Manufacturing Leaders’ Summit is the annual gathering of the industrial elite. Leaders, senior executives and decision-makers representing all industries across the manufacturing sector converge with thought leaders and industrial futurists for two days of knowledge-sharing, debate and discussion that shapes the industry for the coming 12 months.
Now in its 16th year, the award-winning summit is a catalyst for transformation, covering the topics most pertinent to manufacturing leaders alongside economic and market factors, operational challenges and organisation challenges.
This year’s event focused on practical solutions and industry-leading insights featuring the highest calibre of speakers, case studies and interactive sessions with polls, networking opportunities and deeper dives into the technologies shaping the future of the sector.
Leading digitalisation and sustainability goals from vision to reality
True success comes from rallying teams around a shared vision and turning ambitious goals into tangible realities. And concepts like ‘supply chain 4.0’, ‘digital manufacturing’, and ‘net zero’ shouldn’t stay confined to boardroom discussions or strategy documents. Beginning day two, Nigel Paine, Supply Chain Director at Britvic, shared how the company has transformed these buzzwords into real, actionable steps, empowering every role within the supply chain to make a difference and see the results of their efforts firsthand.
He commented: “When it comes to any sustainability journey it is important to just get going. There’s too many companies that do lots of research into what they might do if they ever start – whether it’s a sustainable journey or digital journey. If you spend too much time doing that, then the world just moves on. So I’d implore all manufacturers to just make a start.
“From a sustainability point of view, we use the 5 Rs. We reduce the materials that we’re using wherever we can, whether that’s electricity, gas, water or packaging. We reuse these as much as possible i.e., recapturing water and recycling packaging. We also rethink all our processes and ask how we can do things differently to take the company forward.
“One R that we use, which isn’t often on lists like these, is refuse, which is about refusing to accept the norm. Don’t just accept what has always been. The concept of ‘it’s just the way we do things around here’ has got to be challenged in many organisations.
“From a digital point of view, we broke Industry 4.0 down into a number of stepping stones, particularly ones that would be easy for us to quickly get going on. We knew that they’d give us an instant, quick return, where people who had invested money would have quick ROI. These were around measuring efficiency of lines, measuring the condition of our machines and energy monitoring.
“We put monitoring across all of our water and electricity, both on new products and machinery, which is easy. On legacy lines this is a bit more difficult, however, don’t let that be an excuse. You can always put mass balance in and then build from there. And recognise that this is a lot of new information for people, so we installed a digital learning management system.
“Importantly, we didn’t let IT run the programme. Instead, we put this into the production sites; the production site directors led the programmes and the teams built it. We made sure that the information isn’t kept in the boardroom. It’s on the shop floor for people to use and make a difference with.”
Panel discussion: Building operational resilience in manufacturing – the role of AI in navigating uncertainty
In today’s rapidly evolving manufacturing landscape, operational resilience is key to staying competitive amidst disruptions like supply chain shocks, labour shortages and fluctuating demand.
Day two’s morning panel session explored how AI-driven solutions are helping manufacturers enhance resilience by optimising processes, predicting disruptions and enabling faster decision-making. Industry leaders shared real-world examples of how AI has helped them strengthen their operations and adapt in the face of uncertainty.
Daniel Simkiss, Industry 4.0 Programme Lead, British Sugar: “Scalability of AI is going to be absolutely critical. It is where the intrinsic value sits. The primary driver has to be a focus on value instead of technology. Don’t try and scale generative AI, try and scale the solution to whatever your key manufacturing problems are.”
Ben Barker, Product Director, ServiceNow: “With AI, the word I always come to is scope. To set these things up for success and ultimately, scale – don’t boil the ocean. Really scope what you’re doing and set those variables. That’s a great approach, and what ultimately enables scaling.”
David Fearne, Global Head of Generative AI, Cognizant: “Organisations need to culturally adapt and transform to take advantage of AI. We could do a piece of work in six weeks, and it can take another six months to actually get buy-in from the business to adopt it.
“I don’t think manufacturing is in a bad place with AI. And one of the areas where the sector has been exceptional is in being able to use and apply AI, optimise processes and really understand and define them through the use of digital AI.
“And, don’t let IT’s obsession with the latest shiny thing lead your strategy. Lead it from the business unit and from the experts on the ground. All the best AI use cases come out of the experts; domain people who really understand how to slipstream AI into the process, how it’s going to be used and most importantly, where the value is.”
“There is no such thing as perfect data so don’t let that be the enemy of trying to push forward innovation. Generative AI doesn’t have the barrier of traditional machine learning in order to get started, achieve value and to start seeing some results that are tangible, explainable, transparent and can actually make meaningful difference to your organisation.”
Panel discussion: Workforce management and skill gaps
The afternoon’s panel session focused on the critical issue of workforce management and the growing skill gaps in the manufacturing sector. As technology advances, the demand for a highly skilled workforce has become more pressing than ever.
Panelists explored strategies for attracting and retaining talent, as well as effective approaches to reskilling and upskilling the existing workforce. The discussion addressed how manufacturers can adapt to these challenges, ensuring that their teams are equipped to meet the demands of modern manufacturing and drive future growth.
Gil Woodward, ITW Fluids, Director of Operations: “We need to let them know the myriads of possibilities available to the in the sector.
“Right now, the gap in skills within the sector lies in data literacy and mathematics. I often find statistical flaws in the methods people chosen to use and I would love to see an improvement in our general data literacy. It is a wonderful enabler of changing businesses for the future.”
Kelly Whitlock, JLR, Manufacturing Production Specialist: “When I was at school it never occurred to me that I could have a career in STEM. We need to showcase our business, showing them, what roles are available. It will help grow a new and diverse workforce.
“As a STEM ambassador, I have noticed that it can be very linear. It is often focused on becoming an ‘engineer’. I’m not an engineer, I am a trained midwife, but I am now within the manufacturing sector. We need to make sure we are advertising all the roles.”
It is no surprise that young people today take their influence and inspiration from social media. The audience quizzed the panel on how the manufacturing industry can utilise these platforms to generate curiosity into STEM careers.
Paul Knight, Turntide Technologies, VP, IT & CISO: “It’s all about making it relevant. Ask them to design a new social media advert, work at the level of their understanding to get them engaged.”
Kelly Whitlock: “We need to be making use of the young people within the business, they know what is appealing and relevant to people of their own age. They know where the inspiration for a career comes from and will ultimately be the drivers of this.”
Once the skills gap is filled with young people, how do we get them to stay? Often young people move onto work with solution providers or into other industries.
Kelly Whitlock: ‘Once we have young people in the business, we need to continue to encourage their growth through training and opportunities.”
Paul Knight: “We need to do some research; we need to find out what the ongoing issues and reasons are for people leaving. Is it one specific arm of manufacturing? Is it money? Is it leadership? Once we know those answers, we can tackle the problem.”
Leveraging responsible AI to drive innovation and build trust
In the afternoon’s first keynote, Toju Duke, Founder and CEO of Diverse AI explored the evolving role of AI in manufacturing emphasising the importance of responsible AI adoption.
She explained how AI can revolutionise operations, improve efficiency and drive innovation while also facing ethical, operational and societal challenges. The session introduced a responsible AI framework, offering actionable strategies to mitigate risks, ensure transparency, and foster trust in AI-driven solutions, helping leaders balance progress with responsibility.
She said: “Within manufacturing AI is being used for predictive maintenance, customer service, supply chain, demand and inventory forecasting as well cobots. AI is being used in so many different and innovative ways within the manufacturing space.
“However, there are many issues and challenges associated with AI that people need to be aware of, especially if organisations are deploying or deploying it. These range from social inequities, to data leakages to energy consumption.
“AI is great. It’s a great technology and it’s here to stay. It’s meant to be a beneficial tool for businesses and drive productivity and efficiency. However, there’s so many risks right now with AI that we need to be aware of and we need to be responsible and making sure that we have mitigation strategies in place.”
End-to-end sustainability solutions
The summit’s final keynote saw Kevin Kelly, Director at VenDigital discuss sustainable transformation shifts and new business growth areas in manufacturing such as electric vehicle manufacturing, hydrogen supply chain and digitisation.
He also looked at the sector-wide challenges facing manufacturing, such as rules of origins, manufacturing excellence, cost optimisation, and how to create actionable solutions for a sustainable future.
“Manufacturing is combination of multiple parts across supply chain, engineering design, customer profiles and product requirements, and sustainability is an over-wrapping package within that.
“End-to-end sustainability it’s not a singular point of perspective. It’s about implementing a process, an approach, a roadmap and a pathway. When we want to make any change in business and manufacturing it should be a process and we need to have a strategy for that.
“Sustainability is not an individual topic. It’s as much of an importance to the next generation of the manufacturing industry and engineers as AI or digitalisation.”
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