National Highways delivering Connected Autonomous Plant Project at Futureworx 2022
National Highways have expressed that the organisation is “delighted to confirm participation at this year’s Futureworx technology event.” The exclusive technology show case is taking place on 30th and 31st March 2022 at the East of England Arena, Peterborough.
Highways England is hoping to bring the transport industry even closer together as the company launch its Connected and Autonomous Plant (CAP) maturity levels, and demonstrate how CAP can work on construction sites.
Amer Essa, Innovation & Continuous Improvement Innovation Advisor at National Highways, explains: “Advances in technology and the introduction of CAP are transforming activities across the UK construction sector. CAP offers potential in a wide range of applications including the remote collection of data for design, autonomous extraction and movement of materials and robotic construction.
In 2019, the benefits of deploying CAP on construction sites were beginning to be recognised. However, organisations were each pursuing their own agendas and no sector-wide approach had been developed.”
In June 2020, National Highways and i3P jointly launched a CAP roadmap with the aim of making it business as usual by 2035. The roadmap was developed collaboratively with over 75 organisations and addresses the technical, business and legislative challenges, split into three key themes of people and society; technology and hardware and data and digital techniques.
Amer added: “If the Roadmap vision is realised, this has potential efficiency and productivity savings of £200Bn for the UK construction sector by 2040.”
HS2 Ltd – the specialist company established to build Britain’s new high speed railway network – is the latest high-profile partner for the upcoming Futureworx event in the UK.
Suneeta Johal, Chief Executive at the CEA, said: “The HS2 team has a good track record of working with both Plantworx and the CEA – so they are most welcome supporters of our new event.
“Futureworx will provide the HS2 team with the perfect platform to showcase their use of new technologies to design the station of the future, demonstrate their progress and achievements in building a low carbon railway that will change the way we travel in Britain.”
National Highways joins The Supply Chain Sustainability School and HS2 in supporting the Futureworx ‘future technology’ event, which is being delivered by the CEA (Construction Equipment Association), hosts of the Plantworx exhibition.
The event will showcase what the construction site of the future will look like – embracing immersive technologies and exploring and cutting edge innovations and the power of Data.
There will be a focus on people plant interface management, telematics, the connected site, GPS systems, safety systems and advances in autonomous and electric and hydrogen machinery. The event aims to highlight sustainability, productivity and advances in future fuels such as hydrogen, electric and HVO.
Futureworx, National Highways, HS2 and the Sustainability Supply Chain School, will bring together industry professionals keen to find out what is in the pipeline of ideas and technology which will shape tomorrow’s construction equipment experience. The two-day event will also include conference sessions, live product demonstrations and technical talks.
