50 n M&E WEEK PREVIEW May 2023 www.drivesncontrols.com A festival of industrial innovation The week starting 5 June 2023 is Manufacturing & Engineering Week, with the centrepiece exhibitions Design & Engineering Expo, Smart Factory Expo and Maintec taking place at on 7 and 8 June. The Drives & Controls exhibition and associated events, which the Week’s organiser, the Nineteen Group, acquired last year, will appear as a “zone” at this year’s M&E Week, before returning as a full three-day stand-alone event in its own hall at the Birmingham National Exhibition Centre next year. Manufacturing and Engineering Week 2023 is being described as “the festival of industrial innovation” with several new events and features being added for 2023. Other exhibitions are also taking place at the NEC during M&E week, including Automechanika run by Messe Frankfurt, Med-Tech Innovation Expo and TCT 3Sixty organised by Rapid News Group, and Subcon presented by the Mark Allen Group. A major part of Manufacturing & Engineering Week 2023 will be the conference programme taking place across two Keynote Conferences and six Solutions Theatres. Each theatre will offer a schedule of free-to-attend presentations delivered by manufacturing and technology experts. Topics being covered in the Solutions Theatres include: Automation & Robotics; Digital Transformation; IIoT & Connectivity; Industrial Data & AI; and Innovation and Design Engineering. Government plans Emphasising the importance of M&E Week is the fact that the keynote address in the main theatre on the first day will come from the British Government on its plans for supporting UK manufacturing. On the second day, the official Opposition will give their views on the same subject. The conference agenda includes such topics as What next for UK manufacturing?, led by former Siemens UK CEO Juergen Maier, and The story of a British Engineering Icon, which will look at the story behind Triumph Motorcycles. Additional free educational sessions are being hosted by the Institute for Manufacturing in its IfM Theatre. The IfM Masterclasses are designed to challenge and extend the attendees’ thinking in relation to some of the most pressing challenges and opportunities they face. IfM uses research and frameworks developed at the University of Cambridge so those attending the Masterclasses can gain practical insights and recommendations. IfM industrial practitioners have extensive expertise in supporting organisations across many sectors, and so are ideally placed to answer any questions and unpick problems. The final timetable for this year’s Masterclasses will be released soon but previous topics have included: Strategic Roadmapping; Technology and innovation management; Sustainability: Reducing energy waste; and Digital strategies. IfM Masterclasses require advance booking, and this can be done when registering for your ticket for the Smart Factory Expo. Smart Factory Expo brings a wide variety of new elements to Manufacturing & Engineering Week, including a couple of paid summit conferences. The Manufacturing Digitalisation Summit – an executive-level conference for businesses with turnovers in excess of £100m – is a twoday knowledge-sharing event that informs manufacturers how to develop their business models in a practical manner. The Summit will involve a variety of keynotes, panel discussions and topic-specific discussion tables, designed to provide the best value and opportunity for learning. Each discussion table is dedicated to a specific area. Delegates can choose the ones that are A wide-ranging series of events and exhibitions are planned for the Manufacturing & Engineering Week taking place at the Birmingham NEC in June. The show will include a Drives & Controls zone, following the organiser’s acquisition of the D&C Show and allied events last year. There will be plenty of opportunities for M&E Week attendees to learn about the latest technologies and trends in manufacturing Made Smarter’s Innovation Alley will showcase new and developing technologies
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