Tuesday 27 April 2021

Thought Leadership event: Prof John McCall, RGU, on "Energy Transition: Transforming the North Sea Supply Chain"

Thought Leadership Event
Speaker: Prof John McCall, National Subsea Centre, Robert Gordon University
Title: Energy Transition: Transforming the North Sea Supply Chain

John McCall is the Professorial Lead in Predictive Data Analytics for the National Subsea Centre at Robert Gordon University. He has researched in machine learning, search and optimisation for 25 years, making novel contributions to a range of optimisation algorithms and predictive machine learning methods, including EDA, PSO, ACO and GA. He has 140+ peer-reviewed publications in books, international journals and conferences. These have received over 2200 citations with an h-index of 22.

John and his research team at RGU specialise in industrially-applied optimization and decision support, working with major international companies including BT, BP, EDF, CNOOC and Equinor as well as a diverse range of SMEs. Major application areas for this research are: vehicle logistics, fleet planning and transport systems modelling; predictive modelling and maintenance in energy systems; and decision support in industrial operations management. John and his team attract direct industrial funding as well as grants from UK and European research funding councils and technology centres.

John is a founding director of two companies: Celerum, which provides consultancy and general optimization software services; and PlanSea Solutions, which focuses on marine planning and logistics.

John has served as a member of the IEEE Evolutionary Computing Technical Committee, an Associate Editor of IEEE Computational Intelligence Magazine and the IEEE Systems, Man and Cybernetics Journal, and he is currently an Editorial Board member for the journal Complex And Intelligent Systems. He frequently organises workshops and special sessions at leading international conferences. Most recently, he chaired the Workshop on Evolutionary Computation for Permutation Problems (ECPERM) at GECCO 2020.

John has served on a number of industry advisory bodies including the OGTC Academic Panel, and the ScotlandIS - SDS Digital Skills Partnership Advisory Board. He chaired the Education Board of The Data Lab Technology Centre from 2014 – 2017.

Synopsis
The North Sea has, for decades, been a major basin for hydrocarbon exploration and production and still produces around 70MT of hydrocarbon per annum. However with the abundance of marine renewable energy resource and the emerging Blue Economy, the North Sea is now at the heart of the global transition to clean energy generation and a net zero carbon economy.

In this talk John explored how AI and data science can be applied to enable and accelerate this transition. The talk focused on research at Robert Gordon University over recent years to model the complex and fragmented North Sea supply chain, using real operations data. The work has resulted in optimisation algorithms and data science increasingly being embedded in daily operations along the supply chain to the point where £100Ms of efficiency savings are in sight alongside reductions in carbon emissions from operations of up to 40%. John also set this in the broader context of current drivers for transition to Net Zero in the North Sea and some related research and technology challenges.


Tuesday 20 April 2021

Virtual Conference: Smart Connected Manufacturing


#TFNetworkSummer21
 Another great virtual conference delivered to industry and academia!

Industries operating today may all be different but they face a common challenge as we head towards the 4th industrial evolution. 

In partnership with the newly launched nexGworx, we explored the challenges and technologies driving Industry 4.0, including Cyber Security, 5G, Internet of Things and AI that play their part in this amazing transformation.

Subscribe to the nexGworx newsletter for progress and activities.

Teaser


Over 3 days we had great quick fire presentations from Universities; Catapults; Composite Centres; County Councils and BT. The panel sessions created some very interesting discussions and we’re excited about future collaboration and engagement.

Discussions included the role of the Catapults; the role of Research & Development; training and connecting to employees; core features and attributes of 5G; the context of 5G and open network standards; where does culture come into Industry 4.0; the role of Government and involving supply chain partners; the benefits of Digital Twins; helping smaller companies scale up and adopt new technologies; communication & trust and Security….

Our thanks to Ste Ashton, Managing Director at nexGworx for sponsoring the event; Sam Turner, CTO HVMC; Paul Coles, Advalus and the Quatreus event production team.

Day 1 - Challenges and Opportunities

We'll explore both the opportunities and challenges. Will it lead to an increase in productivity driven by new capital investments and data driven insights? How do we make sure that with “connectivity” we don't encounter issues over security and cyber threats? What role does big data have to play to benefit the industry as a whole?

Please click on the speaker name for bio and presentation

Prof Tim Whitley, MD Applied Research and MD Adastral Park
Setting the scene for Smart Connected Manufacturing!

Katherine Bennett CBE, FRAeS, CEO HVMC
HVM Catapult: Their role and the importance of Smart Connected Manufacturing

Mark Stansfeld, Chair WM5G Board
5G the Driver for UK Productivity

Juergen Maier CBE, Chair of the Digital Catapult 
Made Smarter in support of Smart Connected Manufacturing

Jon France, Head of Industry Security, GSMA 
GSMA: The technology road map – from 4G to 5G and onto 6

Paul Ceely, Director of Technology Strategy at Digital Catapult
5G and OpenRan

Panel Discussion
Smart Connected Manufacturing – Q&A to the big questions
    ⇨ Smart Connected Manufacturing and the UK Productivity
    ⇨ Education and Skills 
    ⇨ Big Data – to share or not to share?

Panel chair
  • Rab Scott, Professor of Industrial Digitalisation. Head of Digital at the AMRC
Panellists
  • Sarah Walker, Director of BT’s Enterprise business in the Midlands and North of England
  • Oliver Swift, Manufacturing Engineering Team Leader at BAE Systems 
  • Steven Carter, Digital Manufacturing Integration Lead, Rolls-Royce


Day 2 - Real World Activities

Hear about real world activities in Smart Connected Manufacturing from the likes of the High Value Manufacturing clusters and its partners.

We'll debate questions such as how do we accelerate innovation out of the clusters and into the rest of UK manufacturing? What support do we need from government to make this acceleration of manufacturing innovation happen? What do we need manufacturing supply chain partners to be focussed on?

Please click on the speaker name for bio and presentation

Ste Ashton, Managing Director at nexGworx and Digital Infrastructure and Connectivity Manager at Worcestershire County Council
5G – So What? A Testbed's view on Industry 4.0 and the future with nexGworx

Prof Sam Turner, CTO HVMC
The HVMC and opportunities for UK Smart Connected Factories

Marc Funnell, Director of Digital Engineering at the National Composites Centre (NCC)
NCC - Transforming to a digital exemplar

Stephen Phipson CBE, CEO at MakeUK
How UK manufacturing can build a digital, global and green future

Rab Scott, Professor of Industrial Digitalisation. Head of Digital at the AMRC 
The 5G Factory of the Future

Dani Anderson, 5G Engineer, University of Strathclyde (recording TBC)
Software Defined Radio and Shared Spectrum for Industry 4.0

Panel Discussion
How can we accelerate innovation?
    ⇨ Accelerating innovation out of the clusters and into the rest of UK manufacturing
    ⇨ Government Support needed to make this acceleration of manufacturing innovation happen
     Manufacturing supply chain partners – Where does the focus need to be?

Panel chair
Panellists
  • Marc Funnell, Director of Digital Engineering at the National Composites Centre (NCC)
  • Ste Ashton, Managing Director at nexGworx and Digital Infrastructure and Connectivity Manager at Worcestershire County Council
  • Sam Turner, CTO of the HVMC
  • Stephen Phipson CBE, CEO at MakeUK
  • Dani Anderson, 5G Engineer, University of Strathclyde 


Day 3 - Down to the heart of Smart Connected Manufacturing

We'll take a more in-depth look at some of the research and challenges relating to Smart Connected Manufacturing; explore issues around security and trust and also look at example business cases for Smart Connected Manufacturing with a view on SMEs.

John Davies, Chief Researcher at BT; Visiting Professor at The Open University
Data: The oil for smart manufacturing

Steven Carter, Digital Manufacturing Integration Lead, Rolls-Royce
Smart Factories: Taking advantage of telecommunication infrastructure advancements

Simon Pearson, Founding Director of LIAT at The University of Lincoln
Robot Highways

Duncan McFarlane, Professor of Industrial Information Engineering at the University of Cambridge
Low Cost Digital Solutions for SMEs - Digital Manufacturing on a Shoestring

Andy Corston-Petrie, Core Networks & Systems Research at BT
5G Futures

Carsten Maple, Professor of Cyber Systems Engineering in WMG
The Role of Trust in Unlocking the Potential of Industry 4.0

Dan Brooks, Strategy Lead for Digital Manufacturing at NPL
Confidence in data to support the adoption of Industrial Digital Technologies

Ian Bouquet-Taylor, Operations Director of AE Aerospace
Digitising the SME - A private 5G network to drive quality and efficiency

Stephen Douglas, Head of 5G Strategy, Spirent Communications
Accelerating 5G With the Network Digital Twin

Mehdi Daoudi, CRO at VRtuoso
Up-skill & Re-skill workforce with Virtual Reality

Mohammad Zoualfaghari, IoT Architect & Technical Lead at BT
Value-Added Services for Industry 4.0 (VASI4)

Gary Bruce, Research Manager and Ecosystems Architect, BT Applied Research
Digital Business Marketplace - Partner Ecosystems for the Industry 4.0 age!

Panel Discussion
"Testbed as a Service" and building a business case
     Where do you start in order to build a case?
    ⇨ What is the role of Testbed As a Service capability? 
    ⇨ What are the key elements of a strong business case?

Panel chair
Panellists
  • Ste Ashton, Managing Director at nexGworx and Digital Infrastructure and Connectivity Manager at Worcestershire County Council
  • Ian Bouquet-Taylor, Operations Director of AE Aerospace
  • Stephen Douglas, Head of 5G Strategy, Spirent Communications
  • Duncan McFarlane, Professor of Industrial Information Engineering at the University of Cambridge
  • Geraldina Iraheta, Chief Commercial Officer at Digital Catapult


Meet our conference sponsor

5G and beyond!
Our journey started in 2016 when Worcestershire Local Enterprise Partnership along with Worcestershire County Council started to explore the potential benefits that 5G could bring to Worcestershire.

Since then we secured substancial funding, built important connections leading to world leading trials, won innovation awards and most importantly, alongside our technology partner BT, established an ongoing ‘Testbed as a Service’ with our new trading entity ‘nexGworx’ to be launched prior to this conference.

Expanding on our success stories we are proud to sponsor this conference on "Smart Connected Manufacturing", bringing together the world leaders in the field and discussing an exciting future.