People, product and process innovation more important than ever for greater flexibility.
“Agile skill sets, and mentality are hugely important for successful innovators, building successful innovation teams.”
The words of one of many expert contributors to Manufacturing Innovation Summit (20th June, Liverpool). Vassilis Valsamakis, Director – Global Innovation Programmes at Ball Corp, a $9bn+ t/o packaging and container manufacturer.
Manufacturing has lived through three paradigm shifts; steam engines, the use of production lines through to the advent of personal computing and the internet. These advancements fundamentally changed the way products were built maintained and sold.
We are now living through a fourth wave of disruption. Hyper connectivity coupled with the ability to capture, store and analyse data is allowing manufacturing businesses to tap into huge efficiencies in their people, products and processes, the three areas of focus of the upcoming Manufacturing Innovation Summit.
Disruptive technology most effective when married with lean…
It is obvious that flexible processes coupled with inspired people are essential ingredients for a future proof manufacturing business. Greg Denton, Production Group Lead at BMW MINI at sites that produce a new car every 67 seconds builds further by citing the importance of using our understanding of traditional lean principles to maximise and fast track ROI on novel technologies/hardware found in a modern factory, “Understanding how to make the most and effectively deploy disruptive technology must be married with our knowledge of lean. It is dangerous to think that new tech will require us to forget all we know about process innovation.”
Understanding exactly how businesses deal with the practical challenges of monetising innovation is front of mind for many including Peter Carew, Director of Research and Development at Unilever, one of the largest FMCG manufacturers in the world,
“I am particularly excited to learn how manufacturers are managing project portfolios for technically complex projects.”
The above executives are among the speakers at the Manufacturing Innovation Summit, being held in Liverpool on 20th June – the largest gathering of manufacturing leaders responsible for driving innovation.
Manufacturing Innovation Summit
When: 20 June 2018
Where: Exhibition Centre Liverpool, co-located with The International Business Festival
If you are interested in joining your peers for these conversations, you can see the full line up of speakers and discussion topics in the conference agenda which you can download by clicking the link below:
DOWNLOAD NEW CONFERENCE BROCHURE
