deployCamp reminds me of the exciting early days of Silicon Valley when developers would gather to exchange ideas and meet new people. Many ideas and companies sprang from that fertile soil. Company-sponsored user conferences are good–for those who use that company’s products. What we need in this industry is a venue for engineers to rekindle that enthusiasm for innovation. deployCamp looks like it will be that place. I hope to see you there.

Andy Robinson and Eliot Landrum announce deployCamp—a new mini-manufacturing-conference for manufacturing engineers that will be held May 19 & 20, 2015 in Raleigh, North Carolina.

“We’re both manufacturing engineers that have been in the automation / system integration business for a while. We work for different companies and in different industries. We both care deeply about building community across the industry, sharing knowledge, and advancing the overall state of technology for the automation field.”

Andy and Eliot began an Open Source effort: aaOpenSource. Now hosted on GitHub, aaOpenSource has multiple projects with thousands of lines of code that are freely available to anyone with an interest. aaOpenSource is all about sharing knowledge and developing time-saving tools for Wonderware System Platform. I wrote about the beginning of that project a few months ago.

They are taking the vision of community, sharing, and open source to the next step by launching a conference with the goal of bringing manufacturing engineers across the industry together for two intense days of technical content and networking. “We strongly believe that in order to advance the state of technology for everyone, we need to break down walls between companies and encourage an open, public community of knowledge sharing.”

There are a lot of existing conferences out there for manufacturing, so what makes this one different? First and foremost, it is user-led. “We’re just two engineers who want to get together with other engineers and talk shop.” Secondly, the event focuses on strong technical content without marketing overhead. “We want to geek out with fellow engineers, by learning from each other and leaders across the industry.” Finally, “We want to have a good time!” In addition to being hosted in a historic venue in downtown Raleigh, there will be local coffee, delicious food, and a craft beer tasting lined up along with a few other surprises.

This year’s conference is focused on the Wonderware System Platform, at future events we hope to expand to other ecosystems.

Check out the open Call for Speakers. Lining up sponsors marks the next phase of the project. Registration will be capped to 100 people.

Andy Robinson is the Principal of Phase 2 Automation, a consulting services company focused on Wonderware System Platform. Andy has been an automation professional for 15 years and is currently engaged in building a sterile filling facility in Taiwan. He IS the Archestranaut and has been actively blogging about Wonderware System Platform and associated tech since 2010. You can follow Andy on Twitter or GitHub.

Eliot Landrum is an MES Engineer/Analyst at Stone Technologies, Inc. and has been working in the manufacturing industry since 2004. He is actively involved with aaOpenSource and has contributed several complete projects to the community. He is a Wonderware certified developer and maintains certification on System Platform, Historian, InTouch, MES Operations, MES Performance, and MES Quality. You can follow Eliot on Twitter or GitHub.