Creating value closer to the point of demand in time and space is a path to winning in business today, Kaihan Krippendorff, founder of Outthinker, said in his keynote “The Proximity Revolution: Competition, Collaboration, and Creation in the Age of Intelligent Manufacturing,” at The MFG Meeting 2026 in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.
Winning in the proximity revolution requires a mix of pragmatic habit-building and creative, big-picture thinking. Execution is table stakes: companies that don’t improve their business and grow their customer base will fall behind their competitors at home and abroad. Advantage comes from rethinking how value is created and delivered.
“Incumbents remain good at doing things that don’t matter anymore,” said Krippendorff. What sort of things don’t matter anymore? Drafting NBA players for their height even after the three-point shot redefined basketball strategy, the forward-facing high-jump technique after the “Fosbury flop” changed track-and-field games, and sit-down restaurant chains after Ray Kroc revolutionized the industry with McDonald’s fast-food drive-thrus, he rattled off. In each case, said Krippendorff, the “incumbent doesn’t have to lose.” Rather, everyone who wants to win is obligated to find fresh ways of thinking.
“What we want to do,” he said, “is recognize where others have stopped thinking.” In many cases, that means staying with the problem longer, as Albert Einstein famously put it. These days, that often means plugging into an ecosystem instead of being a link in a chain. Driving proximity toward zero will result in seeing opportunities to thrive in new, untapped areas.
Moving from thinking to “outthinking” is not a matter of workshops or executive retreats, according to Krippendorff. Rather, it is a matter of building good systems and revisiting them until they are habits. He suggested a modern take on the Eisenhower Box to routinely cull low-impact activities. His “9P” framework is another system that he sees top strategists using to make innovation a habit: positioning, product, pricing, placement, promotion, physical experience, processes, people, and purpose. Most of all, he advocates for productive imagination.
Starting from the status quo often leads to unproductive strategies and diminishing returns. Instead, start from a plausible big idea for the future state. When Ray Kroc transformed McDonald’s, he wasn’t just thinking about hamburgers. He was anticipating a future shaped by more people living in the suburbs and driving cars. Manufacturers may imagine a plausible future where additive manufacturing is pervasive, and IT systems, workers, and equipment are more reliably connected. Envisioning a future state requires outthinking, but it provides a framework that grounds today’s decisions and guides tomorrow’s direction.
Krippendorff also emphasized the discomfort required to move from thinking to outthinking. Innovators invariably face ridicule and disbelief before their ideas are triumphant, and what’s considered conventional wisdom today was usually pilloried when new – or worse, ignored entirely. Companies shouldn’t shy away from the discomfort, though. In reality, it is often a sign that they are on the right track and moving from a crowded field to new, open spaces in the market.
Krippendorff sees a not-too-distant future where proximity approaches zero. That means companies providing value closer to the point of demand will need new business models and organizational structures. It doesn’t require brand-new thinking to take advantage of it. But it does require good habits and the type of creative, innovative thinking that has always powered America’s thriving manufacturing technology industry.
Stay informed on executive insights for manufacturing leaders, by subscribing to AMT Now, reaching out to AMT’s research team, attending MTForecast, October 14-16, in Schaumburg, Ill., and saving the date for The MFG Meeting 2027, which will be held April 13-15 in Maui, Hawaii.
