Automation and AI in the Supply Chain

This October Lunch & Learn will focus on how organizations are actually using technology today—and how leaders are staying informed enough to make smart, grounded decisions about what to adopt next. Speaking from the production floor of a print-on-demand book manufacturer, Jonathan Jacobsen will share how AI and automation are being put to work in a real book-manufacturing operation—from building custom tools and internal knowledge bases to running the business more holistically.

This session will explore practical applications such as:

• Where automation is already improving efficiency in supply chain and manufacturing workflows

• How organizations are building their own tools and knowledge bases to run their businesses

• Emerging uses of generative AI to support planning, exception handling, and coordination

• How to evaluate whether AI tools truly add value in a supply chain context

Designed as an interactive conversation, this Lunch & Learn will surface real-world examples, lessons learned, and open questions, helping participants distinguish between useful tools and unnecessary complexity. As with all BISG Supply Chain Lunch & Learns, the session will be participatory, with time for questions, shared experiences, and peer discussion.

Who Should Attend

This session is for anyone trying to move from AI curiosity to AI decisions, including:

• Operations and production leaders—supply chain managers, production directors, manufacturing and print operations staff—weighing where automation pays off in their workflows

• Executives and decision-makers—COOs, VPs of operations, publishers, and general managers—who need to stay grounded enough to greenlight (or hold off on) the right tools

• Publishers weighing print-on-demand and inventory decisions—anyone thinking about how to print to demand, cut overproduction, and reduce warehousing

• Service providers and industry partners—printers, binderies, distributors, and technology vendors—building or buying AI capabilities and wanting a real-world benchmark

• Anyone evaluating AI without a technical background—project managers, editors, and program leads asked to weigh in on tools they didn't build

Come whether you're all in, all out, or somewhere in between. You don't need a technical background—just an interest in what's working and why.

About the Speaker

JONATHAN JACOBSEN is CEO of Bridgeport National Bindery, a book manufacturer founded in 1947, where nearly thirty years on the inside give him a view that runs from the print floor to the market. His experience intersects manufacturing, distribution, publishing, and AI. A lean-manufacturing practitioner, he is as focused on keeping the human element in the work as on efficiency itself, and on never adding to the eighth waste, the waste of unused human talent. He is also CEO of Silver Street Media and a director of the Book Manufacturers' Institute. His current focus is what artificial intelligence means for publishing: that publishers should adopt AI on their own terms, model-agnostic and owning their own context. He writes about it in his Meridians column on Substack.

About the Supply Chain Lunch & Learn Series

BISG's Supply Chain Lunch & Learns are always highly interactive, so you'll have a chance to contribute at the session. If you have any specific questions you'd like us to cover in this Lunch & Learn, you may send them in advance to info@bisg.org or simply add them to the chat during the session.

To allow participants to speak—and not just type questions—these sessions are conducted in a Zoom meeting (rather than webinar) format. Please take a moment to ensure that your microphone is muted until you'd like to contribute. While we encourage you to attend the live session, the conversation will be recorded and shared with registrants after the session takes place.