Event categories: Events

Industrial digital technologies (IDT) such as the industrial internet of things (IoTs), big data analytics, AI (Artificial Intelligence), virtual reality, and digital twins are radically transforming the manufacturing landscape.

This event aims to bring together business people, practitioners, policymakers, and academics to discuss the research findings of IDT adopting practices of many UK manufacturing SMEs to work out the best practices and implications for business strategies and government policy.

The key findings of the project and successful SME manufacturing digitalisation journey case studies will be presented at the workshop.

This workshop is hosted by the School of Management, University of Bath, funded by InterAct via the ESRC, as a part of the Made Smarter Initiative. We bring together CWS manager, users, and regional policymakers and other stakeholders and will present findings of our fieldwork, which explored the potential of CWS to contribute to regional ‘levelling up’ in the UK and whether they hold potential not just for service firms, but also for manufacturing, designand engineering firms.

The session will be interactive and there will also be Q&A. The event will conclude with a short talk from our guest speaker, Pauline Roussel (Co-founder & CEO of Coworkies and author of ‘Around the world in 250 coworking spaces’)

The aim of the workshop is to codevelop ideas, about how CWSs enables and provides an opportunity for firms to employ flexible working practices, stimulate innovation, and regional growth. The workshop outcomes will be used to inform an industry brief and a policy brief, which will be made available to all participants.

CarbonVue is a supply chain digital twin that will enable manufacturers to analyse, model and simulate different outcomes in your supply chain considering carbon as one of the trade-offs, offering a novel approach as your supply chain can work differently whether you are using cost, carbon, or service as your main objective function.

This event will cover the thinking behind the development of CarbonVue, how productivity and sustainability are interlinked and should be considered going into the future. You will also find how this approach was used and tested in a case study between two important manufacturers where CarbonVue is currently being implemented. Additionally, you will gain the possibility to have an “on-hands” approach by using the tool and simulating different outcomes in your supply chain. Finally, you will have the chance to listen to the lessons learnt from adopting a novel digital technology like CarbonVue: from how to prepare your data to how to manage people’s change.

Important: Please note that this event is primarily for those actively working in the manufacturing and supply chains sectors. If you are an academic, we may be able to accommodate your attendance but due to capacity limitations, priority for attendance will be allocated to industry participants.

InterAct's Strathclyde University based 'Future of Work' team are delighted to be partnering with Flexibility Works, to bring you an interactive ‘Discovery Day’ workshop.

The topic of the session is: ‘Being a Good Employer’, focusing on the ‘people’ side of transformation. The workshop continues the transformation theme given recruitment and retention remain a key business priority with the session exploring current challenges and dig deep into a potential solution – flexible working. The workshop will feature guest speakers offering practical ideas, a panel discussion, peer to peer learning and networking.

In this webinar, you’ll hear about exciting case studies on the type of behaviour changes required to make the future of manufacturing sustainable and efficient. Learn about how you can enact the changes today to make sure your company recruit and retain the best talent.

Joining this event, you will learn more about:

How behaviour change can make manufacturing more sustainable.

How the future of manufacturing works and the changes that companies can make today to ensure they recruit and retain the best talent.

Key speakers:

Professor Jill MacBryde, University of Strathclyde, Co-director of InterAct
Professor Peter Ball, University of York

The Scottish AI Summit 2023 is bringing together content submitted by Scotland's AI community, offering an opportunity for delegates to hear from leading AI experts from Scotland and beyond and get involved in a wide range of discussions and workshops.

Find out more the strategy for Scotland to become a leader in the development and use of Trustworthy, Ethical and Inclusive AI and hear from many great speakers, including InterAct Co-director, Professor Jill MacBryde.

The purpose of this workshop is to bring manufacturing firms, policymakers, digital technology providers together with the InterAct 'Future of Digital Manufacturing Ecosystems' team to co-design the digital roadmaps that enable the UK manufacturing industry to achieve improved productivity, sustainability, resilience, and wellbeing by 2040.

The InterAct team, in collaboration with Make UK and Midlands Engine, recently launched a joint research programme - ‘Future of Digital Manufacturing Ecosystems’. The project aims to identify the 'Vision 2040' for the UK manufacturing industry and develop digital roadmaps to support the transition.

Building on the current literature and 25+ expert interviews with industrialists, policymakers, digital technology providers and academic colleagues, 4 future scenarios and 12 visions have been identified that illustrates the desired futures for the UK manufacturing industry. This interactive workshop is designed to stimulate creative thinking and co-development of ideas. By the end of this workshop we will gain a much better understanding of how the digital technologies could support UK manufacturing moving towards the following scenarios:

Scenario 1 – Productivity Powerhouse

Scenario 2 – Flexibility as the Standard

Scenario 3 – Sustainability Champion

Scenario 4 – Happy and Sustainable Workforce

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This event is organised by Dr Anup Karath Nair from the Strategy, International Business and Entrepreneurship (SIBE) Group at the University of Liverpool Management School (ULMS) in partnership with the InterAct Network.

Delegates will be exposed to the ‘next practices’ at some of Britian’s leading craft-based manufacturing businesses. They can listen to and learn about entrepreneuring and innovating from the first-hand experience of business leaders within British Craft Based Manufacturing ventures such as:

Kristian Tapaninaho - Co-Founder and Joint MD Ooni

Sarah Reast - MD Timberkits

Sarah Watson - MD The Wentworth Wooden Jigsaw Company Ltd

TransFIRe are hosting a seminar on Tuesday 20th December (9am) which will showcase the TFI Network+ funded project by Dr Peter Green (University of Liverpool)

The seminar will be delivered by Dr. Peter Green from the University of Liverpool, who has been working on an EPSRC TFI Network+ project with the glass industry. Peter has kindly provided the abstract for his seminar below:

Deploying AI Solutions in Foundation Industries; Lessons Learned from ‘Furnace AI’

This presentation focuses on the outputs of a recent deployment of an AI-based monitoring system for float glass manufacturing with NSG Pilkington; Furnace AI. We discuss the challenges associated with transitioning AI solutions from academia to industry, with a focus on both technical aspects (e.g. scalability to large datasets, the removal of data that is towards the end of its lifecycle) alongside the ‘softer’ challenges that must also be addressed during deployment (e.g. risk ownership, user trust). Finally, based on the outcomes of the Furnace AI project, potential avenues of future research are suggested.

Peter will speak for approximately 25-30 minutes and there will be about 15 minutes for questions and discussion.

In this webinar InterAct Co-Director, Professor Jill MacBryde, will outline opportunities to engage with InterAct – whether you are an academic, policy maker, or a practitioner from manufacturing or a developer of digital technologies. She will particularly focus on how we can ensure that we are thinking abut people as we build a strong manufacturing future in a digital environment. The Webinar will touch on important questions such as:

• What will a digital manufacturing workplace look like?
• How can the manufacturing sector prepare people to work alongside new technologies, robots, and co-bots?
• What are the essential skills for future manufacturing workplaces and how can we enable these through training and education?
• How can advanced technologies help generate and embed new ways of working by opening up career opportunities for otherwise hard-to-reach groups such as women, minorities, older workers and disabled people?