I spoke at the Society of Concurrent Product Development Annual Conference : Dream Big, Innovating in Our World. The conference was 1.5 days of presentations and talks, followed by an afternoon spent at the 3M Innovation Centre. About 100 people attended the main conference, there was a diverse audience from large companies, 3M, Kuhne and Nagel, Microsoft, Target (US Department Store) through to small start-up companies and academics. My talk was on concept Concurrent Product Development and what we have done to improve in Future Programmes at Rolls-Royce plc.
There were Interesting presentations, ranging from the CEO of Harry’s razors explaining he start-up company story (5 years old with 5 million customers) to a talk by marketing company Brandgarten – We all make irrational decisions on big life choices, then post rationalise why we made the right decision, illustrated by the fact that the biggest markets for fires and fireplaces in the USA were Atlanta and Phoenix. Day 2 was around Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). The CEO of SantosHuman explained building a mathematical model of a human being, so they could understand forces and ergonomics around drivers sitting in a cab of a dumper truck etc. There would be some good applications for engine assembly and servicing; SantosHuman are joining the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC).
Whilst in the USA I also gave a talk to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and IET SoCal Local Network on Concurrent Engineering at the concept stage and a little on how this linked in with the Intelligent Engine. The audience included an Ex-director of Xerox, and we discussed the Xerox PARC facility and how to make the best funding decisions on Research and Technology.
If you are interested and would like to learn more then please get in touch.