Professor Leon McGinnis spoke at the 2008 Defense Manufacturing Conference (DMC held in December. Based on the theme, "Defense Manufacturing: Are We Ready to Provide Affordable Warfighter Capabilities?*, the agenda was structured to bring together over 1000 leaders and technical specialists from government, industry and academia to exchange perspectives and information about the DOD Manufacturing Technology program, industrial base initiatives and related DOD transformation initiatives.

McGinnis's address focused on "transformation challenges in global collaborative/network centric manufacturing* and highlighted the R&D currently underway and in development at Georgia Tech. DMC is the major venue for manufacturing R&D information exchange in the defense manufacturing sector.

The 2008 Defense Manufacturing Conference was held at Disney's Coronado Springs Resort, Walt Disney World* Resort, Florida. It was held in collaboration with the Office of the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Advanced Systems and Concepts, the Military Departments, the Defense Logistics Agency, the Missile Defense Agency and the Joint Defense Manufacturing Technology Panel.