Industry 4.0 Continues To Expand In Asia Pacific With Inaugural Industrial Transformation

With growing economies of the region, and most of them are growing very fast, the need to innovate and catch up with world industry standards is a must or the business would be left out in the global race. We were introduced with the concept of Industry 4.0 which is now being applied by major players in business.

Here in Asic-Pacific especially the South-East Asian region, there is much to know about it and how can it be applied to key industries for each country. This October, SingEx set ups the inaugural Industrial Transformation ASIA-PACIFIC, a Hannover Messe event, will take place in Singapore, the region’s thriving manufacturing hub, at Singapore EXPO from 16 to 18 October 2018. Organised by SingEx Exhibitions together with international partner Deutsche Messe, the event is the definitive new trade platform for the 4th Industrial Revolution in Asia Pacific as the region’s manufacturing community gets ready to embark on, and showcase, their readiness for transformational change. The event will welcome more than 10,000 attendees from over 30 countries over three days.

The 3-day event aims to bring concentrated solutions for industry challenges in the region. As participants enter the event, they are given a comprehensive tour and orientation of Industry 4.0 and which areas they could go to. This saves a lot of time just scouting around the entire hall just to find the company to partner with. 

They also have a systematic way of knowing the needs and solutions as they are assisted based on their industry, capacity, and possible new things they can also try. A series of talks from key personalities also provide in-depth talks about various topics such as Automation, Artificial Intelligence,  market trends, regional cooperation and many more. 

What is Industry 4.0?

Following its launch announcement in April, the trade platform has since attracted an unprecedented level of support and interest from the regional community. The event space has been scaled up from 15,000 square metres to 20,000 square metres to cater for the overwhelming reception. Companies that have signed on to participate, represent a cross-section of industries, thus ensuring rich on-site representation of the advanced manufacturing community during the event. 

With the vast majority of the trade show already fully subscribed, participants can look forward to an array of activities and programmes across multiple industry sectors, including Learning Journeys, Learning Lab, Knowledge Exchange Platform, and Startup Forum, amongst others (please refer to Annex A for full event highlights). 

Solutions from more than 200 global industrial automation heavyweights, market leaders and startups, represented by over 10 countries, will also be showcased, including six major country pavilions – Singapore, Malaysia, India, Indonesia, Japan and Germany (please refer to Annex B for list of key exhibitors). 

Some key innovations that will be featured include:

• Beckhoff’s C-based control TwinCAT engineering and control software, in creating applications (such as Big Data and Pattern Recognition) to sustainably increase production and engineering efficiency; and

• ST Engineering’s family of autonomous vehicles (STROBO), which incorporates LiDAR SLAM technology to accurately pick and place pallets through advanced pallet detection and recognition capabilities. The company will also launch their latest model of TUG, a leading autonomous mobile robot for material transportation and delivery, at the event.

ASEAN Minesterial Dialouge Anchors Stellar List of International Speakers

Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister, Co-ordinating Minister for Economic and Social Policies and Chairman of the Group of Thirty, will open the event on 16 October, while the opening plenary will feature an ASEAN Ministerial-level panel, where regional macro-economic perspectives, schemes and frameworks for Industry 4.0 initiatives will be discussed. 

A stellar list of leading Industry 4.0 experts will present at the conference, framed around the theme “Getting Real with the Business of Industry 4.0”. The conference will comprise plenary sessions under the Industrial Transformation – Future of Manufacturing Summit and several distinct tracks: 

• Industrial IoT Forum;

• Global Additive Manufacturing Summit (with individual Industrial and MedTech breakout tracks); and

• Standards Forum

The conference will feature over 100 Industry 4.0 trailblazers from 15 economies, of which more than 50% are regional experts, including luminaries such as 

• Phil Smith, Chairman of Innovate UK (the UK’s Technology Strategy Board and key innovation agency), whose keynote Drawing On Innovation’s Dividend – The Journey to Renewing Industry’s Promise draws inspiration from the UK’s innovation initiatives for spurring industrial transformation, and lessons for Asia-Pacific audiences on multi-sectoral, public-private collaborations;

• Samuel Garcia, Procter and Gamble’s Vice President for Global Consumer Product Supply (APAC), who will share insights on the significant changes Industry 4.0 has brought to the FMCG sector, from manufacturing, innovation and development process standpoints, as well as its impact on supply chain; 

• Alpesh Patel, Director of McKinsey & Company’s Digital Capability Center, who will moderate a high-level panel session on the topic Where Next on the Journey to Industry 4.0 in Asia Pacific? Presenters on this panel will share their prognostications on the impacts and outcomes of Industry 4.0; and 

• Max Ward, Chief Executive Officer of Openport and Board Member of the recently formed Open Enterprise Logistics (OEL) Foundation based in Hong Kong, who will speak on how blockchain technologies and applications are reshaping process and business models in the value and supply chain space

START, SCALE, SUSTAIN – Geeting Ready For An Immersive And Engaging Learning Journey

As the pace of each nation’s transformation journey is different and uneven, the event’s unique “Learning Journey” approach is designed to help companies and governments in Asia-Pacific start, scale and sustain their adoption of Industry 4.0 processes and solutions. Based on where they are in their current journey – be it novices, early adopters or trailblazers, this approach is designed to encourage and spur learning, deepen understanding and enable relevant collaborations and ideas to take shape.

While novices to Industry 4.0 will gain better understanding from case studies, recommended solution lists, specially curated explanatory sessions and highlights at the demonstration areas, early adopters will benefit from more advanced coverage of concepts and solutions relating to their phase of Industry 4.0 adoption.  Trailblazers and innovators will in turn get to share their adoption experiences with the community through presentations at the conference and sandboxes, as well as contribute perspectives on more advanced topics.  

Recognising the event’s strategic importance in spearheading economic progress, the event has also garnered strong support from various local government agencies, with contributions and input drawn from deep community insights. This is reflected in the composition of Industrial Transformation ASIA-PACIFIC’s steering and advisory committees (please refer to Annex C), formed to provide counsel and guidance for the event’s standing, delivery and achievement of regional strategic and business objectives. 

For more information, please visit http://industrial-transformation.com/.