Largest festival of UK manufacturing heads to Liverpool

19th May 2018

More than 200 UK manufacturing leaders and supporters gathered at The Houses of Parliament on 21 February to help launch The Manufacturer’s 2017 flagship series of events.

The big announcement for 2017 was that The Manufacturer Live series of events were moving to Liverpool; a city set to see a 22% growth in advanced manufacturing over the next 10 years and where a 34% productivity increase has meant it is a city leading the way in UK manufacturing.Commenting on what the announcement means for the region, sector manager at Liverpool City Region Local Enterprise Partnership, Simon Reid, explained: “Having The Manufacturer Live in Liverpool will help put the city back on the map as a location synonymous with manufacturing excellence.“Liverpool is often thought of for its rich maritime and cultural heritage, but our manufacturing history is equally as strong. Over a quarter of a million cars are made here every year and the city region is also home to the Europe’s biggest bio-manufacturing cluster.“Local firms will have one of the nation’s foremost industry-specific events right on their doorstep, showcasing cutting-edge technology and thought leadership in UK manufacturing. This is hugely powerful; normally businesses in the Liverpool City Region would have to travel to the other end of the country or even abroad to access such an opportunity.”

The Manufacturer Live is made up of a series of interlocking events, The Manufacturer Smart Factory Expo, The Manufacturer Leaders Conference, The Manufacturer MX Awards and The Manufacturer Top 100 Report Launch, and offers small and medium-sized businesses the opportunity to meet more than 6,000 of the UK’s high-growth manufacturers; key manufacturing OEM’s; industrial accelerators; hardware start-ups; finance, and Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) solution providers.

The digitisation of the sector – driven in large part by 4IR technologies – continues to attract significant levels of interest from key industry partners such as IBM; HPE; Cisco; Intel, and Microsoft, and The Manufacturer remains committed to helping businesses navigate this dynamic and exciting transition.
CEO of Hennik Group, publishers of The Manufacturer and organisers of the events, Nick Hussey, said: “It was wonderful to see so many senior people from the manufacturing community at our launch event, the atmosphere was alive and it is clear that there is a real buzz around UK manufacturing at present.

“We are delighted to have secured Santander as headline sponsor for The Manufacturer MX Awards and to have our on-going relationship with the Institution of Mechanical Engineers [IMechE] reinforced by the President Jon Hilton.

“We are also delighted by the calibre of sponsors we have secured on our Top 100 people in manufacturing project, with Salesforce reaffirming their commitment to the manufacturing sector, and Autodesk taking a key position across the Leaders Conference, the Awards and the Top 100.”

Tony O’Neill, investment manager at Invest Liverpool, added: “For Liverpool to be chosen as the new home for Manufacturer Live events focusing on the latest technologies is a testament to the cutting-edge manufacturing base we have in our city region.

The collaboration we see between universities, manufacturers and public agencies has brought us national and international recognition as a centre for 4IR, where digital solutions will increasingly be applied to transform manufacturing productivity.

There is no doubt that Liverpool now provides the natural home for prestigious industry events like Manufacturer Live.”

To find out more about how you can be a part of it all on 15 – 16 November, 2017 visit themanufacturerlive.com, or contact a member of the team on marketing@hennikgroup.com

19th May 2018