Angel Mendez, senior vice president of value chain management for Cisco, began today's opening keynote session by contrasting the factory of 1915 (large, local and monolithic, with near-shore supply chains) with the factory of today: global, specialized, distributed and off-shore.

"What will people be talking about 95 years from now?" Mendez posed. "How will they be dealing with the risks and opportunities this profession represents?"

For his part,...