This post was originally published on LinkedIn.

The first Specification Management Summit is in the books!

After taking some time to reflect on the event and all the presentations from so many amazing speakers, I wanted to share my top three takeaways.

Specification Management Has Reached the C-Suite

I’ve been talking about the importance of managing specification data for years.

But typically, my excitement and passion for specs was shared by people on the front lines of manufacturing – people like packaging professionals and suppliers.

The Specification Management Summit marked the first time I heard multiple C-Suite executives talk about the importance of managing specifications as the foundation for running their businesses.

Kris Corbin, the Co-Founder and Chief Supply Chain Officer of Bright Future Foods, a wholly owned subsidiary of Post Holdings, spoke about why spec data is the foundation for developing sustainable products from not just day one, but time zero.

Tony Costa, the CIO of Bumble Bee Foods, one of the largest seafood producers in North America, talked about why data is the new corporate currency and how they’re using Specright to manage granular specification data to drive innovation.

We also heard from Prashant Jagtap, CEO of TRAYAK, and Reet Randhawa, President of TOPS Software, talk about how their integrations with Specright put spec data to use. Which brings me to my next takeaway: the technology and partnership ecosystem around Specification Management is growing.

There is a Strong Ecosystem and Community Around Specification Management

Specification Management is about helping companies digitize and manage their data so they can take action with it – and that means building a strong ecosystem and community to put data to use.

With TOPs, packaging professionals can instantly push spec data from their Specification Management software to TOPS quickly and more accurately design pallets and load optimization.

With Trayaks’ COMPASS Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tool, product and packaging professionals can instantly push spec data to run an LCA or understand the sustainability footprint of packaging and products during the development phase.

We also had over thirty partners from consulting firms and technology partners in attendance.

And, we officially launched Spec Squad as a service to help companies onboard and digitize data. Eric Norman, Partner at Dazmii and the manager of Spec Squad, talked about how companies can scale their resources using outside partners.

Sustainability Starts with Specs

If there was one statistic that stuck with me, it was this: Gartner, the leading technology research firm, predicts that 90% of public sustainable packaging commitments won’t be met by 2025.

Why? Because many companies aren’t managing the data needed to accurately benchmark, report and take action on sustainability when it comes to products and especially packaging.

Gartner Analyst John Blake talked about Extended Product Responsibility (EPR) commitments in Europe that are making this increasingly difficult and complex for companies to keep up with.

The Future of Specification Management is Bright

I know – I said I would talk about three takeaways, but one of my biggest is this: the future of Specification Management is bright.

I truly believe specification management is a problem that needs to be solved so that companies and people can spend less time chasing data and more time making amazing things.

And at Specright, we can’t do it alone – it’s going to take a community coming together of technologies, industrialists, academia, and partners.

Hearing from so many leaders across these areas inspires me to keep going and I’m excited to see where we go next as a community.

One Last Thing: Save the Date for the 2023 Specification Management Summit

We’re going to announce next year’s location shortly – but for now, be sure to save January 18-20, 2023 in your calendars.

Every year we aim to make the event 10 times better than the previous, and next year will be no exception!