On 4 September 2026 I joined the Korea Management Forum 2026, hosted by Emerson | AspenTech at The Plaza Seoul. The theme was Leading Through Volatility to Achieve Industrial Excellence — an evening for leaders from across the process industries.
It was a bit of a homecoming. Early in my career I spent two years as a staff consultant with AspenTech UK's Advanced Process Design group, so it was good to be back in the room — this time from the other side of the table.
The programme
The forum ran as a single track:
| Time | Session |
|---|---|
| 16:30 | Welcome — Jinkyu Yoon, Country Manager, AspenTech Korea |
| 16:35 | Keynote: Key strategies for industrial excellence in an age of volatility — Dr. Vikas Dhole, SVP, Modeling & Optimization, AspenTech |
| 17:20 | Industrial AI and data intelligence: transforming market responsiveness, operational efficiency, and autonomous operations — Dr. Heiko Claussen, SVP, AI Technology, AspenTech |
| 17:50 | Panel: Beyond the AI discourse |
| 18:15 | Closing remarks — Alex Muro, VP Sales, Asia Pacific Japan, AspenTech |
The panel
The panel was titled "Beyond the AI discourse: purpose-built industrial AI for market responsiveness, operational efficiency, and autonomous operations." Jinkyu Yoon moderated, and I sat alongside Dr. Heiko Claussen and Dr. Vikas Dhole — incidentally a fellow alumnus of the Process Integration group at Manchester.
The title captures the point I care most about. Generic AI is easy to talk about and hard to deploy in a plant. What works in chemical and energy operations is AI that is built for the process: grounded in first-principles models, fed by real plant data, and judged by whether it moves an operating KPI — energy, yield, reliability, or emissions.
That is the gap we work on at CEPI Lab and at CEPiEL, where CEPiDTS™ combines process simulation, machine learning, and optimization into digital twins for operating plants. It was valuable to compare notes with a company that sees the same problem from the software side.
Thanks to the AspenTech Korea team for the invitation, and to everyone who stayed for the conversation over dinner.