Manufacturing & Engineering Week, held at the Birmingham NEC, 8-9 June will be a celebration of British engineering, a two-day festival of innovation that will showcase the very best that UK industry has to offer, while also providing knowledge, inspiration and a touch of entertainment.

As well as giving the chance to talk to a huge number of the UK’s most innovative and creative companies, Manufacturing & Engineering Week has a full programme of education, workshops, talks and presentations, with several fun events thrown in.

Helping visitors keep abreast of the latest trends and thinking across industry is a major aim of Manufacturing & Engineering Week and there will be a full programme of CPD accredited high-level keynote presentations, panel discussions and case studies. These will cover a range of sectors including aerospace, automotive, food and beverage, motorsport, energy & renewables, pharmaceutical, space and FMCG, with a particular focus on strategy for SMEs and OEMs.

The industry faces both challenges and opportunities, and the topics of the presentations address a wide variety of hot issues. These include the future of the sector, embracing the need for digital transformation, incorporating AI, algorithms, and automation, Net Zero - the road to green, diversity and the skills gap, Brexit and beyond, cyber security, navigating changing laws and more.

Exhibitor companies who have solved challenges for customers with the latest innovative technology will pass on their experience though a series of informative workshops.

Innovation is the major theme of Manufacturing & Engineering Week, and this is underlined by a dedicated Innovation Zone, sponsored by Arrow, a global provider of technology products, services and solutions. The Innovation Zone will showcase live demonstrations of the UK’s most cutting-edge products, helping visitors discover the latest technologies that are shaping the future of British industry.  Highlights include an AI car and the world’s first VTOL biplane, displayed by Coventry University’s Formula Student and UAS Challenge Teams, in association with the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

Says Jeff Peters, FS Faculty Advisor: “Coventry University has been developing Autonomous Vehicles for some years. Having already led the way with four trophies in the international AI competition at Silverstone, the home of the British Grand Prix, the Coventry University AI Team are excited to showcase their latest work to industry and the new generation of engineers that will be visiting the show. This will be a great opportunity for prospective students and engineers of the future to have a close up look at what we have been doing and to chat to the student team developing the car and its software systems.

Engineers with these skills are in very short supply and are highly valued by Industry and this IMechE initiative is one of the best things available to prospective engineers looking for a bright clean future.

AI and electric powertrain are the future of the automotive industry and Coventry University’s new School of Future Transport Engineering will be embracing these new technologies and leading the way on developments and teaching these skills to the next generation.”

Manufacturing & Engineering Week will also have the award-winning Cyber Demonstrator as a central feature of this year’s show. The manufacturing sector is now the third most targeted for cyber-attacks, with risks only likely to deepen and broaden as digitisation grows across all industries.

Many manufacturers are only at the beginning of their cyber-security journey and are looking to gain a better understanding of the current threats and source the products and services to increase cyber resilience. The live Cyber Demonstrator won ‘Best Feature Area’ at the Exhibition News Awards 2022 and will be recreated at Manufacturing & Engineering Week to deliver live immersive demonstrations on how to prepare for cyber threats, explore unknown areas of vulnerability and survive in the new age of information warfare targeted at the manufacturing and engineering sector.

The ‘Know Your Supply Chain’ Cyber Security Pavilion will feature Assured Cyber Protection, a global technology partner empowering organisations to protect their most valuable assets, people, and data from cyber-attacks enabling resilient and sustainable business. Alongside ACP with be a host of partners providing the latest solutions to keep businesses secure against an increasingly dangerous and ever-evolving threat landscape.

As the world and the UK gear up to meet the challenge of protecting the global climate, the importance of sustainability for the industry is higher than ever before. Manufacturing & Engineering Week will be contributing by running a Net Zero event.

Total emissions of 136.8 tons of CO₂ have been calculated to be generated during the running of the event, a total which includes venue usage, materials and exhibitor and staff transport and accommodation. To offset this, the M&E Week team, in association with their Sustainability Partner Forest Nation, will plant over 5,000 trees in a dedicated M&E forest to make the event Net Zero. The team will also plant a further tree for every visitor who attends.

Away from the serious engineering, the Great Egg Race is an exciting live challenge taking place over both days of the event. Inspired by the TV show of the same name, engineers will compete to build gadgets to propel an uncooked egg over a wall into a tractor trailer. A compere will host the challenge with winners presented with prizes onsite.

Visitor passes are free-of-charge and include access to 4 co-located events over two days on the 8-9 June 2022.

www.mandeweek.co.uk