79th Namur Annual General Meeting sponsored by Yokogawa
Focus on optimisations in the global process industry
To capitalise on opportunities for technological innovation and sustainable growth, European companies in the process industry have been gradually globalising their businesses. To enable them to strengthen their competitiveness, they have been venturing into new production segments. At the same time, the market has demonstrated a clear shift from commodity chemicals to specialty chemicals over the last decade.
Companies have no option but to harness and optimise their processes globally by, for example, integrating different business operations, expanding into emerging markets, and extending value chains beyond regional and industry boundaries. They also need to improve the efficiency and flexibility of their production operations so that they can respond to mounting requirements such as increasingly specific products. This calls for mass customisation, i. e. the manufacture of a special product at the same cost and speed as with regular mass production operations.
New technologies and high tech strategies such as those represented by the Industry 4.0 initiative as well as the type of industry-government-academia partnerships seen in R&D will be essential in an ever more flexible and complex business environment. Irrespective of regional or industry differences, companies and other types of organisations will need to be able to pool their respective technologies and expertise and work together.
Against the background of these daunting challenges, Namur will be holding its 2016 Annual General Meeting on November 10 and 11 in Bad Neuenahr, Germany, under the motto “Solutions for Optimisation in the Global Process Industry”. Yokogawa is the sponsor for the meeting, at which it will also introduce its innovative product and service solutions.
Dr. Andreas Helget, Managing Director of Yokogawa Deutschland GmbH, explains: “We’re not simply relying on our own creativity and innovative vitality; we also involve customers, partners, and academic institutions in line with our corporate brand slogan ‘Co-innovating tomorrow’ as we strive to create the best of all possible solutions.”
In the sponsor’s keynote speech at the plenary session Yokogawa will present the options for cooperation and describe some of the company’s newest developments. The focus will be on three main aspects: cutting edge automation platform products that ensure safe and flexible operations with high availability, process optimisation solutions that enable stable and highly efficient production operations, and services that bridge gaps between supply chains and regions.
The accompanying exhibition throughout the event will provide additional insights into Yokogawa’s automation world. The keynote speech given by Yokogawa at the plenary session will be followed on the Thursday morning by three forward-looking presentations by Namur members on “Plant Performance”, “Namur Open Architecture”, and “Remote Operation” dealing with requirements and trends from the user perspective.
The meeting will continue on the Thursday afternoon with several interesting workshops at which the sponsor will elaborate on its chosen topics in more depth, while Namur representatives will discuss current activities and developments and partner associations will give various presentations. “Industry 4.0”, “Functional safety”, “PCS interfaces”, and “Smart maintenance” are among the subjects so far announced.
The Friday will begin with the presentation of this year’s Namur Award for the best degree thesis (master’s or doctoral) in the field of automation technology. An exciting panel discussion on “Modularisation” then awaits attendees as well as some fascinating plenary lectures on how to improve availability, for instance, or on data mining.
The choice of Yokogawa as sponsor and the blend of innovative presentations and workshops offering maximum practical relevance mean the Namur Annual General Meeting 2016 will once again be an event to look forward to.
As many as 630 experts attended Namur Annual General Meeting 2015. This year the choice of Yokogawa as sponsor and the blend of innovative presentations and workshops will once again lead to an event to look forward to
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