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

• Katherine Bennett CBE FRAeS, CEO HVM Catapult

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

• Sam Turner, CTO HVMC

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.

Posters Galore: 'IoT for assisted living'

Matt Wallwork

Email

Research into reducing costs for the NHS is paramount.

In England in December 2019 there were:

- 23,309,384 GP appointments
- 1,844,804 calls offered to the NHS 111 service
- 560,613 emergency hospital admissions

The research being conducted aims to reduce GP visits, hospital admissions, 111 and 999 calls by conducting preventative monitoring in the homes of the elderly in Assisted Living situations. There are nearly 12 million people (18% of the population) aged 65 and above in the UK many of which can benefit from preventative monitoring. The monitoring will be done using a range of cost-effective ubiquitous sensors to give the ability to detect signs of potential issues and enable the right interventions (end user behaviour changes, family response/intervention/support) to be made.

The research is for trials that are in place with councils and health trusts which aim to deploy a solution into Assisted Living residences. The solution will be constructed based on research into: Gateways, Edge devices, Smart Home ecosystems, device management, connectivity, and more! To reduce cost to the NHS, interventions by parties such as family members, carers, and resident workers will be enabled by them having access to specific data from the person being monitored. The data may come in the form of an alerting system whereby required parties are informed when the person being monitored has an issue or is predicted to have an issue. Predictive analysis is also an area that is being investigated to see if issues can be captured in their early stages.

View the poster here
View more posters and videos

Post Graduate Researcher Profiles – Davide Ferraris

My name is Davide, and I am a doctorate researcher at the University of Malaga, Spain. I am a Marie Curie fellow involved in the NeCS project founded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 675320.

My research topic is about Metrics for Cyber Security focusing on Trust Metrics for the Internet of Things.

The vision of the Internet of Things (IoT) is founded on the following premise: it is possible to create a world-wide network of interconnected objects which will probably be readable, recognizable, locatable, addressable and/or controllable by Internet. Gartner said that billions of devices are foreseen to be connected by 2020, so trust issues will grow exponentially.

A system such as IoT needs trust because the entities involved should know the other entities in the network. This knowledge is the basis to decide if to trust or distrust another entity. The problem of finding a suitable way to establish trust becomes more complicated in IoT due to its heterogeneity and dynamicity. Trust management systems have been used during the decision-making process to assist entities that must interact with others in a system. How to measure trust becomes a key issue for IoT systems also because all the heterogeneous entities will use their own trust management systems. This is one of the main challenges we will have to face in my research.

My research will focus on give to trust measurement a key role on IoT systems, considering trust in the  whole IoT System Life Cycle from the early to the final stages of a System development.