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Bringing the automotive industry together to discuss business issues, and consider the way forward at this crucial time is the triennial international plastics showcase (NPE2009). The event will see tens of thousands of professionals in one place, representing the entire plastics value chain and its related industries. The show, produced by the Society of the Plastics Industry (SPI) will be held at Chicago's McCormick Place between June 22 and June 26.
Founded in 1937, SPI is the plastics industry trade association representing the third largest manufacturing industry in the United States. SPI's member companies represent the entire plastics industry supply chain, including processors, machinery and equipment manufacturers and raw materials suppliers. The U.S. plastics industry employs 1 .1 million workers and provides nearly US $374 billion in annual shipments
NPE2009 will include seven other conferences, one of which is an SPI-organized educational program called "The Business of Plastics." The program comprises 90 presentations that address marketing, human capital management, finance, environmental issues, regulation, global economic trends, and other matters of strategic importance to business management.
In addition there will be a number of co-located events produced by other organizations. One is the Society of Plastics Engineers' ANTEC 2009, the world's largest plastics technical conference, and another is Gardner Publications' MoldMaking Expo. 2009 show and conference. The inaugural Time Compression Expo (TCE) will also be taking place. It is targeted at rapid product development industry professionals to educate them about established and emerging processes and technologies in the areas of design, software, prototyping, tooling and direct manufacturing to help reduce time to market.
Still another co-located event at NPE2009 will be Coatings for Plastics, a conference produced by the Federation of Societies for Coatings Technology (FSCT) for professionals who specify and use coatings on plastics, as well as coating manufacturers and raw material suppliers. Also co-located with NPE2009 will be...