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Our Best Practice in Industrial Asset Management Conference 2023 took place on 08 February at Hardwick Hall Hotel, joined by over 150 industry delegates.

Sponsored by Wood, Anthesis and Jackson Hogg, the event highlighted the importance of showcasing cross-sector best practice to drive forward improvements in productivity, reliability and safety.

The first section of the conference included talks from Kevin Stewart, technical delivery operations and product owner at Wood, Philippa Kendrick, senior consultant at Frazer-Nash Consultancy, Ian Nelson, chemical industry manager at Endress+Hauser, Martin Graham, director of engineering and facilities at Piramal Pharma Solutions and Ben Caley, product manager at Siemens.

Following a welcome from our head of technical, Ryan Siddall, we introduced Kevin who opened the conference by discussing the business challenges of asset management, and how they often lead to a capacity issue. He then went onto to explain how Wood’s Maint.ai. data driven solutions can open that capacity back up to help businesses achieve their overall objectives.

Delegates then heard case studies from Philippa who discussed the development of asset maturity at the UK’s leading LNG importation terminal and highlighted the phased approach the consultancy undertook when looking at this project. Whilst Ian then shared case studies on how network-based asset collaboration through Endress+Hauser’s Netilion ecosystem has improved efficiency and innovation on customer sites.

We then moved onto Martin, who discussed how Piramal implemented an effective asset maintenance strategy to increase their investment potential and Ben, who stressed the importance of cyber security in operational technology (OT), as well as the laws and regulations companies should be aware of when operating a COMAH site.

The conference then headed into a break where delegates could browse the fantastic exhibition stands from: Wood, Anthesis, Jackson Hogg, 2M Holdings, Atlas Copco Rental, Axiom Engineering Associates, Beamex, Bilfinger UK, BPI Auctions, Durham University, Emerson, Endress+Hauser, Flexitallic, FoCul, Frazer-Nash Consultancy, MCE Group, PPCL, px Group, Rembe GmbH Safety + Control, SeSys and Veolia.

We opened the next segment of the conference up to Dr Alan Mahoney, technical and operations director at PPCL, Christine McKie, MD at px Energy Solutions, Cyrus Sorab, principal architect at IFS and Joao Vasques, senior consultant at DNV.

Dr Alan Mahoney explained how businesses can optimise energy usage with geometric process control, highlighting case studies which had saved their clients $1 million in just one year.

Moving onto green energy, Christine discussed an asset’s journey to Net Zero whereby she demonstrated how the company partners with their customers to optimise assets and decarbonise their activities. Also discussing Net Zero, Cyrus explained how asset owners can use intelligent APM to drive their Net Zero ambitions and gave examples of the IFS Carbon Footprinting Tool which enables companies to understand their trends to increase energy efficiency. The Net Zero theme was then reiterated by Joao, who explained how RAM performance forecasting aids the future performance of assets and can help achieve Net Zero objectives.

The final section of our Conference then featured Matt Cloran, area sales manager at Kluber Lubrication, Rob Johnson, owner at Axiom Engineering Associates, Matthew Waller, operations director at RVA Group and Joe Hodgson, director at BPI Auctions.

Matt described how Kluber Lubrication can support the process sector asset management challenges with lubrication management which in turn helps companies save energy.

Discussing the final stages of the asset management lifecycle were Rob, Matthew and Joe; which included the factors businesses should consider when nursing assets to shut down, why it’s important to think about decommissioning in the early stages of an asset’s life and how you can dispose of your assets through BPI Auctions to help the circular economy.

Expressing the success of the conference, main event sponsor Wood said: “The marketing and promotion of the event by NEPIC has been fantastic. We have seen real benefits in taking this package, and our social media platforms have been active with a few enquires coming in already.

“It’s definitely been worthwhile, and we would certainly like to get more involved in these events in the future from a sponsor viewpoint.”

Speaker Matthew Waller also said: “Sharing knowledge and information is critical for success of the industry, and that’s why it’s so important for NEPIC to host events such as this. It’s these conversations that trigger new thought processes to further collaboration and provide new ways of thinking for businesses.”

A huge thank you to all our sponsors, speakers and everyone who attended. We hope to see you all at our next event, which will be our exciting Annual Industry Awards at Hardwick Hall Hotel on Friday 24 March. If you’re still yet to book tickets or a table, please follow the instructions given on the event page here.