Advanced Engineering, the UK’s largest annual showcase for engineers and supply chain professionals, will run on October 30 and 31, 2019 at the NEC in Birmingham. This year, the event will offer an inspiring conference programme with more than 200 talks, debates and technical presentations from industry leaders, academics and scientific journalists.
Bringing together over 550 exhibitors and more than 15,000 professionals across the manufacturing and engineering sectors, it also includes an extensive open forum programme with over 200 technical presentations from five of the six sectors showcased. These are connected manufacturing, aerospace, composites, automotive and medical device engineering, which is a new show zone and forum for 2019.
At the show, The Aluminium Federation (ALFED) will offer free Brexit readiness briefings, run by BEIS, on stand J28E. They will also be discussing the topic as part of the Automotive Forum at 9.30am on October 30 and in the Aerospace Forum at 9.30AM on October 31.
The first conference day also sees the highlight of the aerospace forum. From 3pm, there will be a one hour session on space engineering and technology transfer. The session will start with a keynote speech by space journalist and broadcaster Sarah Cruddas, host of Contact on Discovery Channel and Science Channel in the United States and popular voice of space on British TV. Ms Cruddas has an academic background in astrophysics and is a global thought leader in the growing private space sector.
“Sarah Cruddas educates thousands of people on why space matters every day,” said Jeremy Whittingham at Advanced Engineering. “At Advanced Engineering, we are lucky to have dozens of professionals and academics in all fields of aerospace sharing their ground-breaking work with us. Ms Cruddas is a great addition to the programme, as she can explain the latest developments in the sector to the greater public.”
Another event not to be missed will be a debate session in the composites engineering forum, which will focus on the role of composites in promoting and sustaining the circular economy. The debate will run on October 31 from 11am to 12pm and will be moderated by Benjamin Andrews, Technical Services Engineer at ELG Carbon Fibre.
Speakers will discuss how the innovations brought forth by Industry 4.0 will enable the composites industry to be more sustainable from an environmental perspective, while at the same time leading to significant savings. The debate will also highlight the importance of eliminating waste by moving to net shape manufacturing.
“Sustainability is at the heart of the UK manufacturing agenda,” continued Whittingham. “This debate session shows Advanced Engineering’s commitment to spread the message that sustainable also means convenient, and that supporting the circular economy benefits everyone.”