Global Speakers

The core focus of his role is to foster industry, academia, and government collaboration through major partnerships (local and international), consortia, and strategic initiatives. Specialities: industry-university-government collaboration business models; innovation &commercialisation strategy; R&D institutes and  centres; entrepreneurship

Joseph has over one and half decades of leadership experience, crossing the divide between industry, university and government, and was the head of Industry Partnerships for Monash University prior to joining Deakin in 2017. He has a PhD in Engineering Management (‘university-industry-government collaboration business models’), a Master of Engineering in Management (technical MBA), and a Bachelor of Engineering from the University of Canterbury, and is also a PMP certified project management professional.

Dr Lawrence has previously held senior roles at Macquarie University for philanthropy, and demonstrated significant leadership experience at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, where he was the Director of New Zealand’s Centre of Excellence for Electric Power Engineering (the EPECentre). The EPECentre is internationally recognised as an exemplar for university-industry collaboration for research, innovation, and education, and Joseph wrote the strategic business plan for its establishment in 2002.

Throughout his career, Joseph has led and implemented numerous large-scale multimillion-dollar strategic initiatives that brings together sector-wide industry partners (SMEs to large multinationals), academia, and government, in industries such as advanced manufacturing, food and agriculture, and energy.

SMEs Panel: How can SMEs Start to Automate their Manufacturing Floor

Pradeep Khanna is Executive Director Asia Pacific, Sydney Chapter President & Global Co- Chair Education for the global Virtual Reality Augmented Reality Association. Pradeep is also founding member of IEEE ICICLE X-Reality for Learning and Performance Augmentation SIG & CEO of Global Mindset

He has 30+ years of executive experience and has been a leader for IBM Australia/NZ leveraging India, China, Philippines, Vietnam, Egypt, Romania, Brazil & Argentina.

He is Adjunct Professor in Australia, Singapore & India. Pradeep is regular speaker at international conferences including Vancouver, Sydney, Melbourne, Manila, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Beijing, Shanghai, New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Auckland, Seoul, San Francisco, Perth+++. He is an acknowledged Leader in Emerging Technologies especially Virtual. Augmented and Mixed Reality 

Pradeep is an Adjunct Professor at number of institutions as well is on Advisory Boards of number of companies. He has MBA from AGSM (UNSW), MSc (Computer Science) from UTS &  B Tech from IIT Delhi.

Topic: Empowering Manufacturer with AR/VR/MR to Gain Insights on Equipment Health and Product Models to Improve Plant Operations

Scott Philbrook has had over 20 years of sales and leadership experience working for global organisations in electrical manufacturing and distribution. He currently leads the Corporate Account business for RS Components for ANZ. RS Components is one of the world leading brands for Electrocomponents PLC, a global distributor for engineers founded in 1937 with revenues of 1.8bn GBP (FY 31^st March 2019). Electrocomponents operates in 32 Countries and employs over 5800 people worldwide.

Topic: Ecosystem for the Data Age

Qualified Chemical Engineer professional & MBA with more than 18 years of experience across the end to end supply chain;

Current role- Supply Chain Best Practice Director at Lion Dairy & Drinks- responsible for leading the end to end supply chain operational excellence, reliability, capability and system Optimisation.

Roundtable Discussions: Advanced Manufacturing Analytics 

Topic: Lion Dairy and Drinks Case Study

Jeff is an experienced senior executive and technologist in R&D of advanced manufacturing technologies and implementation on automated manufacturing operations in Australia, Europe and Asia.

With 30+ years of experience in Research and Development of advanced manufacturing technologies across several industry sectors he has received awards in Europe, China and Australia for his work in composite technology and commercialization of new manufacturing systems and products. Jeff has many years of business experience in the R&D of both material science and advanced technologies working and collaborating with many International Brands, Manufacturers, Universities, Government Agencies, Scientific Organisations and Industry Associations.

A corporate and innovation visionary, Jeff has led multiple efforts in the development of future advanced technologies by driving a culture of “outside the box” creative thinking to successfully manage collaborations & partnerships with vested interests in advanced technologies and product innovation. He assists companies and organisations with creative solution resolution by analysis of conceptual ideas and products to effectively transfer new technologies through to commercialisation.

Roundtable Discussions: 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing 

SMEs Panel: How can SMEs Start to Automate their Manufacturing Floor

Cuong is the Vice President of RS Components ANZ, with over 20 years’ experience across the energy, mining, manufacturing, government, retail & leisure and technology services industries. Before RS he held senior roles at Rockwell Automation, United Technologies Corporation, Adsys and Schneider Electric.

Roundtable Discussions: Creating knowledge partnerships and best practice for a data driven decision making approach

Nico Adams is Director of the Factory of the Future and an Associate Professor at Swinburne University of Technology. He supports Australian manufacturing companies in exploring and leveraging modern information technology, the Industrial Internet and Industry 4.0 to develop new products, services and business models.

Prior to his appointment at Swinburne, Nico was the IMCRC Program Lead for Industry 4.0 and Digital Transformation, where he co-created the widely used futuremap innovation diagnostic as well as a senior research scientist and product manager in CSIRO’s Data61 business unit. Through these roles, Nico has developed a deep understanding how manufacturing companies think about the role of digital technologies in their businesses and how to formulate and implement strategies allowing manufacturing businesses to take advantage of digitisation. He holds degrees from the Universities of York and Oxford.

Topic: Smart Factory of Future

Michael has business improvement process background, with experience in manufacturing, quality, business process TPM and Lean business practice.

He has 11 years of experience across various industries running Improvement frameworks, 8 years with Nestlé and development of Manufacturing excellence frameworks.

Topic: Nestlé Case Study -Developing Manufacturing excellence frameworks and driving it across the business, by influencing both up and down the chain of command

• Lead Technologist at BlueScope Building Components with over 15 years experience and a proven track record of delivering on large scale projects
• Successfully delivering cutting edge industry 4.0 solutions and changing businesses for the better through the innovative use of technology and automation
• Architect and Lead of the industry leading Operational Execution System implemented at BlueScope known as ‘Upload/Download’.

Topic: BlueScope Case study -Manufacturing Systems Automation Strategy

Manohar currently Heading the Data and Information at City of Port Phillip, brings in a unique experience of working as an industry leader, academia and startups in technology space.

He has vast experience in Big Data, IoT, Industry 4.0, AI, Digital Transformation.

He has played critical roles working with BOSCH, NTTDATA. He is also an honorary fellow with Deakin’s Applied AI Lab.

Manohar has rich global experience providing technology lead solutions enabling organizations to be future-ready.

Panel: How IoT, Connectivity & Data analytics are Transforming Manufacturing

Topic: Edge Computing -How Edge Computing will Improve Manufacturing Reliability, Speed and Resilience

Jamie has over 20 years’ experience in Research & Development, 13 years with ResMed.

ResMed is a medical equipment company with global manufacturing facilities.  It achieved revenues of US$2.34 billion in 2018.

Topic: ResMed Case Study -New Product Development Roadmap for Industry 4.0

Assaf Shevach is a Customer focused operational leader and a Quality and Customer Satisfaction Improvement Specialist. Currently with Ford Motor Company posted on special assignment tasked with the transition of the Quality Office in the newly formed International Markets Group, Assaf is responsible for driving quality processes throughout Ford’s regional manufacturing operations and markets.

Since 2006 Assaf has held a number of roles in Quality and Launch at Ford Motor Company including international postings in Thailand and Vietnam where Assaf was responsible for driving Quality and Customer Satisfaction.

Assaf also took on a series of Customer Support leadership roles at Orbotech Ltd (a technology company supplying the Electronics industry).  In his last role at Orbotech, before returning to Ford, Assaf was posted in Korea and subsequently in Hong Kong leading the Image Product Line Service Operations across the Pacific Region.

With experience in Manufacturing/ Service/ Project management, Quality and Customer Satisfaction, Assaf’s passions lie in developing technologically advanced organisations to deliver better products and services.

Assaf holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineers from the University of Adelaide and a master’s in business administration from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.

Topic: Achieving the best quality with Industry 4.0

• ADDE design and build industrial robotics, special purpose machinery and factory automationsystems. The highly experienced team have delivered projects, large and small, across a wide rangeof industries from pharmaceutical to packaging and manufacturing.
• More than 35 years of Experience has ranged from small to large private Australian companies (ANCA) through to the bluest of blue-chip multinationals (Kodak), working in local, Asia regional and international roles

Specialties: – Technology oriented product marketing and management in international markets

SMEs Panel: How can SMEs Start to Automate their Manufacturing Floor

Owner and founder of Amiga Engineering™ Pty Ltd, MD; Michael Bourchier, has expertly pushed the company right to the centre of cutting-edge technology.

The company is proud to be Australia’s only privately-owned commercial service facility for Metal 3D Printing (Additive Manufacturing). Being the only one of its kind, Amiga Engineering™ Pty Ltd offers the latest in 3D metal printing technology to the public and commercially, as well as CNC machining, fabrication and industrial gearboxes all under the one roof.

Michael established Amiga Engineering in August 1988 from humble beginnings in a small factory in Keilor, and has since grown, moving to the current Tullamarine based factory in the mid 90’s. Starting as one of the specialised manufacturing companies of Pipe fittings and Flanges, later acquiring the only Australian Made brand of industrial gearboxes “Genat and Wood” an added brand/product to the company. Concentrating the company’s efforts in the area of conventional and CNC machining, Michael carefully, and with much thought and research, realised the industry called for the company to invest in new, state of the art technology.

2018 saw the first DMP Metal 3D Printer land and installed in the Victorian based factory; a new lab skilfully built in-house pre-pared for a total of 3 large industrial sized metal 3d printers and the supporting equipment to suit. Amiga Engineering™ Pty Ltd saw the best employed that helped build the foundation of the company’s Metal additive manufacturing facility with more thereafter joining the team. Michael Bourchier has become a pioneer for industry in the public and commercial areas of metal 3d printing and general manufacturing; honouring a spot in the top 3 for the Victorian Manufacturing hall of fame 2019, and top 10 finalist for the Manufacturing Defence Industry Awards 2019.

SMEs Panel: How can SMEs Start to Automate their Manufacturing Floor

[Conference Chairperson Day 2]

Matthew Young is Manufacturing Innovation Manager at Innovative Manufacturing Cooperative Research Centre (IMCRC) an organisation helping to catalyse the transformation of Australian Manufacturing. Matthew is keenly interested in developing collaboration and open networks for innovation in Australia to enable the transformation of Australian Industry to embrace the full potential of industry 4.0.

Prior to IMCRC Matthew was Chief Engineer for Materials and Process Technology at Jiangsu Hengshen Co. Ltd., China’s largest vertically integrated carbon fibre composites materials manufacturer. He also held several lead technical engineering, manufacturing and project leader roles over a 14-year term in the aerospace industry at Boeing Aerostructures Australia which was preceded by employment at the CRC for Advanced Composites structures. The first decade of Matthew’s career was in metals processing industrial research, development and implementation. He holds an Engineering degree in Metallurgy (Honours) from UNSW and a Doctor of Philosophy in Materials Engineering from Monash University.

Professor Aleksandar Subic is the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research & Development) at Swinburne University of Technology, responsible for research and development, graduate studies, innovation and commercialisation. Prior to this appointment he was the Dean of Engineering and the Head of School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering at RMIT University. He is a Fellow of IEAust, Fellow of SAE and Fellow of IEF.

Concurrent with his academic appointments he held external appointments on Prime Minister’s Industry 4.0 Taskforce, on Australian Advanced Manufacturing Council Leaders Group (Australian Industry Group – AiG), Director and Deputy Chair of Australian Association of Aviation and Aerospace Industries, Director of Oceania Cybersecurity Centre Governing Board, Director of the Society of Automotive Engineers Australasia, Director of National Imaging Facility (NIF) Governing Board, Director of Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) Governing Board, Director of the Victorian Centre for New Energy Technologies (C4NET) Governing Board and of National Cooperative Research Centres.

He served on a number of national and international Research Advisory Committees, including the Defence Materials Technology Centre (DMTC) and the European Research Council (ERC), and as Editor in Chief and Associate Editor of a number of international scholarly journals. He has published over 300 international peer reviewed publications and has led large high impact research and development projects in partnership with industry and leading research organisations globally.

Keynote: Australia’s Advanced Manufacturing Initiatives “Industry 4.0” – Transforming the City-State into Australian’s Future Manufacturing Powerhouse

Dr Steve Dowey is the Technology Manager at Sutton Tools and a Senior Industry Fellow at RMIT University working with the Australian Defence Materials Technology Centre. After serving in the Royal Air Force he gained a BEng and PhD from Hull University and worked with SCADA, PVD coating and associated equipment development for cutting tool and semi-conductor applications. His current projects include Additive Manufactured Tooling, Tooling for Robotic Applications and ‘The Factory in a Box’ in collaboration with DMTC. Dr Doweys’ Industry 4.0 focus is on the “The Smart Enough Factory”, where the issues of cost, security and STEM skills are addressed to ensure the benefits of Industry 4.0 can reach the Australian SME, that is: Low Cost, Low Code, and Low Risk Digitalisation.

Roundtable Discussions: IoTs & Sensors in Manufacturing

Topic: The Smart Enough Factory – Achieving Low Cost, Low Skill, Low Risk Industry 4.0

SMEs Panel: How can SMEs Start to Automate their Manufacturing Floor

[Conference Chairperson Day 1]

Anna Reid has had over 15 years manufacturing experience in global FMCG businesses, with her latest role as General Manager for Asahi Beverages, which included managing 10 factories across Australia and New Zealand and producing over 130million cases of beverages annually. Anna has also worked for HJ Heinz and George Weston Foods in Manufacturing Operations and CI roles. Anna received a double bachelor degree of Engineering & Information Technology from the Australian National University, and is in the final stages of completing her MBA through Melbourne Business School. In 2015, Anna was named Victorian Young Manufacturer of the Year, and is a committee member of a number of educational sector and government advisory groups. Anna believes that manufacturing in Australia has the potential for a strong future, although it needs for us to embrace collaboration and value driven digitization.

Roundtable Discussions: Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Automation

Topic: Is Lean still relevant in the new world of Industry 4.0?

Ken McAlister is an operations, quality and business excellence professional with more than 25 years’ experience across automotive, transport and FMCG businesses in Australia, China, Thailand and globally. His experiences include managing new vehicle launches and senior quality roles across Asia Pacific with Ford Motor Company, project management at Toll IPEC, and more recently leading Manufacturing Excellence across beer and dairy businesses at Lion.

Ken has a real passion for lean continuous improvement, delivering transformation and performance by engaging teams across organisations. He believes in collaboration and breaking down silos to achieve efficient flow of information and value across the whole supply chain. It takes much more than implementing a handful of lean tools and training, and Ken has delivered solutions that pull them all together into a coherent operating system.

Topic: Operational Excellence: Getting More From Industry 4.0

Christine Miller is a senior supply chain professional with 20+ years in international supply chain, logistics and operations developing and implementing business transformation solutions in Europe, Asia, N. America, Australia and New Zealand. Her experiences include supply chain solution design, procurement, large scale change programs, mergers and acquisitions, strategy development and program implementation.

As a supply chain practitioner, Christine spent more than 15 years with the logistics and supply chain unit of the Maersk Group (Damco Logistics) developing and implementing supply chain solutions for clients across N.America, Europe, SE Asia and Australia and New Zealand. During her time with Damco she served as the Chief Operating Officer for Asia Pacific, Global Head of Business Change Management and Director of Client Solutions.

Her engagements with clients to deliver supply chain solutions have focused on transforming business performance. Christine has consulted with leading industrial and logistics occupiers to deliver solutions bringing supply chain and property together for true end to end transformation initiatives.

Topic: Logistics 4.0 – Future Warehousing & Smart Supply Chain Management

Building Enterprise Architecture, IoT/ Digital transformation capabilities from level 0 to maturity level, defining strategies, target and transition architecture, roadmaps, principles, standards & guidelines

Architecture assessments, blueprints, Integration platforms, methods and related technologies, incl. IoT Platforms, Mobility, APIs, Micro Services

Technologies: Embedded systems, RFID, Bluetooth LE, Zigbee, M2M, MCM

Cloud computing, IOT Integration platforms or complex system integrations, IoT/ Cloud Security & Privacy, Big Data, Analytics and streaming/real time analytics, IoT Field Technology: devices/sensors, edge computing, fog Computing, wireless communication protocols.

Theoretical and practical knowledge of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in general, and of specific branches of machine learning, e.g. neural networks or graphical models, regression, Kernel Methods and Gaussian Processes, Boosting, Clustering, natural language processing (NLP) AI applications etc.

Topic: (Automotive Industry) Examining The opportunity of open data sharing with the connected world

Panel: How IoT, Connectivity & Data analytics are Transforming Manufacturing

Mario is a passionate entrepreneur and inventor pushing the boundaries of digital transformation, with a strong emphasis on innovation in the automotive industry. Mario is at the forefront of developing technologies such as Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Simulations, 3D Printing and Robotics.

Recognised as an industry influencer Mario regularly contributes at leading innovation and industry conference events around the world as a speaker or expert on panel discussions.

Mario is actively building a global network of like-minded associates, collaborators, government bodies and industry partners working towards delivering new digital technologies and Industry 4.0 skills for the automotive repair and service industry. 

Embracing the Internet of Things, Mario founded Tradiebot Industries in 2017 fast becoming one of leading innovators in the automotive industry gaining global recognition for its creative technology projects and new to market Industry 4.0 solutions.

These digital solutions deliver new benefits to business, industry and the environment that include access to digital information, training, quality repairs, sustainability, upskilling current workforces and creating new digital skills for the next generation.

Topic: New collaborative 3D Printing Robot project to transform the automotive repair industry

Santiago Vela Gomez is the Digital transformation Lead of PACCAR Australia, he works with  PACCAR executives to envision and build what’s next by strategically balancing People, Processes and Technologies. Located in Melbourne Australia and open to the world through the internet, Santi combines strategy, sentiment analysis, data science and creative design with deep industry expertise and insights, to develop new digital solutions and business models of the future. Recognised by his peers and the industry,  Santi is at the forefront of innovation to address the entire breadth of PACCAR Australia opportunities in the evolving world of cloud, digital, narrow AI and CRM platforms. Building on a strong 20-year heritage and deep industry-specific expertise, he enables organisations and empowers business leaders to realize their business ambitions through an array of insights from strategy to operations. Santi is driven by the conviction that the business value of technology comes from and through people.

Topic: At what speed Digital Transformation is moving from Marketing to the Production Plant

Panel: How IoT, Connectivity & Data analytics are Transforming Manufacturing

Ian is a Regional Solutions Director for Digital Engineering and Services at Jacobs, based in Sydney.

He is passionate about developing efficient and effective digital workflows which connect people, increase collaboration and create outstanding solutions for Jacobs’ clients. He has been involved in Design for Manufacture initiatives in both the UK and Australia in Tier 1 consultant and contractor Digital leadership roles and is excited about the many opportunities that industry 4.0 will present.

Topic The Frontiers of Digital Design and Manufacturing: How the New Era of Manufacturing Will Be Enabled by Highly-Integrated Digital Advances

Norton is co-founder of LYRO Robotics, a robotics picking and packing startup.

He’s a mechanical engineer with more than 4 years’ experience in the manufacturing sector. During this time he gained expertise in industrial research and development, manufacturing, industrialisation, purchasing, testing and quality assurance He is currently implementing robotic solutions in the cancer research sector and has worked in robotic grasping for the last years. He was project lead for the mechanical team for the Amazon Robotics Challenge winning robot ‘Cartman’. During which he led the development of the end-effector and various other design related hardware on the robot.

Topic: Robots of The Future: Further Into the Robotics Industry of The Future with Wearable Industrial Robots

Prof. Georgakopoulos is the Director of the Key IoT Lab at the Digital Innovation Platform of Swinburne University of Technology. Dimitrios came to Swinburne from his roles as Research Director at CSIRO’s ICT Centre and Professor at RMIT. He is currently an adjunct professor at Australian National University and a CSIRO Adjunct Fellow. Dimitrios has also held research and management positions in several industrial labs in the USA, including Telcordia Technologies (where he helped found Telcordia’s research labs in Austin, Texas and Poznan, Poland), Microelectronics and Computer Corporation, GTE (now Verizon) Laboratories, and Bell Communications Research. Dimitrios is an internationally known expert in IoT, process management, and data management. He has won more than twenty major research awards, produced two hundred publications that have been cited 13K times, and attracted significant external research funding ($35M+) from industry and government organisations in the USA, EU, and Australia.

Topic: Enhancing plant productivity via blending industrial IoT (IIoT) and AI

Panel: How IoT, Connectivity & Data analytics are Transforming Manufacturing