Manufacturing is being profoundly transformed. If you think you’ve seen it before, we’d argue different. The pace of change and depth of disruption is new. Digitisation, data and a larger role in customer experience are new.

Goals may stay the same – improving operational efficiency, quality and speed whilst reducing costs are still at the forefront of R&D investment for manufacturers – but the reasons for them do not.

For example, an ever-growing focus on the consumer as a by-product of manufacturing (on ‘farm to fork’ processes, the end customer wants to know everything about the process; how it was run, where it occurred, which treatments were used and so on), and other ‘new’ focus areas, including supply chain optimisation, industry 4.0, the always on approach, and the concern with operational technology security.

What do your peers think? How are they organising to compete in this changed world? What do they think about tomorrow’s challenges? Within the next 18 months, customer factory lines will automatically talk to third party suppliers supply chains: how are you planning to mitigate this huge security risk to manufacturing?

Join five senior supply chain, automation, IoT and operations executives and thought leaders for this roundtable discussion as we explore manufacturing in a new and very smart world.