Essent® President & CEO Eric Alessi joined two Top 10 Distributors and a Top 10 Supplier to inform a record crowd at the 2015 PPAI Technology Summit about the power of integration for the promotional products industry.

Irwin Goldstein, Senior Vice President of Operations at Halo Branded Solutions; Dale Denham, Chief Information Officer at Geiger; and Eric Shonebarger, Chief Information Officer at Hit Promotional Products, joined Mr. Alessi in a panel discussion moderated by PPAI Technology Committee Chairman Jon Norris.

Among topics covered were integrated order status updates via ePSA standards, email, and web, as well integrated order entry and product data.

The 2015 PPAI Technology Summit was August 11 and 12 at the Omni Nashville Hotel. Sponsored by Essent, it drew more than 90 industry professionals, record attendance for the event.

Mr. Alessi highlighted the powerful ways that promotional products companies can leverage integration to remove supply chain friction and save significant costs for individual companies and the industry as a whole.

Essent integration and product configuration technologies generate orders so accurate that they can be processed by computers without a human ever having to look at them, an innovation that was described as "The Holy Grail" at the 2014 PPAI Technology Summit.

Mr. Alessi also discussed the need to reduce supply chain friction earlier in 2015 when he was named to the PPAI Technology Committee.