Transform Industry Agility 2027

Industrial agility is easy to discuss at a strategic level and far harder to implement on the plant floor. Hear what frontline managers need to prioritize to respond to escalating global disruption.

• What agility looks like in practice for operations, maintenance and reliability teams.
• How digital tools, workforce capability and cross-functional operating models combine to speed up response.
• Where to focus first to improve frontline decision-making under volatile conditions.

Leaders face no shortage of technology options, but only a subset sustain value once deployed in real operating environments. Practitioners from across asset-intensive industries share hard-won lessons on what actually works, with a live audience poll.

• Which technologies are genuinely moving the needle on reliability, safety, productivity and cost.
• Common reasons deployments stall once they leave the pilot environment.
• Practical selection and rollout lessons from plant, operations and engineering leaders.

Agentic AI promises more autonomous decision-making across operations and maintenance, yet most industrial efforts remain stuck in pilot mode. Hear how one leading industrial firm moved from experimentation to plant-wide impact.

• Why early agentic AI initiatives fell short, and what was changed.
• The technical and operational barriers to embedding agents in daily workflows.
• What it takes to turn isolated pilots into trusted, scaled capabilities.

Many plants still manage safety, risk and control of work through fragmented processes, creating inconsistency and greater exposure to incidents. Peers discuss how they are strengthening risk management at plant level.

• How integrated, disciplined approaches reduce incident exposure.
• The role of process safety management software in improving visibility and consistency.
• Aligning engineering, operations and maintenance around a single view of risk.

Ten facilitated, peer-led roundtables covering the technology decisions frontline leaders are weighing right now.

An introduction to Atlas, a new searchable database of software, equipment, robotics and services across EHS, sustainability, risk and adjacent markets, alongside the AI-enabled research tool Vantage.

• How to discover and compare solutions in a single place.
• Using market insight to set strategy and build a business case.
• Shortlisting the vendors that can actually support your ambitions.

Reliability initiatives are too often positioned as all-or-nothing, leaving teams unsure where to start. This session looks at what works at each stage of the maturity curve, from reactive and preventative environments through to predictive and risk-based approaches.

• How to identify where your organization sits on the reliability maturity curve.
• Which use cases and enabling technologies deliver most value at each stage.
• Realistic ways to progress within day-to-day operational constraints.

AI is now embedded across a growing number of industrial use cases, but maturity and value realization vary widely. A senior technology leader and a Head of AI give an honest status update on where industrial AI delivers today.

• What has scaled successfully, and what remains stuck in pilot mode.
• Where expectations still outpace operational reality.
• How to build trust and guardrails around autonomous decision-making.

Agility is as much about how people lead and decide under pressure as it is about technology. Leaders from across frontline operations discuss how leadership models are being tested by supply chain shocks, workforce shifts and rapid digitalization.

• How collaboration and openness to change alter team response to uncertainty.
• Leadership behaviours that strengthen operational resilience.
• Building a more agile, future-ready industrial organization.

Most industrial organizations know data matters, but fragmented systems and inconsistent quality stall analytics and AI initiatives before they deliver. This session deals with the reality on the ground rather than ideal-state architectures.

• How to identify the data problems that most affect operational performance.
• Practical steps to improve data quality, add context and make data usable on the frontline.
• What worked, what did not, and where a pragmatic approach pays off.

Design decisions are still made with too little feedback from operations and maintenance. This discussion explores how design engineering software, simulation and digital twins connect design choices to lifecycle outcomes.

• Bringing operations and maintenance input into the design stage.
• Where simulation and digital twins reduce downstream cost and risk.
• Designing for operability and maintainability from the start.

A rapid-fire analyst teach-in across the technology categories shaping industrial transformation today — from analytics and EAM/CMMS to APM, cybersecurity, digital twins, field service and process safety management.

• Unbiased analyst view of priorities, maturity and business value by category.
• Who the leading vendors are in each market.
• Which interconnected technologies deliver proven value for your function.

As experienced workers retire and workforce expectations evolve, industrial firms must balance knowledge transfer with new ways of working. Explore how organizations can build, retain and enable the next generation of industrial talent.

• Attracting and retaining talent in a changing workforce.
• Transferring critical knowledge from experienced employees.
• Using technology, training and leadership to support workforce development.

Autonomous inspection technologies are becoming an increasingly important part of industrial operations. Learn how leading firms are combining robotics, drones, wearables and digital twins to improve safety, reliability and asset performance.

• Scaling autonomous inspection beyond pilot programmes.
• Integrating digital twins and AI into operational workflows.
• Improving asset health monitoring, safety and uptime.

Maintenance investments often compete with other business priorities despite their impact on reliability and resilience. Explore how leaders are reframing maintenance technology as a strategic business enabler rather than a cost centre.

• Linking maintenance investments to business performance and resilience.
• Quantifying the value of risk reduction and reliability improvements.
• Building stronger value cases for investment at the executive level.

A summary of the most important themes and lessons from the summit, highlighting practical actions attendees can take back to their organizations.

An informal evening dinner and drinks reception, bringing together attendees, speakers and sponsors to continue conversations beyond the formal agenda.

• Network with industry peers and thought leaders.
• Discuss partnerships and collaboration opportunities.
• Connect with leaders across industries in a relaxed setting.