How do you summarise the takeaways from 186 interactive roundtable discussions, more than a dozen keynote talks, two panel discussions and countless conversations at the coffee station? Here are my own highlights from the two days.
“Tomorrow’s most successful and sustainable companies will be those that empower their people to do work and build innovation with the best knowledge and know-how.
“Capturing knowledge and know-how from today’s workforce provides the inspiration for future workers. It’s about connecting people, ideas and data inside and outside an organisation and having this know-how readily available on demand.”
John Kitchingman, managing director – EuroNorth for Dassault Systèmes
Click here to discover what it takes to deliver business sustainability
“Three global mega-trends are driving a paradigm shift in the shape of global value chains, from raw material extraction to manufacture and final distribution: Emerging Technologies, Environmental Sustainability and Globalisation Reconfigured.
“These trends will shift where value is created across the value chain, how trade will be distributed across geographies, and what the relative importance of structural factors will be.”
Nigel Pekenc, director – manufacturing centre of excellence at A.T. Kearney
Click here to discover what will happen to the role of production when these mega-trends restructure how global value chains have historically been built
“Manufacturers need to become ambidextrous, capable of both EXPLORATION (flexible ways of working, capable of taking risks and willing to wait for a return on investment), and EXPLOITATION (creating and deploying efficient, repeatable processes in order to fulfil orders on-time and in full).
“An ambidextrous organisation operates with two independent teams with very different characteristics, with different types of people shared between both teams. You need to have a focus on both incremental innovation and radical innovation.”
Professor Tim Minshall, Head of the Institute for Manufacturing (IfM), University of Cambridge
Click here to discover how to join the dots for a more prosperous future
“To take full advantage of AI, companies are undergoing a cultural transformation that requires strong, committed leaders and engaged workers who are involved in decisions-making and implementation at every level of the process.
“Companies seeing the greatest gains from AI today are those that are embracing change and eliminating the barriers between information systems and people; they create seamless information supply chains that utilises their entire digital estate. Removing these barriers is just as much about corporate culture as it is about technology implementation.”
Chris Harries, WW Manufacturing Industry Solutions Director, Microsoft
Click here to discover how we can realise the promise of Artificial Intelligence
“What could your business achieve in five hours? Yorkshire-based SME, Stage One, managed to take a fundamental product in their portfolio and completely redesign and engineer it to make it lighter and more cost effective, yet retain the same strength and safety factor.”
Asif Moghal, Senior Industry Manager – Design & Manufacturing, Autodesk
Click here to discover how to set the stage for digital success
“Digital technologies offer enterprises unrivalled opportunities to work smarter, move closer to customers and innovate their way to success. The problem is that in many cases, these are isolated initiatives, often undertaken in response to narrowly defined issues and existing apart from any comprehensive digital strategy.
“Such piecemeal initiatives only scratch the surface and offer little or no value to enterprises. To become a truly digital enterprise, manufacturers adopt a more joined up approach, going beyond incremental digital projects to fundamentally reinventing the business model, the capabilities and the organisation in its entirety.”
Ralf Schulze, Associate VP & EMEA Leader, IoT WoRKS Business Innovation Group, HCL Technologies
Click here to discover how to scale up for the digital economy
Five reasons to move to Cloud:
1. Increased visibility on enterprise performance
2. Analytics potential
3. Replicate best-in-class across all sites
4. Cost reduction
5. Security
Matthew Wells, VP Digital Product Management, GE Digital
Click here to discover where to focus your next digital initiative
“Your ability to cope with subsequent changes becomes exponentially more challenging if you don’t have the first wave. It’s not rocket science, but we’re not using it.”
Henrik Von Scheel, the originator of Industry 4.0
Click here to discover how to move beyond the hype of Industry 4.0
“The Fourth Industrial Revolution, which commentators say we are currently in the foothills of, has been triggered by digital technologies that will have a disruptive impact on companies‘ business models – particularly those within manufacturing.”
Brian Holliday, MD – Digital Industries, Siemens
Click here to discover how the UK’s Fourth Industrial Revolution is progressing
What should you expect from a logistics partner?
1. They need to implement a methodical and standard ways of working. This is critical in terms of measuring productivity and efficiency of what you are doing.
2. This leads to benchmarking your operations against peers.
3. In today’s digital age, visibility of your supply chain is key.
4. We also have a responsibility to the environment that we work and live in.
5. Lastly, the need to invest in your business and what your business objectives are.
“What does this mean for you and your business? It should create efficiencies in your manufacturing operation and allow you to increase output and improve your order to cash cycle.”
Mike Bristow, COO for Manufacturing Logistics, DHL
Click here to discover the great things that happen when logistics and tech collide
“The future operating environment will be contested, congested and complex. A Future Combat Air System (FCAS) will be need to be configurable to dominate the known and unknown demand of this operating environment.
“It must be scalable and co-operative, connected and interoperable, capable, flexible and upgradeable. It must be available and ready for mission success 24/7.”
Andrew Schofield – Manufacturing & Materials Technology Director, BAE Systems
