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Talking Industry - #2 - Increasing Automation in the post-CoVID era

01 October, 2020

DFA Media, the publisher of Drives & Controls and its sister magazines Smart Machines and Factories and Plant & Works Engineering, announces the second in our Talking Industry webinar series, a new series of live digitally broadcast panel discussions with leading experts from the industrial, automation and manufacturing sectors.


The event Talking Industry – Increasing Automation in the post-CoVID era, will take place at 10am on Tuesday 13 October and will focus on three broad areas.

Topic Areas

(1) Adoption of automation and robotics in the UK - barriers and opportunities

The adoption in the UK of automation and robotics over decades has been woeful, compared to our industrial rivals, Why is this? Will CoVID-19 provide a much needed impetus to get investment in automation moving? Getting an engineering curriculum into the classroom will help to avoid us falling behind with new and essential technologies in the future, but how long will it take to filter through?

(2) Condition-based Monitoring for Asset Health
While investment in new assets, including automation and robotics, is vital, we also need to make best use of legacy equipment. What factors are driving a move from to predictive and preventive maintenance?

(3) Embedded Security for Trusted Data
Embedded systems are programmable hardware components with a minimal operating system and software designed to perform a dedicated function or functions. Where do we find them? What are the risks?
Embedded system security is a strategic approach to protecting software running on embedded systems.

Each topic will be discussed for about 20 minutes, including an interactive Q&A session with input from the viewers. Attendees can tune in for all or part of the broadcast.

The event is 100% free to attend. For those who are unable to attend the live event, it will be made available afterwards for download from our Web sites.

Panelists:
Brendan O’Dowd, General Manager, Industrial Automation at Analog Devices

Brendan O’Dowd joined Analog Devices in 1999 and has held positions in development, engineering, and business leadership. Brendan is currently the general manager of the Industrial Automation business at Analog Devices and prior to this role he was the Product Line Director for interface and isolation Products.

Prior to working at Analog Devices Brendan held engineering roles at Tellabs, Apple, and Cabletron. He has a Bachelor’s degree in Electronics from Cork Institute of Technology and a Master of Engineering degree from the University of Limerick.


Mike Wilson, Chief Automation Officer (Technology Strategy), Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC)

Mike Wilson has over 35 years of experience in the application of automation to manufacturing across a broad range of industry sectors and is widely recognised as one of the leading authorities on the application of industrial robot systems in the UK.

Mike is Chief Automation Officer at the Manufacturing Technology Centre, leading the drive to increase the adoption of automation in UK manufacturing. He is also Chairman of the British Automation and Robot Association and has previously been Chairman of the International Federation of Robotics. His book “Implementation of Robot Systems” was published in 2014.

Susan Scurlock MBE, Founder, Primary Engineer

Dr Susan Scurlock founded Primary Engineer in 2005 after training as a Graphic Designer and
later as a Secondary School Teacher. She has developed a sophisticated programme of award-winning
teacher training courses ranging from one day courses to master’s level postgraduate certificates.
She has helped to design national competitions and educational programmes involving industry, universities, councils and professional engineering institutions which involve involve over 2,000 engineers and annually reach over 5,000 teachers and 90,000 pupils.

In 2019 she launched the Institution of Primary Engineers and the Institution of Secondary Engineers
at the House of Lords, a programme on which she has been working for many years. She is dedicated to
the belief that all children are capable of succeeding and to do so the activities they engage with
have to be whole-class and whole-school based.

Susan is the recipient of the Royal Academy of Engineering 2020 Rooke Award, three Honorary
Doctorates and was awarded an MBE in the Queens New Year’s Honours list in recognition of her
work in engineering education.

Vaibhav Boricha (Volley), Director, Vikaso

Vikaso is a team of engineers specialising in Cobot Integration, which aims to accelerate the adoption of robotics in the UK, which it views as having been painfully slow to date. Despite having its roots in the automotive sector, Vikaso is seeking opportunities in medium-sized companies of perhaps 100-500 employees, but in any market sector.

Volley is a graduate of Coventry University and then spent five years working at BMW, where he worked on the Mini and specialised in automation process pptimisation and business case evaluation, with particular emphasis on the integration of collaborative robots (COBOTs) and Industry 4.0 coordination.

Webinar Chair: Andy Pye, Consultant Editor, DFA Media

Andy is a well-known figure to many in the engineering and automation industry in the UK, and has edited many leading design and manufacturing print and online titles over the past four decades. Andy is a graduate material engineer and spent five years in engineering research and consultancy prior to joining the technical publishing industry in 1980.




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