Engineering Design Show: The success story continues

These visitor figures easily surpassed the original target of 2,500 and nearly doubled last year's figure of 1,600 visitors. In one sense, however, this should come as no surprise. After all, the Show, which this year was co-located with the inaugural Electronics Design Show and featured Engineering Materials Live!, was always billed as being bigger and better than last year's. However, it's one thing to bill it as such, but another to deliver on this promise. And that is something that the Engineering Design Show 2013 has achieved without any doubt. Featuring more than 170 exhibitors over all three of the Jaguar Exhibition Halls, more than 60% of whom have already agreed to take part in next year's event, the show was greeted with huge positivity. Ed Tranter, executive director of organiser Findlay Media, was understandably delighted, saying: "It has been great to watch the Engineering Design Show build on last year's success to grow into something even bigger and better. It's also been great to receive so much positive feedback from visitors and exhibitors alike." Of course, the exhibition itself was far from the only attraction at the event, with a full Conference programme over the two days that featured a range of speakers. To choose just a few, these included a packed session where Dr Caroline Symcock, the global compliance and approvals manager for Dyson, talked about the design philosophy that underpins this iconic British brand, with particular reference to the way in which the frustration of knowing that something could be made better is a spur to innovation. Also speaking to a full house was Simon Smith, associate director of products and systems with Cambridge Consultants. Here, by storyboarding a customer's journey, he illustrated the five rules of innovation that make the difference to a successful product. Other highlights of the Conference included a presentation by Andy Bradford of Surrey Satellite Technology Limited, who addressed the challenges facing the design engineer preparing a product for the rigours of space travel and Will Carleysmith, head of design for Brompton Bicycles, who talked about the design behind his company's success. Meanwhile, the sole panel session of the programme featured Eureka editor Paul Fanning chairing a discussion with leading lights of the 3D printing inwedustry. Under the title 'Additive Manufacturing – What's in it for Me?', the session set out to uncover the reality behind the hype of this eye-catching technology. In addition, a highly successful workshop programme attracted many hundreds of visitors keen to get hands-on, practical advice from leading companies in the field. Summing up his feelings about the show, Ed Tranter said: ""Findlay Media is committed to bringing high quality information and learning to engineers and we really believe that we have developed an event that is a positive force for the UK's design engineering community." 2014 – Even bigger. Even better Building on 2012's success is great, but the ambitions for 2014 are even greater. Like any engineering project, continued progress and development are essential – and the Engineering Design Show and Electronics Design Shows are no exception. Between 22nd and 23rd October 2014, these combined events will occupy all of the available space within the Jaguar Exhibition halls at the Ricoh Arena – a floor space of 6,000m2 – and next year this will also expand into the EON Lounge – incorporating an additional 1,000m2 of stands, workshops and high-value content. This expansion will include growth of this year's popular addition to the Engineering Design Show, Engineering Materials Live! and will offer even more scope for visitors to see the latest in rapid prototyping and additive manufacturing technologies. A brand new event Next year will also see the launch of the latest addition to the Design Show family – the Embedded Design Show. Located within the EON Lounge, here at the Ricoh Arena, this brand new event will link suppliers of embedded software and hardware with design engineers so that they can share the latest thinking, developments and technology in this crucial sector of electronics design. While the topic of this show is very specific, it retains the guiding principles that were used when originally developing the Engineering Design Show. This is not expansion for expansion's sake, the embedded sector is playing an increasingly important role in the broader electronics design sector and we see the Embedded Design Show providing a crucial component in this growth. As with its sister events, Findlay Media will ensure it offers embedded designers the best keynotes, workshops and assembled collection of market-leading suppliers.Having developed an event that is a positive force within the British design community, the company is certain that next year's show will be even better. We look forward to seeing you there. To find out more about our plans for 2014 or to book your place for next year, visit: www.engineeringdesignshow.co.uk www.engineeringmaterialslive.co.uk www.electronicsdesignshow.co.uk www.embeddeddesignshow.co.uk