Registration open!

Event Overview

Digitalisation represents an extraordinary growth and productivity opportunity for manufacturing in general, however, by its very nature brings with it increased risk. In fact, cyber security is still the number one risk for manufacturers whether that’s safety impact, business impact or financial impact – and attacks are on the rise.

Join us on Thursday 2nd December when we will come together to explore the business opportunities in today’s digital world. We will delve into the region’s thriving processing sector and provide an insight into the challenges that a connected world presents to our industries and the hot opportunities for businesses seeking to diversity, support and grow in this booming area.

Please note: we will require all attendees to provide proof of negative lateral flow test prior to entry. 

Key themes include

• Immersive Technology
• Blockchain
• Robotics and Automation
• Cyber Security

EXHIBITION STANDS

Secure your exhibition booth today & benefit from …

• 2 delegate passes
• 3 x 2 meter exhibition space
• Table, chairs and linen
• Wi-fi access and power supply
• Full conference access
• Tea, Coffee and Lunch

Many thanks to our 2021 exhibtors:

TICKETS & REGISTRATION

• NEPIC Member Delegate Pass (SMEs): £59.00
• NEPIC Member Delegate Pass (Large Companies): £89.00
• NEPIC Member Exhibition Booth (incl. two delegate passes): £400
• Non-member Delegate Pass: £150.00
• Non-member Exhibition Booth (incl. two delegate passes): £600

Event Details 

• When: Thursday 2nd December 2021, 09.30 – 16.00
• Where: Harwick Hall, Sedgefield
• Get Social! Tweet about your attendance using #NEPICEvent and we’ll retweet to our followers.

Booking Support

Please contact Sandra Ozturk for booking support. 

Meet your 2021 speakers:

Steam Digital

Driving strategy through digital and data.

Alistair McLeod and Jason Turner – Directors

Digital strategies for SMEs – 5 key tips – Alistair McLeod, Founder and Director of Gray Fox Consulting will discuss the five key components that are must haves for SMEs for digital investment planning and execution

The Power of Data – Jason Turner, Founder and Director of Data2Action will give an overview of the importance of data in todays business environment and howe being more data ‘savy’ can help businesses improve bottom line performance

Encora Energy Limited

Use of Artificial Intelligence in process plants to create reliability and efficiency monitoring for the full plant.

Andy Normand – New Business Manager and UptimeAI partnership lead

Andy Normand from Encora Energy will talk about where continuous learning AI has been used for a step change in the effectiveness of process plant monitoring.

This will include understanding the problems with past monitoring technologies, how explainable AI creates advanced plant monitoring designed for front line plant teams, and how a systems approach allows monitoring over the full plant while reducing the workload of false alarms and model maintenance.

Lucid Technology Solutuons

Working Environments, HSE 2023 and beyond

Cheryl Spears – Sales Director

What the disruption of the 2020 pandemic means for the future is not completely clear, although there are signs that some employees will not want to return to the office. What is clear is that when companies do reopen fully for business, there will be no return to the former way of working. Hindsight will not be 2020 or 2021, especially not after a pandemic. New processes will need to be put in place, and any company that does not make health and safety investment a top priority is likely to falter.

National Horzions Centre, Darlington

National Horizons Centre – The burgeoning role of Virtual Reality in Industrial Training

Professor Gary Montague – CPI Professor of Bioprocessing

The National Horizons Centre opened its doors in Darlington in Autumn 2019 to deliver a research and training capacity for the bio-using industries. A prime driver prior to the pandemic was the need to address the shortfall in trained staff in both development and manufacturing. The pandemic exacerbated this need even further. A predominant requirement expressed for staff training was for hands-on equipment experience with a strong practical flavour. Courses in the National Horizons Centre have adopted this ethos and have extended it further using virtual reality process simulators.

Working with industrial collaborators, we have designed a series of courses that supplement lecture-based activities, with a mixture of real and virtual reality laboratory training. The VR lab activities have opened up the opportunity to accommodate more delegates and to give them a greater depth of experience by being able to embed simulations of equipment operation with the VR equipment view. Speeding-up process operation, simulating rare but potentially expensive faults and tracking training progress are among the benefits to be gained.

The presentation will discuss our approach to the VR based training experience and we will offer the opportunity to try some exemplar VR simulations to those who are curious.

Fuzzy Logic Studios

The Value of Immersive Technologies in High-Consequence Industries.

Harvey Trent – Director of Global Partnerships

Research has found that almost 50% of businesses operating in high-consequence industries believe that Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) are critical to achieving their goals. Using real-world case studies, Fuzzy Logic Studio will explore how the visualisation and simulation capabilities of these immersive technologies can impact safety, compliance, and productivity.

 TEKGEM UK

Industrial Cyber Security – A New Role.

Ian Gemski, Managing Director

Two years ago, I demonstrated how to hack and attack a process control network with malicious intent. Last year, I demonstrated how to protect against that same attack.

Industrial cyber security risk has typically been a complex and difficult area to understand and manage… until now!

Hear from Tekgem MD Ian Gemski on how Tekgem is changing the game!

North East Local Enterprise Partnership

Digitalising Manufacturing: Overcoming the Barriers.

Karl McCracken – Programme Manager – Advanced Manufacturing Sector

Digitising manufacturing businesses is an idea whose time has come. It promises to increase efficiency, reduce downtime, and open up new market opportunities. But the pace of adoption in the UK is slower than comparable economies. Why is this, and how can we overcome the barriers to achieve the touted benefits

Senseye

Predictive Maintenance: How to run PdM project – the keys steps to success.

Niall Sullivan – Global Marketing Manager

We will discuss best practices and dive into the different phases of PdM projects. We will also explain why some businesses fail and why others succeed based on practical cases.

• Join this presentation to learn the:
• Essential prerequisites for carrying out a successful predictive maintenance project
• Key phases of the project
• Criteria for success
• Steps involved when choosing a PdM solution

Digital Technologies Group Limited

Setting a Digital Manufacturing and Supply Chain Strategy.

Tim Gowling – Senior Digital Consultant

The key topics covered are:

• Why is it important?
• What are the business benefits?
• Where do you start?
• What are the key elements?
• OT Cyber Security Risks?

Labman Automation

Digitalisation through Automation

Thomas Smith – Senior Project Leader

A brief introduction to Labman Automation, manufacturers of bespoke robotics and automation systems.

The presentation highlights how automation can be used throughout R&D to assist in the generation and analysis of good quality data. Case studies will be presented on the following topics:

• Automated experimental workflows
• Telemetry for machine monitoring
• Data integrity and compliance

Made Smarter Adoption Programme 

Made Smarter Adoption North East is a new, fully-funded business support programme specially designed for manufacturing SMEs in the North East region (North East LEP and Tees Valley Combined Authority areas).

It’s designed to help your business go to market faster, cut costs and reduce downtime, by investing in digital tools, innovations and skills.

• If you are a business in the Tees Valley Combined Authority area (Darlington, Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Stockton-on-Tees, Redcar & Cleveland) you can find out more and sign up to take part in Made Smarter Adoption North East find out more here.
• If you’re a business in the North East LEP area (Durham, Gateshead, Newcastle upon Tyne, Northumberland, North Tyneside, South Tyneside and Sunderland) you can find out more and sign up to take part in Made Smarter Adoption North East find out more here.