Tata Steel Europe Limited Public Funding

Project GEMSTONE takes a holistic view of the gear manufacturing supply chain. Analysing and optimising each stage of the process from design through to finished component using AMRC's process monitoring solutions, GEMSTONE will reduce investment costs, energy usage and waste while delivering breakthrough levels of transmission component performance. Mazak's innovative thinking in machine tool, tooling and work holding aims to deliver a finished component from a blank in a single step while AFRC developed breakthrough blank geometries and forging technology will minimise waste and cut machining times significantly. Renishaw will deliver in-tool measurement and system condition health checking solutions to ensure accurate and repeatable parts from a machine that can run 24:7 with maximised efficiency. The flexibility of the manufacturing process will enable JLR to develop next generation lightweight and high performance asymmetric gear tooth profiles. Hosted at the leading edge manufacturing facilities of The Proving Factory, the solutions will utilise the latest Tata Steel materials to lay the foundation of a world class transmission production solution in the UK.

Awaiting Public Project Summary

This collaborative R&D project focusses on meeting the large market opportunity (estimated >$1B global market by 2018) for developing a viable low cost production route for clear, flexible, high and ultra-barrier, polymer based substrates and encapsulant materials, for photovolatic applications (including thin film inorganic, organic and dye-sensitized (DSSC) solar cells); flexible organic solid state lighting applications; and flexible lightweight robust display applications. The processes developed will be compatible with in-line process tools, that are viable and scalable to commercial material widths (1m+) and production line speeds. The structure of the flexible barrier material will overcome market brick walls with current products such as cost, barrier performance and suffcient barrier retention with time.

Awaiting Public Summary

This ASDT Project (Autoplan) is designed to remove the failings of existing operations planning systems in managing highly variable manufacturing environments. In such organisations the high frequency with which process and supply chain disruptions occur and changes in product design and customer demands happen, form major barriers to increasing the competitiveness and maintaining the high rate of growth. Finite Capacity Resource (FCR) planning involves deciding when customers’ jobs are sequenced through shop floor manufacturing areas. Such plans recognise that jobs need to be scheduled when all necessary equipment and labour resources are available and that these resources have limited capacity. Unfortunately FCR plans are subject to frequent and major disruptions caused by for example equipment breakdowns, delays in raw material delivery and changes to customers’ orders. The result is that frequent manual planning revisions are undertaken that are slow and resource intensive. The autonomous planning processes to be developed will enable faster and more effective planning responses. They will be developed by applying the basic principles and characteristics of the regulatory control networks involved in the biological process of gene transcription. The application principles used have been developed and proof-of-concept tested as part of an EPSRC-funded Systems Biology feasibility project. With 25,000+ planners in 9,000+ UK manufacturers the total time and resource loss represents a major opportunity to significantly improve UK productivity and competitiveness.

Solar energy is a potential contributor to our future energy needs, but has yet to achieve economic viability without the help of government subsidies. If successful, this project will progress towards commercialisation, an inherently more robust and cost-efficient option than photovoltaics. The concept is to use solar radiation to photocatalytically split water, producing hydrogen (which can be combusted directly or used to power a fuel cell) and oxygen. This is a research field where the UK is world leading at present, and this project will further reinforce this advantage. The scientific proof of concept for a device using this principle was facilitated by the Phase 1 EPSRC Grand Challenge funding; the project proposes to take forward the earlier work on the active components of the device, including researching several additional novel and scalable coating processes for producing more robust and higher performance photocatalyctic coatings, and for producing new nanopowders in larger volumes than before from which to produce these coatings.