Digital Catapult and The Manufacturer are pleased to announce the Hack & Pitch will make its Smart Factory Expo debut, designed to inspire and challenge small and medium size businesses to create disruption through innovation.
Digital Catapult’s Hack & Pitch competition offers an opportunity for larger manufacturing companies to engage directly with exciting new enterprises developing cutting-edge solutions around smart factories.
The Liverpool-based event combines the best of a hackathon and a pitching event, and strives to help large manufacturing companies change their processes to become more efficient, productive and smarter.
Successful applicants will be able to meet and collaborate with manufacturing and technology experts to solve carefully crafted challenges set by three industry giants: BOC, Thales and RS Components.
Companies will be asked to ‘Hack’ together proposals to address these challenges, before making their ‘Pitch’ to decision-makers at Smart Factory Expo.
The challenges
Thales – ‘Manufacturing site surveys to asset data’
Large industrial sites regularly identify multiple asset types, including machinery, stock, vehicles and other property or equipment. Identifying assets can be a time-consuming process, hence automation has the potential to bring significant benefits.
Thales are interested in co-developing an intelligent solution to overlay metadata, relating to assets, over survey images to enable manufacturers to make better informed decision around their sites.
BOC – ‘Use of sensors for machine monitoring’
BOC’s team monitor a diverse range of machinery used in the gas production process. While most BOC plants are monitored through a Remote Operating Centre, many of the machines have limited sensors or gauges. For those that don’t, the inspection process is manual without real-time visibility of variables such as vibrations, temperatures and pressures.
BOC would like to more effectively track their machines, especially compressors, to be able to respond promptly to alerting signs and ultimately avoid failures.
RS Components – ‘Image recognition technologies for component identification’
RS Components has over 500,000 products, sold to diverse companies. Replacing any of these parts is currently a manual process. The company wants to offer a solution to their customers by exploring image recognition technologies that can enable faster identification of products and integrate them with available inventory.
Additionally, RS Components is interested to hear about machine learning techniques and tools that can increase the accuracy of image recognition.
Why should you get involved?
- Access challenge owners from leading manufacturers
- Promotion in online, on the day and post event marketing and communications
- Expert feedback on your solutions
- Network in an exclusive environment
- Opportunity to submit proposals
- Innovation thought leadership
What to expect at the event:
- Day One – Participants will spend time understanding the challenges from the challenge owners and afforded time to develop proposals
- Day Two – Participants pitch their proposals to decision-makers and judges
- Following the Smart Factory Expo, proposals will be captured and circulated to participating supporters for review
Next steps:
Download the knowledge pack here and submit your application to register before 13 October.
The UK’s biggest digital manufacturing show!
Liverpool and the North West’s advanced manufacturing is in the spotlight as the region plays host to 4,000 manufacturers from across the country.
Smart Factory Expo – organised by The Manufacturer – coincides with the government’s much-anticipated Industrial Strategy and Industrial Digitalisation Review, and this year features:
- More than 100 Exhibitors – including: Autodesk, Cisco, Dell EMC, IBM, Innovate UK, Oracle Netsuite, Rockwell Automation, and Siemens
- Dedicated Exhibition Zones – Industrial Automation, Digital Transformation, Smart Factories, and Industrial Internet
- Free Conference Content – 90 presentations over both days from world-class manufacturers and technology experts
- Practical Workshops – curated by the University of Cambridge’s Institute for Manufacturing, with case studies from BAE Systems, Caterpillar, Rolls-Royce and more
- Innovation Alley – lifting the lid on the UK’s manufacturing high-tech start-up scene