By Chris Monchinski
Last Wednesday, I had the opportunity to represent MESA International at MD&M West, participating in the conference’s Shop Talk program. Unlike a traditional presentation, Shop Talk is intentionally conversational—designed to foster one-on-one dialogue with industry practitioners. That format proved invaluable. Over the course of the day, I had a number of thoughtful discussions with medical device manufacturers, technology leaders, and engineering professionals. Many of these conversations centered on familiar challenges: fragmented digital initiatives, difficulty scaling analytics, and uncertainty around where to focus next. These discussions also created space to explain how the MESA Smart Manufacturing Model, paired with a data-centric architecture, can help organizations move beyond isolated projects and toward true, sustainable transformation.
A lifecycle view of MD&M West
One of the most striking aspects of MD&M West is the sheer diversity of perspectives represented across the entire product lifecycle. Walking the show floor, you encounter contract design firms shaping early product concepts, materials specialists innovating on polymers and composites, machine builders enabling advanced manufacturing techniques, and solution providers supporting production, quality, and supply chain operations.
This breadth reinforces an important reality: medical device manufacturing is no longer a linear handoff from design to production. It is an interconnected, multi-disciplinary lifecycle where decisions made early reverberate through production, quality, asset management, supply chain, and the workforce. That makes a common language—and a shared model—more important than ever.
Trend #1: Data is becoming its own discipline
One conversation in particular stood out. A digital leader from a medical device manufacturer described how her organization has established a dedicated data and analytics team, separate from both IT and OT. What made this especially interesting was the team’s composition: many members came from operations and manufacturing backgrounds, not traditional IT roles. Their charter was clear—enable the business to use data more effectively.
I see this as an important and growing trend. I’ve often said that “data needs a seat at the table.” If you picture a typical digital transformation planning meeting, you’ll usually find representatives from IT, Operations, Engineering, Quality, HR, and Finance. But who represents data itself?
Historically, everyone owns a piece of the data—and as a result, no one truly owns it. In more mature digital organizations, data is increasingly being treated as an independent, first-class discipline. It serves all other functions, enabling analytics, AI, optimization, and decision-making across the enterprise. This shift aligns directly with the MESA perspective that smart manufacturing depends on well-governed, contextualized, and accessible data across lifecycles.
Trend #2: Digital twins are moving from concept to capability
There was also no shortage of discussion around digital twins at MD&M West. Many vendors showcased impressive simulation and modeling capabilities. But what struck me most was not the technology itself—it was how manufacturers are organizing around it.
Several organizations now have formal simulation or modeling teams whose role is to work across design, engineering, marketing, operations, and even supply chain functions. These teams help ensure that digital simulation tools are used consistently and effectively throughout the product lifecycle.
Digital twins are no longer experimental or optional. They are becoming an integral, multi-stage process with clear, expected outcomes—supporting better design decisions, smoother scale-up, improved manufacturability, and more resilient supply chains. This evolution underscores the importance of lifecycle thinking: simulation data generated during design must inform production planning, asset selection, and ongoing optimization.
Closing thoughts
The conversations at MD&M West reinforced something MESA has long advocated: smart manufacturing is not about deploying more tools, but about connecting lifecycles through data, models, and shared understanding. Whether it’s elevating data as a strategic discipline or embedding digital twins across the product lifecycle, leading organizations are shifting from siloed initiatives to integrated operating models.
The Shop Talk format made these insights especially clear. When practitioners have space to talk candidly about what’s working—and what isn’t—you can see where the industry is truly heading. And increasingly, that direction points toward lifecycle convergence, data-centric architectures, and the kind of cross-functional alignment that the MESA Smart Manufacturing Model was designed to support.
