Companies including Jaguar Land Rover, Porsche, Airbus and ABB Robotics will be among 170 businesses heading to Liverpool for the largest-ever ‘Smart Factory Expo’. Tony McDonough reports

More than 170 businesses including advanced manufacturers are converging on Liverpool this week for the  largest-ever ‘Smart Factory Expo’.

Being held at Exhibition Centre Liverpool from November 14 to 16, the expo will welcome more than 2,000 visitors. There will be 138 speakers at what is regarded as the UK’s leading showcase for innovative manufacturing technology.

Representatives from ABB Robotics, Airbus, Jaguar Land Rover, Deloitte, Google Cloud, Microsoft, Sony and many more will come together to share insights and innovative initiatives relating to the digital future of industry.

More than 1,000 different global manufacturing companies are already registered, representing over 10% of the UK’s annual GDP. 380,000 people are directly employed in the UK by the exhibiting companies and millions more globally.

Smart Factory Expo is being held to coincide with Digital Manufacturing Week. Delegates will be offered world-first demonstrations, immersive experiences and hands-on opportunities.

Some of the technologies on display include:

• Industrial Metaverse – at the Deloitte stand you can virtually explore the company’s three Smart Factories hosted in the metaverse.
• Microsoft will be showcasing the industrial metaverse and its world-changing potential.
• Robots and cobots showing the simplicity and versatility of automation – Omron will highlight how automation journeys can begin with the simplest of elements.
• Porsche will be showcasing ‘The Best Car Configurator’ on the planet created in conjunction with supercar manufacturer Pagani.

Grace Gilling, managing director of Hennik Research, publishers of The Manufacturer and organisers of Smart Factory Expo, said: “There will be so much innovation on display at this year’s event, that it’s impossible to list it all.

“However, one thing I’m particularly looking forward to is Microsoft’s showcase of the game-changing Industrial Metaverse and how augmented reality, plus HoloLens, enables engineers to collaborate on projects without needing to be physically together. 

“This is something incredible I remember from science fiction movies not so long ago, now it’s reality.”