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Venue: Cranfield Management Development Centre (CMDC), Lecture Room 16
In the current Industry 4.0 era, many manufacturers have been exploring the adoption of emerging digital technologies (e.g., IoT, big data, AI, 3D printing) for improving sustainability.
These digital technologies are recognised widely as a means to improve labour productivity, but so far their potential to improve the environmental and social performance of manufacturing and supply chains has been much less appreciated. Also, despite their promising functions, adopting these digital technologies successfully is not easy.
Cranfield University hosts a workshop to disseminate our research findings on this topic as well as exploring the following two themes:
Theme 1: How to use digital technologies for sustainable manufacturing?
Theme 2: How can manufacturers adopt digital technologies successfully?
The workshop is supported by ESRC-InterAct, Royal Society and ESRC-IRC DEX network.
Workshop agenda
| Time | Session |
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| Morning session: hybrid, open to all (Venue: Cranfield Management Development Centre, Lecture Room 16) |
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| 9:30-10:00 | Arrival and networking (coffee) | |
| 10:00-10:15 | Welcome and Introduction Dr Miying Yang, Cranfield University |
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| Theme 1 10:15-11:20 (15 mins/talk) Theme 2 11:20-12:25 (15 mins/talk) |
Speaker 1: Digitalisation for sustainability: towards Net Zero 10:15-10:30 Professor Steve Evans, University of Cambridge Speaker 2: Digital technologies for circular economy: benefits and rebound effects 10:30-10:45 Dr Miying Yang, Cranfield University and Professor Janaina Mascarenhas, University of Sao Paulo Speaker 3: Industrial speaker: Using AI for industrial decarbonisation 10:45-11am Dr Daniel Summerbell, Co-Founder and Chief Solutions Officer, Carbon Re Panel discussion (Theme 1): How to use digital technologies for sustainable manufacturing? 11:00-11:20 Speaker 4: InterAct – the human side of Made Smarter 11:20-11:35 Professor Jill MacBryde, University of Strathclyde Speaker 5: The adoption of disruptive digital technologies in UK manufacturing: learning from histories 11:35-11:50 Dr Ahmad Beltagui, Aston University, Dr Miying Yang, Cranfield University, and Dr Brian Sudlow, Aston University Speaker 6: Industrial speaker: Approaches to digital transformation in manufacturing 11:50-12:05 Andrew Kinder, VP Industry & Solution Strategy, Infor Panel discussion (Theme 2): How to successfully adopt digital technologies in UK manufacturing 12:05-12:25 |
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| 12:25-12:30 | Wrap up |
Speakers
Professor Steve Evans
Professor Steve Evans is Director of Research in Industrial Sustainability at University of Cambridge. He leads research that seeks to deliver knowledge concerning sustainable change at scale, including programmes in sustainable digitalisation, sustainable business model innovation, system transformation, the limits of efficiency and sustainable policy making in developing countries. He has over 30 years of academic experience which includes working collaboratively with leading industrial and academic institutions from around the globe. He has been Specialist Adviser to the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee and is a serial clean-tech start-up founder.
Dr Daniel Summerbell
Daniel Summerbell is Co-Founder and Chief Solutions Officer at Carbon Re. With a background in process engineering across a range of industries in the US, Canada & Europe, he began a programme of research into the cement industry in 2014. While a Knowledge Transfer Fellow at the Institute for Manufacturing in Cambridge he co-led the spin out of Carbon Re, a joint venture between Cambridge University and University College London. This venture has raised £1M in investment funding, and is currently applying AI to cement industry performance, with pilot clients in India, South East Asia, Europe, and North America.
Andrew Kinder
Andrew Kinder leads the Industry Strategy team for Infor globally. Based in the UK, his responsibilities include defining go-to-market strategy, determining focus industries and driving execution through marketing and sales enablement. Andrew came to the organization through supply chain leaders Mercia Software, where he was Vice President of Operations for the UK business. Andrew has worked in enterprise software since the 1980’s, seeing it from a number of different angles including implementation, business consulting, marketing and sales. He has a background in manufacturing and supply chain and is a frequent speaker at supply chain and logistics events. Andrew holds a first-class degree in BSc Industrial Studies from Sheffield.
Professor Jill MacBryde
Jill MacBryde is Professor of Innovation and Operations Management at Strathclyde University where she is also Director of the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship. Jill is Co-Director (with Jan Godsell) of the ESRC Made Smarter Network Plus, “InterAct which aims to bring insights from the social sciences to support the innovation and diffusion of digital technologies that will result in a stronger, more resilient, manufacturing base.
The theme throughout Jill’s work is operations management in changing environments and her current research projects include productivity in manufacturing, the impact of Covid on UK manufacturing, innovation in aerospace supply chains, and the future of manufacturing work.
Jill also works with policy makers and the public sector. She is currently a member of the Innovate UK/ESRC Innovation Caucus and a member of the Innovate UK Future Flight Advisory Board.
Research areas: Innovation Management, Competitiveness, Manufacturing, Performance.
Dr Miying Yang
Miying Yang is a Reader in Sustainability at Cranfield University. She holds a PhD degree from the Centre for Industrial Sustainability at University of Cambridge (2011-2015), worked as a postdoc in Sustainable Manufacturing at Cranfield University (2016), and a lecturer and subsequently senior lecturer at University of Exeter (2017-2021). She was a visiting scholar at Stanford University (2018). Her recent work focuses on digital sustainability, studying how to make manufacturing and supply chain more sustainable through digitalisation and business model innovation. She has developed a Sustainable Value Analysis Tool to help manufacturers identify their sustainable value opportunities.
Dr Ahmad Beltagui
Dr Ahmad Beltagui is a Senior Lecturer and member of the Advanced Services Group at Aston Business School. His research interests relate to the role of design in business, management and innovation. Ahmad holds degrees in Product Design Engineering and Operations Management. His research been published in journals such as Research Policy, California Management Review, Journal of Product Innovation Management, International Journal of Operations & Production Management, International Journal of Production Economics and Technovation.
Brian Sudlow
Brian Sudlow is Lecturer in History at Aston University, Birmingham, UK. He has published on technology critics, including Paul Virilio and Fabrice Hadjadj, and written about the French government’s historical interest in technological forecasting. His current research and teaching interests include contemporary digital histories, the general history of technology and global history.
Professor Janaina Mascarenhas
Janaina Mascarenhas is an Assistant Professor at the University of São Paulo, Brazil. Her current research focus on design innovation, in particular, on Digital models and Circular Business Models. Her researches include how to integrate users into the digital business models and assess opportunities to foster new circular eco-systems. She has been a visiting scholar at the engineering System Division of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA) and she holds her PhD in Production Engineering from the University of São Paulo.
