Jorge will take a deep dive into practical strategies for engineering managers to accurately forecast and streamline the total cost of ownership (TCO) for heavy simulation and AI workloads. Topics covered include using workload data, infrastructure planning and procurement insight to reduce unnecessary spend, helping organisations invest in the capacity they actually need.

Delivering mission-critical technology under extreme pressure requires a unique balance of speed, precision, and strategic leadership. In this exclusive fireside chat, Bob Bhatti, Head of Mechanical Engineering and Design at Formula 1, reflects on his 30-year career journey from foundational engineering to leading world-class technical teams.

Bob will explore how F1 is tackling one of its most ambitious challenges yet: its Future Race Operations (FRO) program and Net Zero 2030 strategy, detailing how global freight logistics, remote operations, and trackside engineering are being re-engineered to cut emissions without compromising performance. Finally, he will share insights on inspiring the next generation of resilient, diverse engineering talent through industry-university collaboration.

Julian will discuss the challenges around innovation, including how expert predictions are often wrong , lessons learnt from innovation history and a look into new AI or electrical technologies and current predictions.

For Chief Engineers, Design Leads, and Product Developers, the pressure to shorten time-to-market is relentless. Yet, one of the biggest friction points in product development remains the gap between CAD models on the design desk and practical execution on the shop floor. Late-stage redesigns, unresolvable DFM bottlenecks, and supply chain delays costly stall innovation right before launch.

In this practical session, Andrea outlines how early supplier engagement transforms the DFM cycle from a hurdle into a competitive advantage. Discover how leveraging the UK’s vibrant SME manufacturing network early in the design process helps engineers resolve manufacturability challenges, optimize component costs, and build agile, resilient UK supply chains, ensuring your products transition seamlessly from concept to production.

Design engineers often create brilliant concepts on the bench that become a nightmare to manufacture due to material scarcity, tight tolerances, or supply chain fragmentation. This panel looks at the modern reality of Design for Manufacturing (DFM), exploring how OEMs and tier suppliers can use collaborative data and early-stage integration to stop a design from stalling when moving from early R&D to full production.

Deploying new PLM infrastructure often fails not through technical shortcomings, but through resistance on the shop floor and engineering bench. Drawing on real-world enterprise deployments, this session delivers a practical framework for de-risking complex digital transformations, building trust across cross-functional teams, and securing genuine engineer buy-in from day one.

Organisations are increasingly investing in data, automation and AI to optimise performance across their operations. Utilising predictive maintenance and real-time condition monitoring, businesses now have unprecedented visibility into how their machines operate.

But this raises an important question: Are we applying the same level of insight and precision to understanding our people? If we can design technical systems to work more efficiently, then surely we can do the same thing for our people-based systems.

This talk explores how organisations can extend the same data-driven thinking we use in engineering and operations to the workforce, and provides practical ways to gain better understanding of staff experience, engagement, wellbeing, and performance.