change in industry	Nasser Grayeli, Vice President, Technology & Manufacturing Group, Intel Corporation
Proactive programs to develop  alternative materials	Mike Toben, Director, Global R&D, Rohm & Haas
Reducing energy while increasing     performance	Marc Benowitz, Director and Corporate CTO, Alcatel-Lucent
Design for the environment	Bob Pfahl, Vice President of Global Operations, iNEMI
Reuse, recyling and end of life	Alan Rae, Vice President of Innovations, NanoDynamics, Inc.
Sustainability	Carol Handwerker, Professor of Materials Engineering, Purdue University

Registration Information
The summit will be held at Motorola’s Galvin Center in Schaumburg, Ill.  Registration is free for iNEMI members, $250 for non-members. For additional details and to register, go to http://www.inemi.org/cms/calendar/Sustainability_Summit_Sept08.html

About iNEMI
The International Electronics Manufacturing Initiative’s mission is to identify and close technology gaps, which includes the development and integration of the electronics industry supply infrastructure.  This industry-led consortium is made up of more than 65 manufacturers, suppliers, industry associations and consortia, government agencies and universities.  iNEMI roadmaps the needs of the electronics industry, identifies gaps in the technology infrastructure, establishes implementation projects to eliminate these gaps (both business and technical), and stimulates standards activities to speed the introduction of new technologies.  The consortium also works with government agencies, universities and other funding agencies to set priorities for future industry needs and R&D initiatives.  iNEMI is based in Herndon, Virginia (near Washington, D.C.), with regional offices in Shanghai, China and Limerick, Ireland.  For additional information about iNEMI, visit http://www.inemi.org.

For further information, contact:
Cynthia Williams, iNEMI
+1 207-871-1260
cwilliams@inemi.org