Thanks to emerging materials and digital technologies, the product design space is larger than ever. Despite this, EU manufacturers are struggling to innovate, with traditional tools presenting a major bottleneck. Existing machining tools were designed for a more stable world, when a single process flow would remain unchanged for years. To increase competitiveness and respond to new opportunities, the manufacturing industry now needs customisable tools, applicable to multiple processes, and rapidly reconfigurable in response to changing needs. FLASH is an industry driven project, led by global manufacturing leader PRIMA and supported by 6 large enterprises, 6 innovative SMEs, 2 Universities, 2 RTOs, and a manufacturing association, EWF, that represents >55k companies globally. FLASH will leverage the benefits of laser-based manufacturing, which is more flexible, more amenable to digital control, and generates less waste than traditional mechanical/chemical/thermal processes. Whilst state of the art laser-based machines are optimised for a single application, FLASH will develop a flexible platform with three built-in laser sources, allowing multi-wavelength emission, over a broad pulse length regime with dynamic beam shaping, in a flexible robotic/CNC cell with three different beam delivery heads. The result will be a futureproof system capable of at least 10 macro and micro production processes over all major material types, designed to enable flexible and customisable manufacturing of rapidly evolving products for a range of industries. The benefits of FLASH will be industrially demonstrated in the automotive (car cross beam), medical (hip implant), e-mobility (electric motor hairpins) and tooling (micro drills, super abrasive grinding wheels) industries, where significant process-time, -cost and -energy savings are expected, alongside unlocking product benefits through design modifications and material substitutions not possible using existing technologies.

The DIGIPIPEWELD project will develop a suite of solutions eliminating existing areas of concern in the joining of plastic pipes, where new pipelines often experience premature failure during the installation phase or during service. Due to this failure model, contractors are obliged to carry out destructive testing and non-destructive testing (NDT) on a percentage of operational joints on-site as a route to ensure quality management. This is very costly, typically \>£500 per joint and \> £1000/day. The disruptive element of our project will deliver for the first time an ability to simultaneously weld a joint, while testing the results against known parameters and avoiding possible failures. Furthermore, the system will be autonomous and will eliminate risk associated with human error. DIGIPIPEWELD will offer manufacturing and self-testing of pipe welds in a right-first-time package, something that has never been done before. The technology to be developed is a digitally intelligent controlled Pinweld plastic pipe welding system. The system will be designed to join polymer pipes without defects and will be coupled with sophisticated machine-learning algorithms, enabling the joints to be optimised and recorded, whatever the application and climate. The system will be developed with advanced sensing, data processing, and machine learning to achieve accurate process monitoring, autonomous quality inspection after welding, and real-time leakage detection. This would bring a level of control to plastic pipe installation never before available. Consequently, a brand-new way to join plastic pipes that is highly controllable and reproducible and produces a joint of the same physical properties of the original pipe, offering a game-changing opportunity for any plastic pipe installation. Moreover, greater speed and efficiency, lower energy consumption, plus the added ability to monitor and report, through built-in sensors, will offer installers across the range of sectors a robust, safe, and secure process.

ReMake incorporates various existing approaches to **remanufacturing, refurbish, repair and direct use cycles** already in use by industry partners across Scotland. The 'ReMake Glasgow' project would further enable businesses to develop life extension and value retention practices within their products and systems, which is essential for meeting circular economy transition challenges. The Project has ambitious targets and benefits from prestigious industrial project partners, who have proven ability to drive economic growth, productivity, environmental sustainability, and social inclusion within the Glasgow City Region: * **Howden Compressors Glasgow** * **BA Maintenance Glasgow** * **Boeing Glasgow** * **SSE Renewables** * **Renewable Parts** * **Baker Hughes (supply chain in Glasgow)** * **ATS** Glasgow City Region (GCR) is aware that to capitalise from the green economy, vastly improved knowledge and experience are needed, and that transition requires disruptive innovation. **Currently, only 1.9% of UK and GCR manufactured products incorporate ReMake processes**, indicating that substantial barriers exist for key supply chain stakeholders, including knowledge, awareness, and confidence issues, which preclude technology adoption. ReMake Glasgow addresses this position by using **disruptive** **innovation** techniques, enabled through a newly created **regional 'ReMake Hub' capability with national-level impact**. The ReMake Glasgow Hub adheres to two founding principles: * Demonstrate ReMake value retention techniques for products and systems, enabling industrial take-up and economic and social prosperity for the region. * Ensure improved material and component circulation lifespan, directly impacting regional and national net-zero targets. ReMake Glasgow will **increase innovation and de-risk investment** for GCR companies through a three-strand approach: * **ReMake Technology Test Beds** * **Innovation Support Packages** * **Digital ReMake Framework** This will enable companies to **develop a route to market** for circular economy products, services and/or processes. This will provide a platform to lead nationally on **productivity, create highly skilled 'green jobs'** in businesses across the supply chain, and significantly contribute to the management of risks associated with climate change by targeting illusive Scope 3 emissions from embodied carbon. **ReMake Glasgow shall support Glasgow Green deal** ambitions and **underpin critical aspects of both the Glasgow and GCR Economic Strategies**, including climate emergency, the green economy, inclusive economy, and employment and skills. This will **increase GVA, innovation, regional productivity, and highly skilled jobs.** ReMake adoption clearly offers significant economic, social, and environmental opportunities **and will enable the UK and Scotland to achieve the Net zero target by 2050 and 2045 respectively**.

International competitiveness requires the UK to modernise its industrial capabilities, which are steering industries towards widespread development and adoption of automation, and autonomous based solutions. These technologies have the potential to create novel and disruptive manufacturing capabilities leading to significant improvements in quality, accuracy, precision, and cost to manufacture. High integrity welding is a key enabling technology for UK manufacturing and the purpose of WeldZero is to develop and showcase the benefits of adopting intelligent welding robotic system solutions within a cyber-physical production system (CPPS). The WeldZero project will develop and showcase the benefits of digital technologies applied to welding operations in an industrial manufacturing context to support a zero defect strategy. By bringing together state-of-the-art data integration approaches and data handling with real-world manufacturing to work to the achievement of zero defects in a multi-stage production line. This will prove the effectiveness of digital welding and accelerate the wider adoption of the new Industry 4.0 strategies in the existing manufacturing systems -- improving the competitiveness of the UK. The system created will be based around a data rich manufacturing environment whereby both direct machine control and feedback can be collated and processed in real-time. Coupled to this system will be a number of additional technology applications such as weld toolpath planning and simulation, advanced sensor integration and control algorithms, machining learning and data analysis. This will then feedback into specific welding cell control systems to substantially improve manufacturing performance. The project will demonstrate the impact of WeldZero using four different welded product applications from the construction, automotive and off-shore manufacturing sectors; each using different welding process solutions; with the aim of increasing productivity by at least 40%. WeldZero contributes to all key innovation areas under the Manufacturing Made Smarter competition: Smart connected factory: application and use of use of real-time data to optimise operational efficiency capture, analysis and visualisation of manufacturing processes. Connected and versatile supply chain: Full process information integration, communication and traceability are a key aspects of WeldZero. Design, make, test, including: Primarily contributing to virtual product testing, verification and validation, quality monitoring and inspection -- in the context of weld processing and manufacturing sequencing design. Adaptable, flexible manufacturing operations: Enable adoption of advanced welding technologies in a human-centric automation and autonomy, enabling flexible manufacturing systems.

The turbo-charger market continues to grow at a CAGR of 10% as manufacturers design leaner and more fuel efficient engines. This technology will be the largest contributor to reducing CO2 emissions in vehicles (worldwide) for at least the next decade. This project will boost the productivity of production equipment for this market, an important export market for Aquasium Technologies (AQ) that will be worth \>£15m per year in 2022\. The PlasMan2 project will build on a previous feasibility study to adopt a novel electron beam (EB) welding gun technology for the production of turbo-chargers. The project will build and test a system and provide the necessary bridge to allow integration of the technology. The operational data collected will be used to quantify the benefits of adopting the technology and will be used to promote sales of the equipment against more conventional competitors, and emerging laser welding machines. We will also investigate and assess the potential for using the technology in new emerging markets of additive manufacturing (various markets), thick-section welding (for off-shore wind and nuclear energy) and vacuum melting (precious metal recycling). The technical capability of being able to rapidly pulse the electron beam and much higher consistency output are particularly suited to these markets. The additional work planned is that equipment at TWI will be upgraded to allow demonstration of the Plasman2 smart machine technology to industries other than the original target (automotive), such as aerospace, power and medical sectors. This will involve additional hardware and software developments by ATS. TWI will be carrying out the demonstration work package requiring machine operators, application engineers and weld/AM quality engineers. TWI will also host an industry demonstration day. These activities will promote the Plasman2 technology developments to a wider industrial base than was previously planned.

There is a large emphasis across the tool and die (T&D) sector to develop new methods which reduce cost, improve life and functional performance. The European T&D market is estimated at 11 billion USD per year and the UK spends £130m on closed die forging and sheet metal dies alone. These industries are made up of a large number of SMEs and adopting new methods require significant investment. The approach will develop an additive manufacturing digital framework which has cross sector applicability in all re/manufacturing applications and can be integrated with existing legacy machine tools, providing an affordable solution. The potential benefits are; rapid T&D re/manufacture (hybrid single platform); circular economy approach; gain on material utilization; saving on machine time; saving on consumable costs; lead time reduction; reduced energy consumption; improved performance. TTL (lead), Advanced Forming Research Centre, Hybrid Manufacturing Technologies, Hexagon and ATS Global will collaborate to achieve this. Mills Forging will provide an end user demonstrator case that will provide them with opportunities to be more competitive and diversify into different markets (automotive and aerospace) and employ staff in highly skilled areas.

Additive Manufacturing (AM) has the potential to revolutionise the way aerospace components are manufactured and re-invent supply chains. This technology can assist the aerospace sector to produce lightweight parts, which will lead to a reduction in emissions and fuel consumption. The AM process will also maximise the buy-to-fly ratio, with significantly less waste than using traditional subtractive methods. To enable the UK’s established aerospace OEMs and the supporting supply chain to take a leading position in the exploitation of AM, a mechanism for production system development is required to effectively deliver new and enhanced end-use components, ensuring cost and quality targets are achieved. The UK currently has a strong R&D base in AM and a number of businesses developing its commercial industrialisation. The UK has a powerful aerospace manufacturing sector - second in the global rankings with over 4,000 companies employing about 230,000 people. The UK aerospace sector has the largest number of small and medium sized enterprise (SME) companies in Europe. The economic forecast indicates that by 2025 AM could deliver £410m GVA to the UK economy. Currently there are high costs and risks associated with setting up AM processes, buying equipment and developing AM process chains for UK aerospace supply chain companies. Aims of the DRAMA project DRAMA (Digital Reconfigurable Additive Manufacturing facilities for Aerospace) is a three year, £14.3m collaborative research project and part of the UK’s Aerospace Technology Institute’s (ATIs) programme, which started in November 2017. The consortium is led by the Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC) – home to the National Centre for Additive Manufacturing and includes ATS, Autodesk, Granta Material Intelligence, Midlands Aerospace Alliance, NPL, Renishaw and the University of Birmingham. The project will help build a stronger AM supply chain for UK aerospace by developing a digital learning factory. The entire AM process chain will be digitally twinned, enabling the cost of process development to be de-risked by carrying it out in virtual environment. The facility will be reconfigurable, so that it can be tailored to fit the requirements of different users and to allow different hardware and software options to be trialled. During the three years of the project an additive manufacturing Knowledge Base will also be created, to allow faster adoption and implementation of this transformative technology by UK businesses. Reduce the cost and risk of set-up • De-risk deployment of AM processes and equipment for the UK aerospace sector, by building reconfigurable pre-production facilities, where supply chain companies and OEMs can come to learn, model and validate end-to-end AM process chains. Reduce the time and cost of planning and validation • Digital twin of the facilities, manufacturing processes and plant • Digital toolsets for process and plant simulation • Data analytics and optimisation • A knowledge base Develop capability across the UK aerospace supply chain • This world-first, digitally twinned reconfigurable AM facility, will be at the forefront of AM technology and can be used by UK companies across the aerospace supply chain. MTC to lead £14m additive manufacturing aerospace project The Manufacturing Technology Centre will lead on major aerospace R&D project to grow innovation in the sector. Following the launch of the Industrial Strategy white paper on Monday November 27, Business Secretary Greg Clark announced £53.7 million of funding for seven R&D projects. This funding is part of government’s work with industry through the Aerospace Growth Partnership (AGP) to tackle barriers to growth, boost exports and grow high value jobs. Unveiled at the Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI) Conference 2017, one of those seven projects is The DRAMA (Digital Reconfigurable Additive Manufacturing facilities for Aerospace) led by the Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC) with partners ATS Global, Autodesk, Granta Design, Midlands Aerospace Alliance, National Physics Laboratory, Renishaw and the University of Birmingham. DRAMA will establish leading additive manufacturing ‘test bed’ facilities for the aerospace industry and its supply chain at the National Centre for Additive Manufacturing (based at the MTC in Coventry) and the Renishaw AM Solution Centre in Stone. The project will showcase the use of digital technologies to drive productivity and reliability in AM, leading to increased adoption of AM technologies by the aerospace sector and, in the long term, other industrial sectors. It will also deliver the world’s first digitally-twinned reconfigurable AM facility and establish the UK as a global leader in additive manufacturing technology. The project, part of the ATI programme, has received a grant of £11.2 million through the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund. Business Secretary Greg Clark said: “In November, we launched our ambitious Industrial Strategy which builds on our significant economic strengths, while looking at innovative ways to improve our productivity and will ensure government continues to work closely with industries including our UK aerospace sector. “The UK aerospace sector is one of the most successful in the world, which is why we are today announcing £53.7 million of investment in seven aerospace research and development (R&D) projects across the UK. “This investment, part of the £3.9 billion government and industry committed to this sector by 2026. The Aerospace Technology Institute plays a crucial role in helping to direct this investment and maintain UK excellence in the sector.”

Wire-based Additive Manufacturing (AM) is able to rapidly deposit a large volume of material, followed by a final machining operation to reach the final dimensional tolerances for parts. This fabrication method offers a considerable improvement in material usage for components that are machined from solid - commonly known as buy-to-fly ratio for aerospace and space industries. Existing wire-based AM systems used either ARC or laser as the heat input source, but both of these approaches have a fundamental limitation in controlling the heat input; which leads to distortion and residual stress in the final parts. An electron beam (EB) heat source do not suffer from this problem as the beam can be manipulated at very high frequencies -- leading to very precise heat input and avoiding residual stress fields. Our project aims to develop a UK EB wire AM platform -- adapted from a best-in-class EB welding system -- primarily targeting use in the aerospace, power and mining sectors for 'difficult to deposit' and high value Ni, Ti and Al based materials. High deposition rate, large build volume EB AM has been developed to a rudimentary level, with a single commercial system supplier capable of producing parts made by Sciaky in the US. Demonstrator components will be fabricated to address the challenges of: Achieving commercially viable build rates Fabricating industrially relevant complex structures Producing high integrity deposits (minimising the development of undesirable grain growth) Meeting the industry standard mechanical property requirements Minimising any distortion arising from the process The market for the EB wire AM process appears to be particularly promising for expensive and difficult to machine materials such as Nickel and Titanium -- which are commonly welded using EB systems (in aerospace and automotive sectors). Initial cost analysis calculations suggest a 40% reduction in costs of EB wire AM over rough machining from solid for a simple titanium aerospace component. We envisage being able to develop and supply \>10 systems per annum on a commercial basis by 2020-2022; all manufactured in the UK. This would represent a boost of \>£15m to the partners in the project and help to secure more than 75 jobs.

The SEAMLESS project represents a major technical and commercial advance in the area ofpost processing for additive manufacturing. The poor surface quality for AM parts has been amajor barrier for full process adoption, which will be addressed in this project. The SEAMLESSsolution combines a number of surface finishing and post processing technologies includingsuper finishing, laser peening, laser polishing and adaptive linishing, together with in-processinspection and simulation tools to address the post processing requirement for the widestrange of end-users. This will be underpinned by a digital platform to ensure full and seamlessconnectivity between all aspects of the solution, leading to significant cost and time reduction.The outcome of this will be a flexible, automated and digitally enabled solution for post processing for AM.