Made Smarter Commission appoints new co-chair

Siemens Digital Industries managing director Brian Holliday has been appointed to head up the Made Smarter Commission – a digitalisation movement to drive productivity, growth and sustainability in manufacturing – alongside Minister for Industry Lee Rowley.

Mr Holliday will be replacing UK industrialist and former Siemens CEO Professor Juergen Maier in the role of co-chair.

Together with Mr Rowley, he will shape the future of Made Smarter and oversee delivery of its Adoption and Innovation programmes, which help UK manufacturers to capitalise on new digital technologies such as additive manufacturing, internet of things, and robotics and automation. The programmes have already received over £150 million in government funding.

Mr Holliday is a Chartered Engineer and a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering & Technology, who started his career with Texas Instruments and went on join Siemens in 1993. “I’m delighted to be co-chairing the Made Smarter Commission with Minister Rowley through its next steps,” he said.

“Since the original Made Smarter Review in 2017, I have been struck by the importance of this government and industry partnership in manufacturing to highlight how much the sector matters to address the productivity, innovation and skills challenges in the UK and increasingly, to find the right levers to help to invest in material, resource and energy efficiency too.”

The co-chairs will steer a board of leading industrialists from large and SME manufacturers as well as technology providers and manufacturing organisations.

Minister for Industry Lee Rowley said: “I am delighted that Brian Holliday has become the new industry co-chair of the Made Smarter Commission. Brian has been involved since the start and brings deep manufacturing and tech expertise to our joint mission to improve productivity in manufacturing.”

A particular focus of the commission will be the roll out of its Adoption programme which is helping SME manufacturers in the North West, West Midlands, North East, and Yorkshire and the Humber regions take their first steps into digitalisation.

Director for Made Smarter’s North West adoption programme Donna Edwards said: “Brian is a fantastic replacement as co-chair of the Made Smarter Commission. I look forward to working with him and other board members in our continued efforts to drive up productivity and slash carbon emissions through the adoption of new technologies.”

Mr Holliday is also a supervisory board member for the High Value Manufacturing Catapult and a main board member for Make UK.