£300m UK manufacturing investment to boost use of digital tech

This investment hopes to raise productivity by 30%, accelerate the drive to net zero emissions, create thousands of highly skilled jobs and allow the UK to shape the future of manufacturing.

UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), through Innovate UK, the government’s innovation agency, has already awarded the challenge its first investment package of £20 million to 14 innovative projects in Round 1, comprising over 70 consortia partners in a competition to transform the productivity and agility of UK manufacturing.

A couple of the winning projects

Digitisation of Aluminium Welding – Transforming UK bicycle frame-building

Frog Bikes is a British SME leading a project that is innovating the design of children’s bikes. Using the latest digital technologies and manufacturing techniques (for example virtual design and testing, and automated, robotic techniques to join bicycle components together), they will create a lighter, better performing bike.

The system streamlines production, reduces cost, and, by allowing suppliers to use recycled materials, creates less waste. The project will bring these manufacturing techniques to the UK, securing control of the company’s supply chain and helping to reduce their carbon footprint.

Smart Connected Shop Floor – real-time data integration with multi-sector applicability

GKN Aerospace is leading a cross-sector team involving organisations from the aerospace, automotive, and pharmaceutical industries to trial a combination of digital technologies in live manufacturing environments.

These include artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies, intelligent robots, augmented reality, and smart devices that can exchange information between old and modern computer systems to enable a greater understanding of the data.

This project will create a more seamless flow of real-time information, enabling cost-effective manufacturing decisions across the supply chain.

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The initial £20 million funding is enhanced by industrial investments worth £30 million, giving a total value of £50 million invested in sectors such as aerospace, automotive, chemicals, digital equipment, FMCG and food and beverage.

The projects include concepts such as digital twin, additive manufacturing, and industrial internet of things with technologies spanning four key themes: smart connected factories, connected supply chains, flexible manufacturing operations, and design make and test.

The Manufacturing Made Smarter challenge programme, the innovation lead for the national Made Smarter movement, will create a connected ecosystem harnessing the power of the UK's leading companies large and small, large technology developers and new start-ups and spinouts, and the country’s leading research institutions, increasing the number of collaborations up the value chain.

UK Research and Innovation www.ukri.org