MILWAUKEE _ Mary T. Bunzel, a global leader in strategic asset management for digital manufacturing, has been named executive director of the Connected Systems Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Bunzel comes to the position with more than 30 years of experience, most recently at Intel and IBM, where she managed global teams responsible for advancing the adoption of “industrial internet of things” technologies in the world’s largest manufacturing enterprises.
During her years at Intel, she gained expertise in how manufacturers were applying leading-edge technology tools to improve their processes. In this role, she began a 170-member manufacturing IIoT council for Intel and managed a portfolio of more than $100 million.
Bunzel served as IBM’s expert on enterprise asset management, advising on suites of products for the manufacturing industry and working with companies to implement best practices for maintenance and operations. Based on close interaction with some of the world’s largest automotive, pharmaceutical, food and beverage, heavy equipment, and industrial products industries, she is uniquely positioned to serve these industries through the Connected Systems Institute.
Her areas of specialty include both hard and soft skills, such as applying artificial intelligence to manufacturing, using machine vision to monitor quality, enabling culture evolution and executing methodologies such as Six Sigma.
As executive director of the Connected Systems Institute, Bunzel will partner with industry members to create the workforce of the future in manufacturing. Through the institute, UWM faculty and staff join forces with industry to build a real-world testbed on the campus that will drive collaborative research and provide hands-on education to students.
A Milwaukee native, Bunzel earned her bachelor’s degree in business administration at Marquette University and began her career at smaller software firms, supporting maintenance and operations teams at Wisconsin companies.
The author of more than 20 publications, Bunzel also was recognized by Smart Industry magazine as one of 22 influential women in manufacturing in 2018.
The CSI is a multidisciplinary, statewide collaboration among academia, industry and government headquartered at an 11,000-square-feet facility on the UWM campus. It aims to collaboratively develop models and products that tame the huge volume of data streaming on the IoT to extract specific information on-demand, providing tailored trends that can change the way companies’ make strategic decisions. Initial funding support has come from Microsoft, Rockwell Automation, the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., A.O. Smith, ANSYS, Eaton, PTC and WEC Energy Group Inc.
For more information, contact Mary Bunzel at mbunzel@uwm.edu. To learn more about the Connected Systems Institute go to https://uwm.edu/csi/.