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To deal with low-volume, high-variability orders, companies in advanced economies are increasingly looking into autonomous manufacturing systems. However, these systems are usually prohibitively expensive due to the difficulty of creating intelligent machines that can autonomously deal with variations in products, processes and environmental conditions. We propose that autonomous manufacturing systems can be achieved at lower costs by moving away from this machine-centric focus towards a more product-centric view. By inserting inexpensive sensors, computers, and communication devices into production parts, we can create ‘Assertive Products’ that actively participate in manufacturing decision-making. By decentralising intelligence from machines to products, the manufacturing system as a whole can be made more autonomous at lower costs. The innovation proposed here will also create exciting opportunities for second-hand, used robots. Rather than investing in costly, highly advanced robots that can handle a few types of ‘dumb’ products and will cost a fortune to re-configure, manufacturers can rely instead on older robots that are retrofitted with communication systems, enabling them to interact with and adapt to many types of assertive products. For example, an assertive product can instruct a robot on the best way to grasp itself, reducing the requirements for the robot’s vision systems and removing the need to reprogram the robot every time a new part is introduced.

The FlexiFinish project addresses the significant challenges faced by industry surrounding the ability to finish surfaces on complex parts, in a controlled and cost effective manner. This is also becoming a significant barrier to the wider uptake of additive parts within the Aerospace industry and beyond. In order to address this, the FlexiFinish project will create a fully automated cell which includes a number of finishing (laser polishing and adaptive linishing) and post processing technologies (shot peening). The cell will be enclosed, and will use adaptive toolpath software alongside inspection technologies (roughness and dimensional) to allow automated finishing of multiple parts' geometris. A database of finishing strategies and approaches will also be created, and constantly updated to improve quality. This will not only improve current capability, but will reduce costs and timescales from existing approaches

The recent TSB funded "IMPACT" project successfully developed a novel alloy, MARBN, capable of enabling a 25°C temperature and at least 2% efficiency increase, with consequent emission reductions, in new steel-based steam power plant. IMPULSE is a consortium involving the IMPACT project group with new partners to lead the industrialisation and commercial deployment of MARBN in new and retrofit boiler plant. IMPULSE will develop MARBN ingot casting, pipe manufacture and welding, together with design and performance data to enable standardisation and implementation of new build MARBN boilers. This will complement the current Innovate UK "INMAP" project on large cast MARBN turbine components, thereby providing a unified UK materials and manufacturing supply chain for a new generation of world-leading ultrasupercritical steam plant for the world market. MARBN will also play a key role in UK and European retrofit component markets, where its superior strength will enable current fossil plant to meet unprecedented demands of highly flexible operation, as required to enable rapid parallel deployment of intermittent wind and solar generation with major CO2 savings.

Increasing the penetration of renewable energy generation contributes significantly to reducing emissions and is one of the most effective ways to secure energy supply. However, renewable sources (e.g. solar and wind energy) are intermittent, unreliable and put stress on the electricity grid. Energy storage systems at scale can compensate for this, enabling greater deployment of renewables at lower system cost than grid reinforcement. This project will carry out a technical feasibility study into a novel hybrid fuel cell redox flow battery for energy storage at scale at 25% reduced cost compared to comparable existing technologies. The project therefore targets all three aspects of the energy trillema, addressing both carbon reduction and energy security through enabling greater use of renewable energy generation, while specifically addressing the cost of energy storage systems

This project aims to integrate a world-leading UK-developed Discrete Event Simulation (DES) tool called WITNESS with two complementary innovations in gaming technologies: Oculus Rift, a Virtual Reality (VR) goggle, and Microsoft Kinect, an integrated 3D sensing device. The resulting technology will address the barriers that prevent more effective use of modelling and simulation in manufacturing by incorporating novel immersive VR and live event feedback capabilities into WITNESS. It will enable engineers to (i) design and test new processes and layouts in an immersive collaborative environment generated from the simulation model, (ii) compare the model with the actual shop-floor, (iii) action any necessary changes from within the virtual environment, (iv) verify whether the requested changes are implemented, and (v) whether the expected outcome is achieved. This project will result in (i) a step change in the way that DES software is used, (ii) compelling, highly marketable software products for the consortium, (iii) significant savings in the lead partner's globally expanding factory operations, and (iv) improvement in the UK industry's competitiveness.