The UK manufacturing sector has always been supported and promoted by a wide array of events.
However, many have typically been based on a legacy format that, over the last decade, has become somewhat stale and uninspiring.
In 2020, MTC Events surveyed the manufacturing horizon along with industrial partners to ascertain what it was manufacturing industry wanted to see in the future from industry events. Without a doubt, the resounding response was there was an overwhelming feeling that events - and the industry bodies organising events - were not fully representing the voice of industry, and that events were scripted and even politically focused too much on specific policy areas by the organisers.
The call was for industry to have more involvement in both the construction of events and the content, delivering an unbiased voice for industry. Taking this feedback, it was decided that another industry conference wasn’t going to be good enough to stage that unbiased industry voice, and something bigger and more purposeful was needed.
The idea of an annual summit was created jointly between the Industrial Policy Research Centre (IPRC) and the MTC Events team. An event of significance, fuelled by industry, for industry, giving UK manufacturers a stage to project an unbiased voice. Nothing less than a significant date in manufacturing industry’s annual calendar, hosted in the heart of the UK.
In March 2021, the inaugural National Manufacturing Summit was held at the Manufacturing Technology Centre in Coventry. The first new large-scale event of its kind for some time, NMS 2021 was underpinned with government representation from all four nations, industry partners, academics, leaders, and experts from our sector, all gathered to disseminate best practice, knowledge, and strategic thinking.
A fully virtual event whilst some COVID-19 lockdown restrictions were still in place, NMS 2021 was a resounding success, with more than 1,500 delegates joining across the two days. The concept for the National Manufacturing Summit had become a reality.
NMS returned in February 2022, and marked the first major MTC-led face-to-face event to be held at the venue since the start of the pandemic. Building on the considerable virtual audience from the year before, we combined in-person conference sessions with a full live broadcast, thus creating the MTC’s first ever large-scale hybrid event.
The 2022 National Manufacturing Summit was centred around three core themes – ‘fossil fuels to renewables’, ‘factory to door’, and ‘field to fork’ - providing a clear focus on the UK’s charge to achieving net zero by 2050. We proudly welcomed over 4,500 in-person and virtual attendees over two days from across five continents, with over 540 companies represented and headline grabbing conference sessions making national and trade press in the days that followed.
In 2023, building on the success of the previous year’s hybrid model, the National Manufacturing Summit was even bigger still. NMS 2023 was centred around unlocking the digital revolution and sought to address the prevalence of digital technology in UK manufacturing, both now and in the future.
This year, our focus turns to technology, skills, and training; a topic that is high on the agenda within our sector, as we explore how advances in technology will affect the workplace and workforce of the future.
The event will provide a national forum for discussing key topics including how we utilise automation and robotics to boost productivity, the use of digital technologies, and the support needed for major transitions in manufacturing. Key topics for this year include:
· Workforce Development on the Road to Net Zero
· The Future Workforce and Technologies
· Tackling the Skills Crisis to Build Manufacturing Resilience
· A Review of the Current Scene Within Manufacturing
Event delegates will also have the benefit of seeing the latest technologies and demonstrations on display by a number of event exhibitors. Like every edition of NMS, our focus is informed by industry demand. With proven year-on-year growth, the National Manufacturing Summit affords opportunities for industry, academic partners, government, and the wider HVM Catapult network to not only be a part of the conversation, but to help shape it too.
The original aim for this conference was to create an event fuelled by industry, for industry, and to give UK manufacturers a stage to project an unbiased voice. Four years on, and we truly believe that the National Manufacturing Summit continues to be just that.
To find out more about National Manufacturing Summit 2024 and to register, please visit: https://www.nmsummit.co.uk/
