Today, we have for you, the final two speakers details for our event taking place on 14th September:

"Intelligent Industrial Automation in Factories and Elsewhere” by Professor Duncan McFarlane.   


Professor McFarlane has been involved in the design and operation of industrial automation and information systems for twenty five years.  His research work has been in distributed, intelligent industrial automation, reconfigurable control systems, resilient control, RFID integration, track and trace systems, IoT and valuing industrial information.  In 1993 he was a founding member of the Holonic Manufacturing Systems consortium examining the role of distributed AI in manufacturing control for the first time. Since 2000 he has been Director of the Auto ID Centre [2000-3] and Auto ID Labs [2003- present] which has led to the origins of ideas such as Internet of Things and Product Intelligence.  He is founder and Chairman of RedBite Solutions Ltd - an industrial RFID and track & trace solutions company and is  involved in Innovate UK IoT demonstrator developments around the emerging Hypercat Standard. His research involves major companies such as Boeing, Laing O'Rourke, Unilever and Foxconn.

Abstract of Prof McFarlane's talk
The presentation will examine some of the key drivers for more versatile and adaptive automation in manufacturing today and discuss these in the context of paradigms such as Industrial IoT and Industry 4.0.  The presentation will also examine the emerging role of industrial automation beyond the factory in supporting new distributed more localised models for production and distribution.

Steve Matthews is a Senior  Technical Pre Sales Consultant at Cisco Systems with more than 27 years  Computer Networking experience.


Steve has worked for several years within the Cisco Industrial , Transportation and Utility Sector practice in Europe. A main focus area for Steve is advising customers of all sizes  on best practices around  connecting the  Enterprise IT and Factory Floor Operational  domains.

A key aspect within this remit which is top of mind   is ‘Cyber Security’ and how best to combat it.

Abstract of Steve's talk
Todays Manufacturing domains are challenged in many areas when pressurised to close the ‘air gap’ of IT and OT to allow amongst other  things better data visibility from the shop floor.


In his presentation Steve will cover aspects around best practices in this space including mitigation techniques that can help protect these sensitive areas and functionality within commercial off the shelf products.


Last few places left now so don't miss out!