Engineering multinational Emerson held its first Emerson Exchange Asia-Pacific virtual conference last week, bringing together customers, experts, and industry leaders.

Some 150 sessions covered topics relevant to the food manufacturing, energy, life sciences, chemical, power, and discrete manufacturing industries, with the theme “Discover – Transform – Digitalise”.

RetailBiz attended a media briefing prior to the conference, in which Emerson president for Asia Pacific, Susan Hughes noted, “Infrastructure modernisation is gaining a lot of speed in Asia but how can you unlock top quartile performance, and be in the top 20% of their peers.

“Across Asia, we’re seeing customers using a combination of digital solutions and other technologies to optimise these statistics.”

The big-picture trends include the significant growth of electric vehicles in Asia, with China spending significant amounts to change their fleets to electric vehicles, according to Hughes.

But, “As our customers set bull targets for their own CSG performance, energy management and information systems are important,” Hughes says.

Responsible manufacturing, in Emerson’s view, is good business, and can be considered as four interrelated and complementary areas: decarbonising energy sources, managing emissions, electrifying and integrating systems, then optimising energy efficiency across the system.

Hughes hosted three keynotes throughout the session, including a discussion with Emerson chief sustainability officer Mike Train on how long-term goals like net-zero 2050 can be acted upon today, and how industry can contribute.

“We’re thrilled to host the first-ever Emerson Exchange geared specifically for Asia-Pacific customers,” Hughes says. “We invite everyone to attend and learn about the technological innovations that are shaping the industry and helping manufacturers throughout the region solve their toughest challenges.”