As many of you will already know, we've been hosting a series of free to attend educational seminars across the UK and Nordics this year for small to medium sized manufacturers and product developers.
The goal we set for each event was to make it educational - share what we are seeing out there in industry, the trends, technology, best practices, challenges etc so attendees can go away armed with information that could potentially help them improve what they are doing within their own product development processes.
We also wanted to make sure that at each event we heard not just from our Autodesk experts but from real life manufacturers who can share how they have improved, the impact it's had and the challenges they met along the way.
This peer to peer discussion has been the highlight of each of the events so far, to be honest, its not a discussion lead by the Autodesk team, its the attendees and non-Autodesk presenters that huddle up to ask questions, get feedback and have a good old chin wag on how product development can be improved. At a couple of the events we've had to continue the discussion elsewhere after having to vacate the room!
So far we've hosted these events in Manchester, Bristol, Birmingham, Copenhagen, Cambridge and Stockholm........and we've got 3 more events scheduled this year:
Tuesday 8th September
Thursday 24th September
Tuesday 29th September
Each of the events starts at 9:00am with registration and breakfast, with the main session starting at 9:30am.
After the welcome and introductions Autodesks Gavin England presents the first session taking us through the Future Trends & Technologies manufacturers are employing to make sure they stay ahead of their competition such as 3D printing, generative design, virtual reality, upfront simulation, streamlined processes etc. What makes this particularly interesting is the way Gavin talks about how accessible these 'future' technologies actually are today for SMB manufacturers.
After Gavin its over to me where I share some of the experiences from 18 years of working with manufacturers across Europe and North America to help them improve their product development processes. The focus is on Getting Product Development Right First Time, particularly the decisions that have to be made from initial needs\requirements capture right the way though to end of life - how can decisions be made better and faster to reduce risk, change, errors & delays?
The final session is the main one, its when we hear from a manufacturer who has taken advantage of some of the technology Gavin talked about, or changed the way they are developing and engineering their products and are seeing positive change because of this.
At the Gothenberg event Daniel Hagström the CEO & Founder of Reformtech will be presenting the challenges they faced within their New Product Development (NPD\NPI) and what they did to remove those challenges to get quality, innovative products to market faster.
We'll have similar presentations at the 2 UK events to, we'll be announcing those presenters soon.
The presentations finish at 12:30pm, but there will be a networking lunch where delegates can talk to each other, share ideas and best practices as well as talk to the industry and Autodesk experts that are in the room.
We're all about making sure these events are useful, so at the conclusion of each event we ask the attendees to fill in a short feedback survey, this has helped us to improve the event but also showed us that 88% of the attendees found the event Extremely Useful (the other 12% found it Useful)!
With the summer break upon us, we've opened up registration for these next 3 events early so you make sure you have your place reserved before you head off for some rest & relaxation.
If you want more information about each of the events and want to reserve your spot, please use the links below which will take you to each of the dedicated event pages....
Tuesday 8th September
Thursday 24th September
Tuesday 29th September
There's no limit to the number of attendees you can bring along with you, so if you have colleagues that might be interested please feel free to share this with them.
Looking forward to seeing you soon!