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METRIC 2009 Recap

 

On March 25-26, 2009, MIG hosted METRIC 2009 (www.memsmetric.com), our annual members-only meeting.  Despite restricted travel and tight budgets, MIG members flew into Pittsburgh to discuss the important topic of Growth Opportunities for MEMS. 

We sincerely thank everyone who was able to make the journey to Pittsburgh and contribute to a highly productive meeting.

Some of the key highlights of METRIC 2009 included:

  • Dr. Bill Hawkins, MEMS Lab Manager at GE Global Research, delivered an opening keynote on looking for product revenue in applications beyond the traditional, high-volume killer app.
  • A panel moderated by Ken Gabriel, Co-founder, Chairman & CTO at Akustica, discussed ways to succesfully navigate the downturn.  Important takeaways included being strategic in your actions, preparing for the eventual upturn, and taking advantage of opportunities that don't usually exist in a normal economy.
  • Attendees in the business track discussed how to keep innovating and providing value to customers, while working with smaller budgets and cutting costs strategically.
  • The technical track focused on reducing development and manufacturing costs, design of experiments and design for manufacturability, improving yields, leveraging existing processes and materials, and increasing knowledge and information-sharing.

 

Next steps

On May 14, 2009, Tina Lamers, Director of Marketing at Axept, will represent MIG and present the key findings of METRIC to the audience at the annual MEPTEC MEMS Symposium. More information on the MEPTEC MEMS Symposium, to be held at the Wyndham Hotel in San Jose, CA, can be found here.

All MIG members can now access the presentations and materials from METRIC on the MEMS Growth Portal. Here attendees will also find templates for creating trip reports that can be shared with colleagues within their respective companies.

For the complete findings of METRIC, MIG will release its Annual Industry Report: Focus on Growth Opportunities for MEMS in a Changing Economy as a member benefit in May.

Finally, the goal of METRIC is to provide MIG and the MEMS industry as a whole with concrete recommendations for solving common industry challenges. MIG will use the recommendations to set its agenda for the coming year and implement the most important of these action items.

Stay tuned!