Our thanks to all the keynote presenters who contributed to this year's symposium. A summary of some of the keypoints made is below with a link to the presentation, where we are able to make it available.
Day 1 - Thursday 26 September
CATERPILLAR – Haydn Powell - Presentation
- Safety first, quality always, values every day
- Services, operational excellence, expanded offerings
- 10 digital supply chain scenarios
- VUCA – volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous
- Data – connectivity – analytics – automation – prediction
- Evaluate – go see – prioritise – proof of concept – scale
- RPA, dashboards, tracking, sensors, ML cameras, robots
- The future of digital is analogue! People, skills, attitudes
IKEA – Per Berggren - Presentation
- Plant roles and network design philosophy
- The rise of the ecosystems
- Consumer electronics in the factory, connected
- Consumer-data led, integrated back to the forest
- Robots now 50% previous cost!
- Rats in the hardware and wiring!!
- OT – operations technology: IT for the shop floor
- Resistors are middle managers
WEHKAMP – Maarten Tibosch - Presentation
- From catalogue to leading e-tailer
- Specific segment – dept store for families in Netherlands
- Emerging families, families, empty nesters
- 500,000 visitors per day (17m population!)
- Offering: payment, delivery, availability, carefree returns
- 24 operators, 300,000 orders in 6 hours!
- What’s next urban logistics, last mile
- Expanding assortment via partners
MICROSOFT – Sophia Velastegui (no presentation available currently)
- 60% current automation is AI
- Predictive analytics is #1 AI use case
- 75m jobs displaced by AI, 133m new jobs created
- 60% production tasks can be automated
- Connected field service, factory/supply chain of the future
- 5 deg warmer or colder, 15% productivity hit
- Intelligent supply chain: track-and-trace, smart logistics
- Reinvent processes, transform business models
ELECTROLUX – Frank Wagner - Presentation
- Safer than du Pont!
- 17 global levers for driving synergy
- Core vs. non core processes
- Hard to succeed on strategic alliances
- New market entry investment guidelines
- Ideal plant size – min and max size
- Market-to-factory-floor manufacturing strategy
- Linking standard processes, modularisation & automation
UNILEVER – Biswaranjan Sen (no presentation available)
- Are we running the right race?
- Founded on mass production, distribution, communication
- Disruption on all three – competitive advantages disappear
- Hyper-fragmentation – customisation – always on demand
- How to scale up successful pilots vs. ‘pilot purgatory’
- More meaningful work, enhancing the power of being human
- Decoupling physical and intelligent assets
- Key: how well we manage the people role/skills transition
HOT TOPICS FROM WRAP UP DISCUSSION - thanks to all our participants for their contribution.
- Climate change – disruption
- Compensating for political instability
- Agile reconfiguration of assets
- Digital transformation – people are the key
- Double standard: AI vs. statistics
- New jobs – who will teach them?
- Dominance of MNCs – what happens to SMEs?
- OR Erosion of MNCs scale barriers to entry?
- What does the world look like after digitalisation?
- Tipping point – digitalisation will happen quicker than we think
- AI and authentication / counterfeit products
- Talent being sucked up by providers
- Middle management as change resistors
- OR Biggest challenge is senior management?
- Building the next generation talent – where are they coming from?
- MNCs developing internal talent (1000 data scientists in 6 months)
- Training within – 1 month data scientist boot camp
- Fragmentation of distribution / distributed manufacturing
- How does this change life for the consumer?
- Additive manufacturing and new materials
- Cybersecurity – more connectivity, higher risk
- Reconfiguration of trade rules – tariffs, Brexit etc
- Fastest digital adoption is in China
- Competition based on ecosystems
- Integrating circular economy with digitalisation – social impact
Day 2 - Friday 27 September
Reshaping the supply chain through digital platforms – implications for firms, consumers and society -
Geoffrey Parker - Presentation
Designing and manufacturing for sustainability: SCEnAT Life Cycle Platform -
Professor Lenny Koh - Presentation
