Discovery Day programme

Arrival, registration and refreshments

Welcome and setting the context

An introduction to Discovery Day, the UK SCALE Centre’s Innovation Cycle and how contributions from the day will inform future research, roundtables, white papers and collaborative activity.

Led by Professor Jan Godsell and Dr Lennie Foster.

Supply chain optionality

Designing choices for a future you cannot predict without trading away responsibility.

Short Firestarter talks will introduce the theme before delegates explore key questions through facilitated table discussions and an interactive world café activity.

Supply chain reinvention

Beyond optimisation: redesigning supply chains for a disrupted world.

Explore what genuine supply chain innovation looks like, which established assumptions may no longer hold and where fundamentally different supply chain models could emerge.

Featuring contributions from Ed Fairhurst, Ministry of Defence, and Ian Noble, Mondelēz International.

Decision capacity in the AI era

Machine-speed supply chains. Human-speed organisations.

Consider where organisational bottlenecks move as AI capability increases, where human judgement adds value and how decision rights, governance and accountability may need to evolve.

Featuring a contribution from Leon Davis, WTW.

Discovery session wrap-up

A review of the ideas, connections and emerging themes captured throughout the morning, setting the context for the afternoon’s development sessions.

Networking lunch

Connecting the themes

Explore the strongest ideas emerging across the three challenges. Delegates will select the area they are most interested in and join others to develop it further.

Developing future theme proposals

Working in groups, delegates will turn the emerging ideas into potential future themes for UK SCALE. Each group will create a poster and prepare a concise three-minute pitch explaining why its proposed theme matters and what opportunities it could create.

Refreshments and networking

Theme pitches

Hear each group present its proposed future theme. Delegates will then highlight the ideas that have generated the greatest interest and energy across the room.

Closing reflections and next steps

The UK SCALE Centre will explain how the day’s discussions, posters and pitches will be synthesised and used to inform the next Innovation Cycle.

Event close