Automated Britain promises lively panel discussions on Britain’s manufacturing renaissance

Does automation really create growth and increase employment? What are the drivers to encourage uptake of investment in automation? These and many more questions will be hotly debated at Automated Britain’s panel discussions, according to Marco Pisano, programme manager of Intellect.

Automated Britain, a joint conference between Intellect and GAMBICA to promote automation as a key factor in growing the UK economy, will take place at the Commonwealth Club in London on March 6 2012.

Peter Marsh, of The Financial Times

The first panel discussion will address the question: Does Automation really create growth and increase employment? Chaired by Peter Marsh, manufacturing editor of The Financial Times, panellists will include Alan Courts, finance director of Rittal UK, John Frieslaar, chief technical officer for Western Europe at Huawei Technologies, Atul Mehta, partner and industrial sector leader at IBM Global Business Services, Mike Berridge, director of business improvement at AWS Electronics Group and Ian Schofield, key account manager at ABB Robotics.

The themes to be discussed will include:
• Does automation drive growth in the whole supply chain (including product, equipment and services) and therefore increase employment?
• Automation may replace repetitive task labour, but does it also grow high value labour in the technical, design and service areas?
• What is the importance of investing in education and training for the right skills for this economic model?

The second panel discussion, entitled what are the drivers to encourage uptake? will address the question of investment in automation. The Chairman will be Keith Hodgkinson, head of electronics, materials, chemicals and product regulation at BIS. He will be joined by Eric Le Corre, managing director of Michelin Tyre, Myles McCarthy, MD Implementation Services at the Carbon Trust, Danny Wootton, global innovation director at Logica and Professor Mike Jackson, director of EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Intelligent Automation at Loughborough University.

The themes the discussion will draw out include:
• To what extent is Government supporting manufacturing in the UK?
• What policy decisions could further improve the confidence to invest more in automation?
• What financial options are there to seek funding for investment? What else could be done?
• How can the manufacturing community spread best practice to encourage general industrial growth?
• What research and innovation activity will support this growth?

There will also be a table-top exhibition during the event and opportunities for networking discussion and debate during the day and at the evening drinks reception.

To attend Automated Britain go to www.automatedbritain.co.uk and click book now. GAMBICA and Intellect members and invited guests will pay a special rate of only £245 to attend.