Robotics and Automation in Manufacturing

Keith Thornhill: Head of Food and Beverage, Siemens

Keith Thornhill’s career has mainly been focused on encouraging manufacturing innovation for Food and Drink Manufacturers and its supply chain. As Head of Siemens' Food and Beverage Automation business he is identifying the operational efficiency and production flexibility benefits that Integrated automation technology and the Digital enterprise will deliver to the food and beverage and the consumer packaged goods manufacturing sector. Keith’s Industry knowledge and experience was recently rewarded as he was appointed as Chairman of the Industry Advisory Board for the National Centre of excellence for Food Engineering. He is also a member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers’ Food and Drink Committee.

Jeremy Hadall: Chief Engineer, Intelligent Automation, The Manufacturing Technology Centre

Jeremy Hadall leads the Intelligent Automation group at the Manufacturing Technology Centre. He has been developing automation systems across a diverse range of industries since leaving university, through which he has had the opportunity to work with world leading manufacturing and automation companies such as Ford, GM, Nissan, Rolls-Royce, Airbus, Kuka, ABB and Siemens. In more recent years his focus has been around applying concepts used in these companies to small and medium enterprises to boost their productivity. Since 2010, he has led the development of advanced automation systems for MTC where he is Chief Engineer for Intelligent Automation. He also chairs the High Value Manufacturing Catapult’s Automation Strategy Team and the Institution of Engineering & Technology’s Design & Production Committee. He represents research organisations on both the British Automation and Robotics Association’s council and InnovateUK’s Robotics & Autonomous Systems Special Interest Group.

Nick Hall: HM Principal Specialist Inspector (Machinery Control), Health and Safety Executive

Nick Hall is a degree qualified, IET Chartered Engineer, with 25 years’ experience in designing industrial control systems for machinery and process plants. He worked in project engineering roles for a number of small, medium and large engineering companies. During this period Nick worked in over 20 countries, spending 9 years overseas commissioning electrical power distribution and control systems in a wide variety of industries. Since joining HSE in 2015, Nick has conducted numerous accident investigations involving control systems and he represents HSE on BSI committees for machinery safety and industrial robots, and also works on international standards in those areas.

Ben Morgan: Head of the Integrated Manufacturing Group/Factory 2050, Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre

Ben Morgan is the Head of the Integrated Manufacturing Group and Factory 2050 at the University of Sheffield’s Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC). He is responsible for a large team of multidisciplinary engineers solving problems for UK manufacturing in aerospace, automotive and construction industries. Ben joined the AMRC with Boeing in 2008, gaining experience in robotics, assembly and large volume metrology. In 2011 Ben moved into a technical lead/project management role with responsibility for all robotics projects at the AMRC with Boeing. As Head of IMG for the last 5 years, Ben is leading the development of Factory 2050, the world’s first industrial research facility dedicated to reconfigurable assembly and digitally driven component manufacturing. Since it’s opening at the start of 2016 Factory 2050 has accelerated IMG’s ability to impact UK manufacturing with transformational research. IMG develop innovative solutions using robotics, automation, augmented reality and digital SMART factory technologies for some of the world’s leading aerospace and automotive manufacturing companies both large and small.

Simon Jarvis: Head of Operations, Active8 Robots

Simon Jarvis is Head of Operations at Active8 Robots, the UK’s leading collaborative robot integrator and tooling specialist, which has been operating for over 15 years. Leading the engineering, production and development teams in delivering bespoke automation solutions across multiple industries, using industrial and collaborative robots, Simon has been working in robotics and electronics industries for over a decade with a strong background in testing and compliance. Simon has an MSc in Strategy, Change and Leadership from the University of Bristol and a MChem from the University of Southampton.

Jake Norman: Innovation and Marketing Manager, OAL

Jake Norman started working at OAL after graduating from the University of Bristol with a degree in Economics & Management. Having previously worked for Deloitte in both Audit and Consultancy streams, he recognised that he could make the biggest impact in an innovative SME, using robots to make food. He currently leads a team of awesome engineers fixing manual ingredient weighing in the food industry with robotics.

Mike Wilson: Chairman, British Automation and Robot Automation

Mike Wilson has over 35 years of experience in the application of automation to manufacturing across a broad range of industry sectors throughout Europe, Asia and America. He is widely recognised as one of the leading authorities on the application of industrial robot systems in the UK. Mike is Business Development Manager for ABB Robotics leading the drive to increase the use of robots across UK manufacturing.  In addition, he is Chairman of the British Automation and Robot Association, Director of the Processing and Packaging Machinery Association and Board member of the Engineering and Machinery Alliance. He has previously been Chairman of the International Federation of Robotics from 2000 to 2003. His book “Implementation of Robot Systems” was published in 2014.

Andrew Selim: Projects Manager, Ocado Engineering