Manufacturing & Engineering Week gets ‘Smart’ for a bigger, better 2024

04 January, 2024

Commenting on the change Verity Noon, Marketing Director at Nineteen Group said: “The week is all about cutting-edge innovations in hardware and software and solutions to the current challenges being faced around industry 4.0, sustainability and supply chain shortages to name a few. Manufacturers and engineers are constantly looking for ways to work smarter, to become more efficient, stay ahead of the competitive curve and explore new business models and practices and Smart

Manufacturing & Engineering Week will help them do just that. With more than 10,000 manufacturers, designers, engineers and maintenance professionals attending in 2023 the event will expand way beyond 450 exhibitors with the addition of Drives & Controls in Hall 5. Laura Parris, Event Director for Drives & Controls at Nineteen Group said of the addition: “Drives & Controls is one of the great brand names in the UK industrial exhibitions sector. It has such a long history from the days when it overflowed from its original home in Telford to now where it finds its natural place as part of Smart Manufacturing & Engineering Week.”

With technology businesses such as Weidmuller, Pilz, Sigmatek and Festo, confirmed for Drives & Controls the event complements the other exhibitions, Design & Engineering Expo, Smart Factory Expo and Maintec perfectly. In addition, Air-Tech and Fluid Power & Systems will also be returning, taking place in Hall 5 of the NEC.

A host of other live events will be taking place during Smart Manufacturing & Engineering Week 2024. Senior manufacturing leaders will be able to attend the Manufacturing Digitalisation Summit and the Director’s Forum alongside the Industrial Data Summit and the Manufacturing Automation and Robotics Summit. The Manufacturer Top 100 Award ceremony which celebrates the heroes of UK manufacturing and recognises their contribution to the sector will also be held during the week.

Smart Manufacturing & Engineering Week has the support of many of the high-profile organisations, institutions and trade bodies representing the UK’s industrial and manufacturing sector such as the MTC, GAMBICA, Make UK and Engineering UK. Members of these organisations will join the advisory council to assist in curating the educational and thought leadership programme taking place across the seven Solution Theatres.

Sustainability is not only high on the agenda of those in the industrial sector but also of the event organisers themselves. The event will once again be carbon neutral in 2024 with more than 20,000 trees planted in the Nineteen Group Forest since 2022. The event’s charity partner is again Engineers Without Borders UK, who are ensuring that globally responsible engineering is embedded within the thinking of both engineers and the businesses they work for.