Overview

As part of its ‘Factories of the Future’ vision, British Sugar wanted to connect four huge factories across three English counties to help increase productivity and efficiency, as well as highlighting health and safety. The first multi-site network of its kind in the UK is part of the ‘Factories of the Future’ initiative for British Sugar.

The sites used to be monitored and managed via a central control room, but our private network means staff and managers can now take the control room with them and access it via mobile devices to get real-time updates on what’s happening across all four sites. British Sugar has already seen productivity gains and received positive feedback from the workforce using the devices.

There are also plans to introduce future innovations that demand increased speed and capacity, as well as machine learning to help automate knowledge capture and make sure processes are as efficient as possible. This is part of the evolution roadmap that will see an upgrade to 5G where it benefits site operations.

They have achieved:

• Full control of a secure private network, with data management dashboards and the ability to add or remove apps
• Technical flexibility
• Improved health and safety and security
• Increased productivity and efficiency
• Future transition from 4G to 5G plan
• Cost savings over time
• The capacity to expand to smart tech, including internet of things, robotics, automation and even health and safety drones

Speaker

Thomas Gere, Business Development Director - Private Networks - Enterprise 5G, VMO2

Thomas works in VMO2 on industrial digital transformation through smart connectivity, such as with 4G / 5G private and public networking (on premise, hosted or hybrid stacks). Enabling applications using AI, AR & IoT, for places and industry to be more sustainable and cost effective to improve the well-being and safety of workers as well as visitors.

Building on his mobile industry background with emerging technologies, he develops and executes innovative strategies to optimise partners' business success and exceed their ESG goals. As a multi-lingual marketing & business development leader with hands-on experience, working across multiple ICT companies and start-up businesses, he has developed new business partnerships to maximise sales performance, in a genuine consultative approach.

Thomas has an MSc in Telecommunications from UCL and a BSc in European Business with Technology from Brighton University.

Jignesh Chauhan, Senior Control System Engineer, British Sugar

Jignesh is an experienced Control System Engineer with 28 years of experience in Operational Technology (OT) across various manufacturing sectors, primarily within the food and steel industries. As the Senior Control System Engineer at British Sugar, his core responsibility is to lead the design, development, and implementation of operational technology systems. This enables both the smart factory and control systems teams to execute Industry 4.0 initiatives. He also leads several programmes and work streams like, Connectivity, OT cybersecurity and process automation. He holds BEng in Electrical Engineering from SV National Institute of Technology, Surat, India.

James Caws, Senior Automation Development Engineer, British Sugar

James Caws is a Chartered Chemical Engineer, with 12 years of experience in sugar manufacturing operations, continuous improvement, and process control. As part of British Sugar's Smart Factory team, his current focus is enabling sustainable factory performance through advanced control and Industry 4.0 initiatives. He holds an MEng in Chemical Engineering from the University of Surrey.

Time

09:00 - 10:00 GMT.

Software

The presentation will be delivered via Microsoft Teams. We recommend downloading the app from the Microsoft website, rather than using the web portal.