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Industry 4.0 – I Was There!

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Last week we attended the Evolution: Journey into Industry 4.0 event and it was an illuminating experience! Not only did we get to hear from some of manufacturings leading lights in the region, we got to talk alongside them at Naame’s packed conference.

As well as having our exhibition stand, our Director Paul Grenyer spoke at the event, demonstrating the value of process automation within manufacturing and how it will support growth in the sector. No capital expenditure required! Paul was able to share the benefits our clients have already seen from automating processes, and have a little fun along the way too!

Other speakers included industry gurus from Loughborough University, the Department for International Trade, Knowledge Transfer Manager – KTN – Innovate UK, Cranfield University, Hethel Innovation and West Suffolk College. We were also fortunate enough to hear from companies already putting automation into practice to great effect, including Warren Services, asset intelligence group Pathfindr, telecoms giant Huawei UK and electric motors company MSF Technologies. We were also reassured that despite some reports claiming future tech would mean job losses, those at Industry 4.0 disagreed, saying job roles would simply evolve from manual tasks to monitoring and analysing. It was also interesting to discover that our region is leading the way in disruptive tech!

Henk Koopmans, chief executive of Huawei UK, encouraged business to ‘think big’ and focus on their market first, but the main takeaway message from the event was that engineering needed to play an important part of the New Anglia LEP economic strategy. The LEP is hoping for greater involvement from businesses to help define the skills needed in five years time so it can work with colleges to get those skills taught now in preparation.

For Naame’s part, it hopes to support manufacturers and introduce them to others who may be able to help with the challenges they face. They are also looking to create manufacturing groups in Suffolk – contact Naame if you are interested. The New Anglia Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering group are also looking to develop a strategic map and would like feedback on a consultation document being released onto their website this week.

The day proved to be a worthwhile investment, with genuinely interesting speakers and an intelligent audience keen to support and be involved in the next phase of industry in our region.

Interested in finding out what Naked Element can do to prepare your business for Industry 4.0? Get in touch for a cup of tea and a chat!

Originally published here.

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