Issue 13 – June 2015

THE

journalQUarterly

Page 6

Close Brothers launchinnovative apprenticeshipscheme for SMEs

Issue 13 - June 2015

www.namtec.co.uk

Page 7

AMRC designers win topprize: UK Space PropulsionInnovation Awards

2

Cryogenic machiningimproves sustainability & quality

Page 14

Virtual machining targets cuts in productiontimes and costs

Page 26

NAMTEC: Supply ChainOpportunities in Oil and Gas

The National Metals Technology Centre, University of Sheffield AMRC, Advanced Manufacturing Park, Wallis Way, Catcliffe,Rotherham, S60 5TZ

Telephone: +44 (0)114 222 4786 Fax: +44 (0)114 222 7678 Email: [email protected]

See page 9-11

NAMTEC’sDirect Company Supportprogramme exceeds all itstargets

This month sees the successfulcompletion of a four yearprogramme, launched byNAMTEC to help companiesrapidly achieve significantbusiness improvements.

The Direct Company SupportScheme and related “Two DayAssist” initiative was aimed atcompanies across Yorkshire andthe Humber, and Small andMedium-sized Enterprises(SMEs) in particular.

The European RegionalDevelopment Fund backedprogrammes helped companiestap into the wealth of expertise incommercial consultancies andresearch organisations thatexists in this region.

Both programmes have been amajor success, reaching morecompanies and leading to thecreation and safeguarding of farmore jobs than had originallybeen expected.

We are continually told that weneed to be more productive andcompetitive. That can meaninvesting in new products andprocesses.

It can also mean investing inpeople and this latest issue ofthe Quarterly Journal includesgood news for SMEs that wouldlike to invest in skills for thefuture by taking on anapprentice, but are worriedabout the cost.

The Close Brothers SMEApprentice Programme has beenlaunched by the leadingmerchant bankers, with thesupport of the University ofSheffield AMRC Training Centreand the ManufacturingTechnologies Association (MTA).

It will help pay for 20 apprenticesto learn their skills at the AMRCTraining Centre and ensureparticipating SMEs won’t have tobear the full cost of employingthe apprentices until they canmake a positive contribution totheir business.

We also need to invest in newmarkets and the report onNAMTEC’s recent conference onthe oil and gas sector showsthere are still opportunities in thesector’s supply chain, despitefalling prices and increasingpressure to reduce costs.

Some of the opportunities arethe result of the pressure to

reduce costs, while others areposed by the increasinglychallenging conditions oil andgas companies are having tooperate under as they seek toexploit harder to extract reserves.

Last, but not least, as both theFactory 2050 and Sir HenryRoyce conferencesdemonstrated, there will continueto be a need to invest inintroducing cutting edgetechnology if we are to remain aglobal force in advancedmanufacturing.

The need to develop thattechnology and ensure it caneasily be introduced by industrywill be one of the key driversbehind the ambitious plans for amajor expansion of the AMRC ona 50 acre site, close to itsexisting facilities, also detailed inthis edition.

General News page 3-5

AMRC News page 6-7

FeaturesMasterplan lays foundation for new expansion of pioneeringAdvanced Manufacturing Research Centre page 8

NAMTEC’s Direct Company Support programme exceeds all its targets… page 9-11

Cryogenic machining improvessustainability & quality page 12-13

Virtual machining targets cuts in production times and costs page 14-15

Event Reviews

Factory 2050 page 16-25

NAMTEC: Supply Chain Opportunities in Oil and Gas page 26-27

Materials for Manufacturing – Sheffield: the Sir Henry Royce Institute and the Innovation District page 28-30

Case StudyHowco Group: Oil and gas sector materials specialist acts to cut energy consumption page 31

Upcoming Events & Courses page 32

Contents

Introduction

Investment in people,products, processes and

technology will paydividends for advanced

manufacturing

2 The National Metals Technology Centre Quarterly Journal

Tel: +44(0)114 222 4786 Fax: +44(0)114 222 7678 Email: [email protected]

The National Metals Technology Centre,University of Sheffield AMRC, Advanced Manufacturing Park, Wallis Way, Catcliffe,Rotherham, S60 5TZ

Advertising EnquiriesKirsten Bolton, Marketing ManagerTel: 0114 222 4785Email: [email protected]

To keep up to date with all

the latest news and

developments please visit

the NAMTEC website at

www.namtec.co.uk

THE

journalQUarterly

Dr. James HughesDirector AMRC-NAMTEC

Close Brothers SME Apprentice Programme

The power and automationspecialist will service 54, Siemenswind turbines fitted with 3.6MWABB generators in the Lynn & InnerDowsing (LID) offshore windfarm.

The generators have beenoperating since 2009 and provideenough electricity for half thehomes in the English county ofLincolnshire.

Power is transmitted via subseacables to shore and then byunderground cables to a newsubstation at Middlemarsh,Skegness.

ABB’s contract includes theelectrical maintenance andsupport services for onshore andoffshore electrical equipment.

Electrical equipment covered bythe preventive maintenancecontract includes generators,convertors and onshore substationand offshore transformers,switchgear and cabling, along withonshore substation emergency

response. Mechanical, control andother support activities are beingsupplied by LID and otherpartners.

Peter Wright, ABB’s servicemanager, said: “The idea ofworking directly with a wind farmoperator was attractive to us asnormally our work is throughOEMs.

“The contract shows how ABB cancombine skills and knowledgefrom across its organisation toprovide a tailor made servicingsolution for clients.”

In order to win the contract, ABB had to demonstrate it couldsupport the third party equipmentas well as its generators, alongwith its partnership capabilitiesand its high regard for health andsafety, for which it achieved thehighest score in the tenderprocess.

3E-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 (0)114 222 4786 www.namtec.co.uk

General News

Airbus has secured the largest ever order in LatinAmerican aviation history. Colombia’s national airlineand flag carrier, Avianca, has signed an agreement tobuy 100 aircraft from Airbus’s A320neo family,including the A319neo, A320neo and A321neo.

ABB’s contract includes

the electricalmaintenance and support

services

Airbus wins prestigious Latin American order for its fuel efficient A320neo family

ABB has won a major contract to service more than 50 offshore windturbines, three miles off the Lincolnshire coast.

ABB wins major servicing contract for offshore wind farms

Avianca will use the new aircraft toreplace aircraft currently operatingfrom its Bogota, Lima and SanSalvador hubs, allowing it tomaintain one of the youngest fleetsin the region.

Fabio Villegas Ramirez, AviancaChief Executive Officer, said:

“Thanks to the A320neo family’sfuel efficiency, technical reliabilityand unique passenger comfort, wecan further Avianca’s fleetmodernisation process, whileconnecting the region andsupporting its development.”

John Leahy, Airbus chief operatingofficer, customers, said: “For over15 years, Avianca has benefitedfrom the excellent operatingeconomics and award-winningreliability of the A320 family.

“The A320neo brings Avianca thehighest efficiency at the lowestcost, making it ideally suited to

operate within their network andespecially within the region’schallenging airports.”

Avianca and is the second oldestairline in the world and was the firstairline in the Americas.

Airbus says its A320 family is theworld’s best-selling single aisleproduct line with more than 11,500orders to date and over 6,400aircraft delivered to 400 customersand operators worldwide.

The newest member of the A320family, the A320neo, incorporatesmany innovations including latestgeneration engines and Sharklet

wing tip devices, which togetherdeliver more than 15 percent infuel savings from day one and 20percent by 2020.

According to Airbus’s latest Global Market Forecast, international traffic serving Latin America is likely to grow by 6.2% by 2033, just behind Africa, where the market will grow by 6.3%. The Middle East will grow by 5.4% and Asia by 5.1%, still well above the world average of 4.7%.

Airbus Avianca A320neo

General News


Meggitt subsidiary Heatric hasbeen chosen to supply specialheat exchangers for arevolutionary natural gas-firedpower station offering low-costenergy with no carbon dioxideemissions.

The multi-million pound contractinvolves supplying four recuperativeheat exchangers for a pilot plantbeing developed by NET Power inTexas.

Heatric’s printed circuit heatexchangers have a diffusion-bonded design, capable ofwithstanding the very hightemperatures and pressures of theplant’s core process.

The heat exchangers will make acritical contribution to the economicviability of the pioneering new plantby capturing and recycling asignificant proportion of the turbineexhaust energy flow and reducingthe amount of fuel required by theplant.

The contract represents a newopportunity for Heatric, which has

already supplied more than 2,500heat exchangers for oil and gasplatforms, most recently, floatingproduction, storage and offloadingvessels and floating liquid naturalgas remote offshore gasprocessing vessels.

Heatric chief executive, StephenYoung, said: “This new contractshows Heatric working closely withcustomers to develop new andexciting applications in adjacentfields.”

While most fossil fuel-based powerplants use the heat from burningfuel to turn water into steam whichpowers the generating turbines,NET Power’s technology burns fuelin pure oxygen and recycles theresulting CO2, creating a mostlypure high pressure stream ofsupercritical CO2 that powers theturbines.

Excess CO2 can be used byindustry or fed into a CarbonCapture and Storage scheme.

Engineers at BAE Systems haveupgraded members of the CV90family of combat vehicles with thetechnology, which first appearedin Formula 1 in the 1990s.

The suspension system usuallyoperates on carbon fibre racingcars weighing no more than700kg, but engineers at BAESystems have adapted it for useon vehicles weighing as much as35 tonnes.

The system works by sensing thespeed of the vehicle and lay-out ofthe terrain ahead and responding

by pressurising the suspension tokeep the vehicle on a level planeat all times.

It has reduced the CV90s pitchacceleration by approximately 40per cent, increasing its stabilityand helping to reduce the wearand tear on the armoured vehiclesand reducing through-life repaircosts, despite speeds over roughterrain rising by up to 40 per cent.

In recent trials a CV90 fitted withactive damping set a new speedrecord on a rough terrain course,beating the main battle tanks.

Dan Lindell, CV90 PlatformManager at BAE Systems, said:“Adapting the Active Dampingsystem for the first time from alight weight car to a heavy trackedvehicle such as CV90 was aunique challenge for us, but thisadvanced technology will deliverresults to our customers in termsof vehicle performance andsavings on the through life costs,as well as providing real benefitsto the front line soldier”.

The CV90 is one of the largestfamilies of armoured combat

vehicles andis currently used in countries suchas Norway, Finland and Denmark.It has also been used in globaloperations including UN andNATO collaborations.

BAE Systems adapts Formula 1technology for use on military vehicles

“advancedtechnology

will deliver results to our

customers”

Active damping technology from Formula 1 is being usedto increase the speed and agility of tracked militaryvehicles over rough terrain.

Heatric heat exchangers enable low-cost,

CO2 emission-freeenergy power generation

BAE Systems CV90

Rolls-Royce has won its largestever order to provide Trent 900engines and TotalCare servicesupport from Emirates Airline.

The deal is worth $9.2bn andmeans the Trent 900 will be used topower 50 Airbus A380 aircraft thatwill enter service from 2016. Rolls-Royce says the decision confirmsthe Trent 900 as the engine ofchoice on the four-engine A380.

The Trent 900 powered the firstcommercial A380 in 2007 and isnow used by eight operators onmore than 70 aircraft, havinglogged over four million in-serviceflight hours.

Rolls-Royce says the Trent 900offers the lowest lifetime fuel burn,with the latest version includingtechnology developed for the TrentXWB and Trent 1000 engines.

Emirates Airline’s president, Sir TimClark, said: “Rolls-Royce is a keypartner for Emirates and we havebeen impressed with itscommitment to continualimprovements in the economic andoperational performance of theTrent 900.

“These improvements have beendecisive factors in our selection ofthe product for 50 of our A380s.”

Rolls-Royce’sChief ExecutiveOfficer, JohnRishton, said:“The success of Emirates over thelast 30 years has beenextraordinary; this is in no smallpart thanks to the exceptionalleadership of Sir Tim Clark.

“Rolls-Royce has been proud tohave been part of this success,

powering Emirates aircraft since1996. We are delighted thatEmirates has again placed its trustin our technology, with the biggestorder in our history.”

The deal is good news for ITP,which is an exclusivepartner in the designof the Low PressureTurbine (LPT) forRolls-Royce's largerengines and hasdeveloped all of thelarge LPTs for Rolls-Royce engines since

the Trent 500. ITP is a risk-revenuesharing partner with Rolls-Royce inthe programme and says the ordermeans it will secure expected salesin excess of $1.4bn.


General News

Emirates place largest ever order for Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines

Engineering company Renishaw has won a place in the 2015 edition ofGuinness World Records formanufacturing the world’s first 3D printed titanium alloy bicycle frame.

Renishaw rides to a place in GuinnessWorld Records with 3D printed bicycle frame

The original design for the 3Dprinted bike frame was supplied byBritish bike manufacturer EmpireCycles and Renishaw initiallyagreed to optimise and make theseat post bracket for the bike.

When that proved to be successful,Renishaw agreed to additivelymanufacture the entire bike frame.

The result was a strong, functionalbicycle frame that was 33 per centlighter than the original.

“Themetal3D printedbike was aremarkable project that stirred theimagination and enthusiasm of ourengineering team,” said RobinWeston, marketing manager ofRenishaw's Additive ManufacturingProducts Division.

“The project was completed abouta year ago and the impact it's had

on the popularity of additivemanufacturing, also known as

metal 3D printing, has beenstaggering. The bike has travelledthe world, been exhibited at tradeshows and museums on almostevery continent and has now takenits place in the Top Tech section ofGuinness World Records.

“Renishaw is currently working onmultiple projects that highlight theadditional benefits of additive

manufacturing as acomplementary productionmethod. We think the technologyhas huge potential and we wouldlike to help industry and the wideraudience understand it better.”

For further information on additivemanufacturing visitwww.renishaw.com/additive

“the impact it's had on the

popularity of metal3D printing,has been

staggering”

RenishawTitanium Bike

A380 Trent 900

AMRC News


Leading merchant banking group Close Brothers haslaunched a pioneering programme to help small andmedium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the Sheffield CityRegion secure the skills they need for future growth...Through the ‘Close Brothers SMEApprentice Programme’, CloseBrothers will contribute to the costof apprentices for 20 SMEs whomight otherwise be unable toafford to take on a new apprentice.

With the support of the Universityof Sheffield AMRC Training Centreand the ManufacturingTechnologies Association (MTA),the programme will help SMEsrecruit and train a new generationof advanced engineering workers.

Under the scheme, Close Brotherswill help pay for 20 apprentices to

learn their skills at the AMRCTraining Centre.

Close Brothers will fund half of thenew recruits’ wages during the firstyear and a quarter in the second,meaning participating SMEs won’thave to bear the full cost ofemploying the apprentices untilthey are making a positivecontribution to their business.

The objective is to recruit a further20 apprentices in year two and 20more in year three, meaning CloseBrothers will be supporting up to60 apprentices in the scheme at

full capacity in what is a bankingfirst.

For more information please visitthe Training Centre website:www.amrctraining.co.uk

Experts at the University ofSheffield AMRC with Boeing areaiming to push the boundaries intwo important areas ofcomposites manufacturing.

The AMRC’s Composites Centrehas invested in an FT DornierRapier Loom, so that it can designand weave material and push theboundaries of processes like ResinTransfer Moulding (RTM).

Meanwhile, the announcement of aprestigious EPSRC High ValueManufacturing Catapult Fellowship

could result in the development ofmicrowave technology that will cutcuring times, energy consumptionand greenhouse gas emissions.

Resin Transfer Moulding issupposed to be a very rapid andhighly production orientatedprocess, but sometimes the resindoesn’t penetrate all of thematerial.

The loom will be used to helpresearchers to understand moreabout what happens during RTMinjection, while also pushing the

loom’s capabilities to see if it canweave materials that could beopened up to form a series ofboxes or a honeycomb structure toprovide additional strength.

The new Catapult Fellowship tostudy microwave curing has beenawarded to Richard Day, Professorof Composites Engineering atGlyndŵr University, in Wrexham.

Richard is an expert on the rapidmanufacturing of composites,critical for the next generation ofaircraft and will work with theAMRC Composite Centre and theNational Composites Centre inBristol (NCC).

His research programme willexplore and overcomemanufacturing problemsassociated with microwave curing,before going on to make complexcomponents, identical to thoseused in aeroplanes.

“We have a number of plans fordeveloping the microwave curingof composites over the next four years, taking it from the laboratory

and turning it into a robustindustrial process,” said Richard.

Researchers from the AMRC havealready achieved some successeswith microwave curing.

A partnership involving theComposite Centre, South Koreanresearch centre KCTECH (KoreaInstitute of Carbon ConvergenceTechnology) and the SsangyoungMotor Company won the JEC Asiaaward for innovation in automotiveapplications for their work ondeveloping a complex compositeacoustic cover for a car engine baythat could be cured in an industrialmicrowave.

Close Brothers launchinnovative apprenticeshipscheme for SMEs

Research aims to push theboundaries of composites

...it can design and weave material

and push theboundaries ofprocesses like Resin Transfer

Moulding

Apprentice Rebecca Taylorwith Machining Trainer

Mick Fairman

Apprentices at work

Pictured with the loom before it was enclosed in a protective room are l-r are the AMRCComposite Centre’s Miran Sidhu, Joshua Oxley,Dr Hassan El-Dessouky and Dr Jody Turner.

FT Dornier Rapier Loom

Sam Hyde and Valdis Krumins beat14 finalists from leading spacescience companies, designagencies and university researchcentres to win the overall UK SpacePropulsion Innovation Award. Theywon the award for a new design for“permanent valves” – valves thatoperate only once during a spacemission and then remain open orclosed.

Existing valves are opened orclosed permanently by firing a smallexplosive charge. The methodposes dangers for people handlingthe valves before launch and candamage a satellite or rocket inspace. Sam and Valdis replaced theexplosives with a simple springwhich is compressed and secured

by a piezo electric trigger. Whencurrent flows through the trigger, itreleases the spring, which pushesthe valve into its new position.

The trigger returns to its originalposition when the current isswitched off and then prevents thevalve from moving back. Sam andValdis also changed the shape ofthe valve from a cylinder to atapered cone, to create a betterseal.

“I think we won because we havethe capability to look at thingsdifferently at the Design andPrototyping Group,” says Valdis.

“Using explosives to operate thevalves had almost become the‘industry standard.’ We won

because ourswas a fresh lookat the problem.”

Sam adds: “Oneof the beauties ofworking in theAMRC’s Designand PrototypingGroup is that itbrings togetherpeople from awide range ofdifferentbackgrounds whoshare ideas and bring a lot ofexperience to the table.”

Sam and Valdis will use the £10,000top prize to further develop theirdesign.


AMRC News

Project engineers from the AMRC with Boeing’s Design and Prototyping Group have won a top innovation award

after radically rethinking the way spacecraft valves work.

A seventeen year old apprentice from Sheffield-based automotive tools specialistEldon Tools has won the trip of a lifetime to to visit Boeing Commercial Airplanesin Seattle, to see the aerospace giant’s new Dreamliner being made.

AMRC designers win top prize at the

UK Space Propulsion Innovation Awards

Trip of a lifetime awaits AMRC Training CentreApprentice of the Year Russell

Russell Fox, from Atherton Road,Arbourthorne, in Sheffield, won thetrip by being named the AMRCTraining Centre’s BoeingApprentice of the Year.

Russell later went on to be namedApprentice of the Year at the Madein Sheffield Awards. A total of 10awards were presented to AMRCTraining Centre apprentices at acelebration dinner, held at FirthHall. Winners included AMRCTraining Centre trainer JohnDobinson, who was named Mentorof the Year by apprentices becauseof his enthusiasm, use of different

teaching methods and ability tomotivate.

Other award winners were: SandvikCoromant Machining Apprentice,Ross Coipel, from Maher; OerlikonFabrication and WeldingApprentice, Liam Webster, from theNuclear AMRC; CromwellMaintenance Apprentice, JonathanWatson, from Nikken KosakushoEurope; Hexagon MetrologyTechnical Support Apprentice,Bradley McDonald, from SheffieldForgemasters International andApprentice Employment AgencyBusiness & AdministrationApprentice, Stacey Curtis, fromUniversity of Sheffield.

Special Recognition Awards,sponsored by Haas, Huvema andthe MTA were presented to JackWilsher-Hepworth of AESSEAL,Kesson Lomas of LomasEngineering and the AMRCTraining Centre’s Master Cutler’sChallenge Team.

Jack received a special recognitionaward for the voluntary work hehas done, promoting the AMRCTraining Centre, Kesson receivedher award for the progress she hasmade throughout her engineeringapprenticeship and the MasterCutler’s Challenge Team receivedits award for raising more than£7,000 for the Whirlow Hall FarmTrust and Sheffield HospitalsCharity.

Valdis Krumins, left, and Sam Hyde, from theAMRC with Boeing’s Design and PrototypingGroup, who have won a top innovation awardafter radically rethinking the way spacecraft

valves work.

Russell Fox

Russell Fox with UOS Vice-Chancellor, Sir KeithBurnett and David Pitchforth, managing director,Boeing Defence UK

Features


The new campus, on 50 acres ofland at Sheffield Business Park,would be expected to attractcutting edge companies offeringhundreds of well-paid, hi-tech jobsand bring millions into the region

Up to 1,800 new jobs could becreated and the local economycould benefit to the tune of £74.2million a year.

The AMRC’s executive dean,Professor Keith Ridgway CBE,said the plans will lead to a stepchange in the University ofSheffield’s ability to work inpartnership with some of theworld’s leading companies.

“We already have fantasticrelationships with a number ofleading aerospace andengineering companies and we’veproved over the last decade thatthere is an enormous appetitefrom industry for the innovativework we do here,” said ProfessorRidgway.

“The submission of themasterplan is another steptowards significant expansion thatwill put the AMRC in an evenstronger position to transformresearch into practical

applications which offer high-techsolutions right across themanufacturing sector.

“If we are successful in our otherplans for the Sheffield BusinessPark site, it will act as a catalyst forthe development of an AdvancedManufacturing Innovation District,bringing more leadingmanufacturers to the region, re-enforcing its place as aninternational leader in high valuemanufacturing.”

The submission of the masterplanto Sheffield City Council is thelatest milestone in a process thatbegan a year ago, when theuniversity secured the land onSheffield Business Park, not farfrom the AMRC’s headquarters on

the neighbouring AdvancedManufacturing Park (AMP).

The next step came lastSeptember when work started onthe first development on the newsite, the £43 million Factory 2050,which will be the UK’s first totallyreconfigurable, digital factory, builtto respond to an increasingrequirement for advancedmanufacturers to be able to makerapid changes to product design,as a result of ever-changingcustomer demands.

The site could also be home to theSir Henry Royce Institute forAdvanced Materials’ Sheffield arm- a £30 million centre focusing onthe development of powdermetallurgy, new high strength, low

weight materials and thetechniques manufacturers willneed to make components fromthose materials.

The masterplan is also a steptowards the development of theUK’s first AdvancedManufacturing Innovation District –which could become one ofEurope’s largest research-ledadvanced manufacturing cluster,centred on the M1 corridor nearSheffield and Rotherham, andalready home to the AMRC’sfacilities at the AMP.

Innovation Districts combineresearch institutions, innovativefirms and business incubatorswith the benefits of urban living.Unlike traditional science parks,these districts cluster cutting-edgeresearch in geographic areas thatare liveable, walkable, bikeable,and transit connected.

“Up to 1,800new jobs could be

created and the localeconomy could

benefit to the tune of£74.2 million

a year.”

Masterplan lays foundation for new expansion of pioneeringADVANCED MANUFACTURING RESEARCH CENTRE

The University of Sheffield hassubmitted a masterplan for a new

large scale expansion of itsAdvanced Manufacturing

Research Centre.

The masterplan envisagesbuilding up to 1.3 million squarefeet of state of the art researchfacilities, dedicated to boosting

the competitiveness of theadvanced manufacturing sector.

Vision for proposed AMRC expansion 1 & 2

The Direct CompanySupport Scheme waslaunched in 2011 by theNational Metals TechnologyCentre (NAMTEC) after itsecured substantial backingfrom the European RegionalDevelopment Fund (ERDF).

The scheme was aimed atcompanies needing helpwith projects intended tohave a high impact on theirbusiness in a comparativelyshort time.

Projects spanned thedevelopment of new andexisting products andprocesses, the introductionof new materials and factorylayouts.

Funding typically rangedfrom £5,000 to £20,000 andwas used to financeassistance by specialistconsultants and universityresearchers.

Small and Medium-sizedEnterprises (SMEs) couldcould recoup up to 70 percent of their costs, whilelarge regional companieswould get 60 per cent back.

NAMTEC also used ERDFfunding to offer SME

advanced manufacturersacross Yorkshire and theHumber two days of freesupport from specialistconsultants, worth around£850 and designed toimprove their capabilities,help them explore newmarkets and solve technicalissues.

Dr James Hughes, directorof NAMTEC, which is part ofthe AMRC, said: “Bothschemes have been a majorsuccess.

“We exceeded all the targetswe had been set – in somecases three or four timesover – and we were able tohelp companies ensure thatkey projects went aheadwhich might otherwise neverhave happened.

“We were also able to helpcompanies from a widerange of sectors - spanningforging and healthcare,precious metals and powdermetallurgy, packaging andsteel stockholding.”

In all, more than 110 SMEsreceived help - around 10per cent up on the originaltarget. Around 70 of thecompanies were from South

Yorkshire,around 30 percent up ontarget.

The initiative led to morethan 85 jobs being createdand nearly 500 safeguarded– around double the originaltargets. The numbers ofjobs for women and peoplefrom Black and EthnicMinority Communities thatwere created orsafeguarded were also wellahead of targets set at thestart of the programme.

In addition to negotiating thefunding, administering theinitiative and pullingtogether the team ofconsultants, NAMTEC alsohelped some companies toformulate their projects andensured the applicationprocess was as simple andfast as possible, withdecisions being made inless than a fortnight.

E-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 (0)114 222 4786 www.namtec.co.uk

Features

9

A four year programme to helpadvanced manufacturing companiesacross Yorkshire and Humber to growhas beaten all the targets it was set.

NAMTEC’s Direct CompanySupport programme exceeds all its targets

MailwayLeading UK packaging anddelivery services specialistMailway was able to achieve newgrowth, greater efficiency andincreased customer satisfactionafter introducing Leantechniques, with the help ofconsultants Director Resource.

Improvements included a 15 percent increase in stock utilisationand a 40 per cent improvementin the efficient use of forkliftmovements.

Bifrangi UKBifrangi UK, the specialistmanufacturer of largecrankshafts for the agricultural,off-highway, marine, powergeneration and mining sectors,

was able to reduce its overheadsand lost productivity with thehelp of Brook CorporateDevelopments.

The company was also able tominimise the need forstraightening and posthardening, reduce thermalcracking, improve surfacefinishing techniques and reducescrap in the induction hardeningprocess.

AdvancedManufacturingWhen Advanced Manufacturingdecided to introduce formalquality management systems,following rapid growth inaerospace contracts, thecompany secured the help of

ICE Partnership, with backingfrom the Direct CompanySupport Scheme.

As a result, the manufacturer ofcomplex components fromchallenging materials forresearch and developmentprojects was able to take part inthe 21st Century Supply Chains(SC21) programme, reducingdefects and boosting deliveryperformance in the process.

Cutting & WearFollowing a move to a purposebuilt facility, international oil andgas drilling industry supplierCutting & Wear decided to seekways of boosting performanceand making the most ofopportunities in new markets.

Features


NAMTEC’s four year European Regional Development Fund-backed Direct Company Support Scheme has helpedSmall and Medium Sized Enterprises to increase Gross Value

Added by almost £10 million and the total was still rising asthe programme came to an end. These are some of thesuccesses achieved during the three year programme.

Direct Company Support Scheme’s successescontinue as programme winds down

Mailway Advanced Manufacturing

Advanced Manufacturing

Mailway

Bifrangi

With advice from DirectorResources, the South Yorkshirecompany upgraded itsEnterprise Resource Planningsoftware and introduced 5Sworkplace organisationprinciples and Lean workshops,helping it to significantly increaseits engineering efficiency and itsrecord for fulfilling orders andenabling it to achieve world-class performance standards.

Diamond DispersionsDiamond Dispersions, theaward-winning exporter ofconcentrated pigments and dyesfor hi-tech ink jet printers ishoping to move into what couldbe the fastest growingtechnology in the wide formatdigital printing market as a resultof its participation in the DirectCompany Support Scheme.

Harriton Services, theLincolnshire-based materialsand commercial consultancy,helped Diamond Dispersions toinvestigate opportunities to makeUV-curable ink dispersions,which can be used to make inks

which produce high qualityimages, faster and at lowercosts, improving productivity,reducing waste and avoiding theenvironmental impact of solvent-based inks.

Hydraulic SystemsNew opportunities for growth,including job creation, openedup for Hydraulic SystemsProducts (HSP) after it used theDirect Company SupportScheme to help it upgrade itsproduct developmentcapabilities.

Brook Corporate Developmentswas called in to advise theWakefield firm, helping it to turnpartially developed drawings fora new product range into 3DCAD models.

HSP and Brook went on togenerate models, manufacturingdrawings, marketing materialsand datasheets for new andexisting products and identifiednew market opportunities.

Billington StructuresLeading UK structural steelworkcontractor Billington Structures istargeting a 20 per cent increasein throughput of its paint shopafter changing the way it heatsits factory and improvingplanning and forecastingsystems.

Multidisciplinary environmentaland industrial consultant ProEnviro helped Billington to lowerdrying times and reducingscheduling and planning delays.Recommendations includedreconfiguring space heating tocreate a more even temperature,allowing for the creation of areasof concentrated heat for rapiddrying.

WintwireSpeciality wire productsmanufacturer Wintwire istargeting growth, after a detailedrethink of production systemsand controls improved its abilityto compete with lower costrivals.

Brook Corporate Developmentsadvised the company, basednear Barnsley, about ways toincrease its operationaleffectiveness and efficiency,while ensuring high levels ofcustomer satisfaction. A modelwas developed that hasenabled the firm to make theright decisions about productionroutes, lead times and makingthe best use of staff time.

Disposables UKWhen paper productsmanufacturer and distributorDisposables UK wanted toimprove its efficiency andcompetitiveness, reap themaximum benefits of a £1 millioninvestment in automation andcreate capacity to grow, BrookCorporate Developments was onhand to provide the appropriateadvice.

With Brook’s help, DisposablesUK moved operations spreadacross four factories to a singlesite, developing the ideal layoutfor its equipment and introduceda continuous improvementculture.


Features

11

Diamond Dispersions Wintwire

WintwireCutting and Wear

...says US expert

Features


Professor Jawahir, foundingdirector of the Institute ofSustainable Manufacturing,was speaking at a seminarat the AMRC.

He told the seminar thatrecent research showedcryogenic machining could

transform metals in thesolid state, turning themicrostructure of thesurface into ananostructure.

The effect could increasehardness at the top surface,improve quality and reduce

corrosion rates, while alsoreducing tool wear.

Using nitrogen meant therewere no negative health orenvironmental problemsthat might be associatedwith other coolants andlubricants, increasing thesustainability of theprocess.

Professor Jawahir saidsustainability was a wordthat was heavily used andabused these days.

As far as manufacturingwas concerned,sustainability involvedreducing negativeenvironmental impacts,improving the efficient useof energy and resourcesand generating as littlewaste as possible.

It also meant improvingoperational safety andpersonal health, whilstmaintaining or improvingproduct and process quality

and creating overall lifecycle cost benefits –something manufacturersoften lost sight of.

Sustainable manufacturingcovered the whole of theproduct life cycle from pre-manufacturing extractionand processing of rawmaterials through to theretirement, treatment anddisposal of products at theend of their useful life.

Professor Jawahir said thatall too often too manyresources and too muchenergy were used, while toomuch waste and too manyemissions were createdwhen a product wasdisposed of.

There was a need toredesign andremanufacture products toensure their re-use and torecycle and recover asmuch as possible.

Cooling components with liquid nitrogen and carbon dioxide during machiningcan create super refined surfaces with similar properties to advanced coatings,according to Professor Ibrahim Jawahir, from the University of Kentucky.

Cryogenic mach sustainability &


Features

When it came to assessingthe sustainability of aproduct, process andassociated manufacturingsystems, it was easy tomeasure factors likemanufacturing costs,energy consumption andwaste management.

Measuring howenvironmentally friendly andoperationally safe a productwas and the impactmanufacturing and using ithad on personal health wasmore difficult, but could bederived using ‘Fuzzy Logic.’

When it came tosustainable machining, thegeneral aim was tominimise cutting forces,power, torque and toolwear.

Traditional coolants hadbecome a ‘necessary evil’

in the machining process,but tended to be usedindiscriminately, and theydid not do much toimprove the quality ofproducts, the health of theusers and overallrecyclability.

Dry machining and neardry machining – alsoknown as MinimumQuantity Lubrication, orMQL – was moresustainable, while cryogenicmachining or thecombination of cryogenicand MQL techniques, waseven more sustainable.

Professor Jawahir wasaccompanied during hisvisit to the AMRC byProfessor David Aspinwall,Dr Leung Soo and DrRichard Hood from theUniversity of Birmingham.

The group was hosted byDr Erdem Ozturk and hadan opportunity to see theAMRC with Boeing’sFactory of the Future,Composite and KnowledgeTransfer Centres.

A number of AMRCtechnology and platformgroups demonstrated theircapabilities and sharedrecent findings with thevisitors.

After the seminar,representatives from theUniversities of Sheffield,Kentucky and Birminghamdiscussed the potential forcollaboration.

The effect could increase

hardness at the topsurface, improve

quality and reducecorrosion rates, while

also reducing toolwear.

ining improves quality

Features


Professor Yusuf Altintas, a leadingexpert on virtual high performancemachining, from the Departmentof Mechanical Engineering at theUniversity of British Columbiavisited the AMRC to deliver aseminar on virtual highperformance machining.

Research by Professor Altintasand his colleagues aims toreduce production times andcosts by minimising prototypetesting of machine tools andmachining operations.

Their virtual machining modelpredicts the cutting forces, torqueand power consumed whenmachining parts by consideringmaterial properties, cuttergeometry and cutting conditionsalong the tool path.

“We have one huge mathematicalmodel which is good for anymachining operation, serratedtools and indexed cutters, and our

most recent work in the autoindustry has been with multi-functional tools,” ProfessorAltintas told delegates attendingthe seminar.

Professor Altintas said the modelcould take finite element analysisdata produced as part of themachine tool design process anduse it to study the operation of acutting tool before the machinetool had even been built.

The software was being used bymore than 200 companies andresearch centres worldwide,including the AMRC, and hadbeen used to tailor make amachine tool spindle for aparticular process, eliminatingproblems which had resulted inone major aerospace companyhaving to replace spindlesfrequently.

Professor Altintas’s team iscurrently investigating the

Engineers at the AMRC with Boeing and representatives of partner companies haveheard how colleagues in Canada are seeking to

take trial and error out of the process ofmachining newly designed components usingsimulations for virtually testing and optimising

machining operations.

Virtual machining targets cuts in production

times and costs

Professor Altintas


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15

Prof Altintas and Ozan Gurdal

damping of machine toolvibrations, the stability of turning,drilling, boring, micro-cutting, pipethreading and mill turn operations.

Professor Altintas was making hissecond visit to the AMRC, havingfirst been here 15 years ago.

The latest visit was organised byDr Erdem Ozturk.

During his visit, Professor Altintastoured the AMRC’s Factory of theFuture, Integrated ManufacturingGroup, Composite and Design

and Prototyping Centres, aswell as the Nuclear AMRC,taking the opportunity to viewtheir capabilities and newdevelopments.

Professor Altintas also took part inmeetings which identified severalthemes for future collaborationbetween the AMRC and theUniversity of British Columbia’sManufacturing AutomationLaboratories.

After the seminar, Professor Altintas signed a copy of his

book - Manufacturing Automation-Metal Cutting Mechanics, Machine Tool Vibrations, and CNC Design* – for Ozan Gurdal, an MSc student on the AMRC’s Advanced Manufacturing Technologies programme, who is currently working on a thesis

on modelling the effects of process damping in milling, supervised by Dr Erdem Ozturk and Professor Neil Sims.

*Manufacturing Automation-Metal Cutting Mechanics, Machine Tool Vibrations, and CNC Design is one of the most cited books in metal cutting research and applications.

“We have one huge

mathematical modelwhich is good for anymachining operation,

serrated tools andindexed cutters”

Drones to deliver onlogistics and metrology intomorrow’s factories?

Aiden Lockwood, AMRC

Thecommercialmarket fordrones is takingoff with morethan 40,000due to be soldthis year and

that number expected to triple overthe next three years.

As part ofthat revolution,we could see multi-rotor helicopterdrones flying around Britain’sfactories, carrying out a number ofdifferent roles, according to DrAiden Lockwood, senior projectengineer with the AMRC’sIntegrated Manufacturing Group.

Multi-rotor helicopters could be

used in high value manufacturingfor logistics – distributing tools toworkstations, for example, foradvanced metrology and highresolution visual inspection.

Use for logistics posed a numberof safety and other issues.

“How do you path plan,particularly if you have multipleobjects around the shop floor?,”asked Aiden.

Safety systems would have to becreated, including, possibly, no flyzones, which, in the case ofcranes and lifts, might have tomove as the crane or lift moved.The helicopters themselves wouldalso have to know they hadsufficient energy to complete a joband return to a charging station.

Multi-rotor helicopters could beused to provide high speed visualmapping within the next generationof advanced factories and for initialinspection, highlighting areas oflarger components requiringgreater inspection.

It should also be possible to laserscan Unmanned Aerial Vehicles(UAVs) like multi-rotor helicoptersas they move, mapping where theUAV was in a 3D volume veryprecisely, to build up a highresolution telemetry system.

Put people first andeliminate the IT barriers toachieve the flexible factoryof the future

James Fonda, Boeing

Manufacturingtechnologymust putpeople first andeliminate thebarriers causedby current ITsystems, if we

are to create the intelligent,scalable and flexible factories ofthe future.

That was the verdict from DrJames Fonda, an associatetechnical fellow with BoeingResearch and Technology,speaking at the Factory 2050Conference.

Dr Fonda told delegates thatcurrent IT systems often added tothe workload of people on thefactory floor and he warned thatfuture developments would have to

Event Reviews


Factory2050

Above left: AMRC Powered UAVLeft: AMRC UAV design team


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17

be easier to use and bring visiblebenefits to the people using them.

Modern consumer technology wasopening the way for mobile,wearable devices to be used onthe shop floor, but they had to beeasy to use and respond to thetask involved.

“If you put a device on a personthat is really hard to use, there isno business benefit,” said Dr Fonda.

Systems have to be able to workout what someone using awearable device, or head-updisplay, need to see and display it,without the user having to searchfor the relevant information.

If wearable devices are being usedto input data, their successdepends on how well the usersunderstand what the data meansand where it is going. Developersof machine interfaces also neededto respond to the fact that newgenerations have grown up with

computer systems that werecapable of explaining how theywork. Dr Fonda called forequipment developers to maketheir devices more compatible.

“We see a lot of different vendorswith equipment that uses differentdata types and architectures. Webuild things out of all sorts ofvendor technologies and systemsand trying to integrate them isreally difficult,” said Dr Fonda.

Difficulties were compounded forlarge companies that might havehundreds of different activitiesoccurring in a production line atthe same time. Sometimes, it wastoo difficult to integrate differentsystems, meaning data had to bereplicated, which could lead toconfusion over just which set ofdata was the master data. Largecompanies like Boeing neededsoftware and networks that couldeasily be integrated and would not“take a lot of time to stitch togetherin house.”

Networks need to be agile andsecure, and the security systemsused by different components onthe network needed to bestandardised so that they could bemade compatible with enterpriselevel IT systems. Security also hadto be transparent to the user.

“It’s about getting agility into

networking and moving dataaround. It’s about flexibility andreally trying to make sure yourfactory is reconfigurable from an ITperspective, as well,” Dr Fondaconcluded.

Boeing 787 Dreamliner

Boeing 787 Dreamliner final assembly,Everett, Washington


Natural way to design thefactories of tomorrow

Istvan Nemeth, Budapest University ofTechnology and Economics

Researchersare borrowingfrom biologyand philosophyas part of aEuropeanproject to helpsmall firms to

rapidly design and evaluate newmanufacturing systems.

The COPERNICO project, led bythe AMRC involves five universitiesand research institutes, and 10industrial and SME partners fromacross Europe.

Dr Istvan Nemeth, associateprofessor at Budapest Universityof Technology and Economics,said the COPERNICO group hadadapted cladistics – the biologicalclassification system – to create alibrary of factory equipment.

The group had also developed away of defining the way equipmentinterrelated by developingontologies – originally thephilosophical study of the natureof beings – and created web-based tools that SMEs could useto explore different factory lay outs.

Adaptive automation willspeed production andencourage better use ofhuman capabilities

Dr Christian Hanisch (below), Festo and Darcie Cousins, Ubisense

Advances inmanufacturingtechnology areopening theway forcompanies tomake betteruse of the

capabilities of their humanworkforce, creating sustainablesocial enterprises, according to Dr

Christoph Hanisch, fromautomation experts Festo.

“It is possible that an engineer willdevelop a new product and, at thesame time, design themanufacturing line, whilst, in thebackground the system creates alist of components necessary tobuild the appropriate machine,” DrHanisch told the Factory 2050conference.

Moving from a hierarchical to anadaptive approach, where localmodules can control andautomatically change processes,could save system integratorsmonths of work and allowproduction to be rapidly rampedup after a new line is installed.

“In future we will be able to cut thehierarchy and introduceinformation models,” said DrHanisch, whose interests includethe effective design of research forfuture factories and strategies forstrengthening manufacturing inEurope.

“New devices have more sensors,more control output that can beused in information models fordifferent applications and differentpeople.

“We have an opportunity toemploy and use human capacitiesin a better way than we did in thepast.”

However, Dr Hanisch also hadconcerns about the future.

“In manufacturingtoday, we talk aboutautomation anddream ofautonomousfactories, but wedon’t talk aboutpeople. We don’t talkabout how they makea real living, care fortheir possessions andmaintain a standardof living.

“We have a chance tochange direction. Wecould use thesetechnological

developments to re-organise theshop floor and come to a newinteraction with machines, usingtechnology to design a sustainablesocial enterprise.”

Darcie Cousins from operationaleffectiveness and profitabilityspecialist Ubisense, told theconference increasing automationand the data it generates could laythe foundations for the creation of“Learning Factories” that are ableto anticipate and avoid problemsautomatically.

She said factories had alreadymoved on apace from a time whenmanufacturing functions reliedsolely on human capabilities.

Today’s factories could use a highlevel of automation to feedbackinformation that would lead toimproved quality.

The next step would be thecreation of a reactive or ‘learning’factory that would collect contextsensitive data and know the statusof products and the devices usedto make them all the time, evenwhen they were moving.

In future, the ‘workspace’ would befixed to the product, rather thanthe factory floor.

'Learning Factories' wouldanticipate and avoid problems bybeing sensitive to the rhythm ofhigh volume, rapid, linearmanufacturing processes, thepace of slower, linear low volumeprocesses and the sequence ofevents in non-linear, low volumeprocesses, she added.

Event Reviews

Foundries of the futurecould cut defects byadopting the technology of today

Professor John Campbell

Tomorrow’sfoundries couldmake defect freecastings that arealso cheaper ifthey adopttechnology thatprevents molten

metal being ‘churned’ as mouldsare filled.

Professor John Campbell told theFactory 2050 Conference that metalwas commonly poured at rates ofround 2.5 metres a second – fivetimes faster than it should be toavoid the creation of bifilms andbubbles that became entrainmentdefects.

“Cracks form first and inclusionsform on them,” said ProfessorCampbell. “The crack was therefirst and the inclusion nucleates onthe crack.

“Foundries use typical buckettechnology. Pouring churns themetal up, gravity accelerates themetal to speeds you don’t want andputs energy in to create foldingdefects.”

Professor Campbell outlined how,when he worked for racing andhigh performance enginemanufacturer Cosworth, he hadintroduced counter gravity castingstechnology that pumped moltenmetal into moulds.

As a result, the company was able

E-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 (0)114 222 4786 www.namtec.co.uk 19

Event Reviews

Machine manufacturerpredicts fall in demand forraw materials and energyin the factories of thefuture

Martin Werner (below), Hermle andProfessor Lenny Koh, The University ofSheffield

Increasedefficiency, thegrowth ofmonitoringtechnology andthecombination ofdifferent

manufacturing technologies willcombine to reduce the demand forraw materials and energy in thefactories of the future.

Martin Wener, Key AccountManager with machine toolmanufacturer Hermle, told theFactory 2050 conference therewas big potential for improving theenergy efficiency of factorymachinery.

Mr Wener cited Hermle’s longexperience of recovering energyfrom spindles under braking, itsdevelopment of hybrid additivemanufacturing and millingmachines and self-checkingmachine tools as examples of howsavings could be made.

Using soluble filler material withthe hybrid machines, it waspossible to create voids for coolingor heating elements by millingchannels into components anddepositing filler material in thechannel, before adding a layer ofmetal on top.

Meanwhile, it was now possible totake an “electronic finger print” ofmachine tools leaving the Hermlefactory.

“Every so often, the machinechecks itself, sends the data to usand we can compare it with theoriginal data so that we can carryout preventative maintenance,when necessary,” said Mr Wener.

“By 2050, consumption ofresources will have decreased,”Martin Wener predicted.

“There will be a smaller number ofmachine operators, but they will bemore like production supervisorsand have a wider, more softwarerelated skills base. Machines willhave the technology to monitortheir own health and fine tunemanufacturing to achieve the bestpossible tool life and results.

“There will still be a need forprecision machining, but thevolume of chips will reduce, due to

additive manufacturing.”

Professor Lenny Koh told theconference that huge opportunitieswere opening up for companieslarge and small, as demand forsecure energy supplies andreduced reliance on importsincrease demand for increasinglylocalised supply chains,.

Professor Koh, director of theCentre for Energy, Environmentand Sustainability and theLogistics and Supply ChainManagement Research Centre atthe University of Sheffield, wasspeaking at the Factory 2050Conference.

She said the drive for moresustainable growth had to includeimproving the capabilities of SMEsand supply chain efficiency,monetising the real value ofresources.

Identifying carbon hot spots withincompanies and their supply chainswas now possible thanks to thedevelopment of SCEnAT, theSupply Chain EnvironmentalAnalysis Tool, at SheffieldUniversity Management School.

At the same time, concerns aboutsome sectors’ increasing relianceon rare earth materials had led toinitiatives such as the EPSRC-backed Critical MaterialSubstitution Project designed toincrease sustainability byidentifying alternative materials.

to cast two cylinder blocks every 40seconds and engine failures duringtesting were eliminated, afterhaving previously been at 50 percent. The introduction of a towerfurnace had resulted in oxides fromthe outside of the molten metalremaining on the dry hearth, whileinner ones sedimented out and theclean metal could be pumpedupwards into the moulds.

The process had been cheap toinstall and resulted in a metal thatwas free from defects, would notfatigue or crack and reduced wearon machine tools. ProfessorCampbell highlighted the successof another ‘counter gravity’ castingsystem, the Griffin process, used tomake railway wheels in the US,which was so reliable that only onecasting in 10 million failed.

He also argued that theperformance of single crystalcastings had more to do with thefact that biofilms floated out or werepushed out during the slowsolidification process than thesingle crystal structure.

“The metal is strong, not because itis a single crystal, but because it ispretty free from defects,” saidProfessor Campbell, adding thatcounter gravity casting could resultin ten-fold improvements overconventional methods.

“People work their whole lives toget a 10 per cent benefit. Here, weare talking about 10 times thebenefit – and it would be cheaper tomake products without defects likethis. We don’t have to wait until2050 to do it. We could do ittomorrow,” he concluded.

Hermle C50 U

Hermle C60 U

Technology could allowbuilders to put up a housein a day and meet toughnew targets

Stephen Harley, Laing O’Rourke

Advancedmanufacturingcould play avital part inhelping theUK’sconstructionindustry meet

challenging targets for newhomes, according to StephenHarley, from Laing O’Rourke.

Mr Harley told delegates to theFactory 2050 conference that, theproportion of people living in urbanlocations had risen from two in 10in the 1900s to five in 10 today andis expected to increase further toseven in 10 by 2050.

Politicians were talking about theneed to build 200,000 new homesa year, which would be asignificant increase on the 140,000homes that the industry wascurrently building.

“Our view of the speed ofconstruction is that, if we keepdoing what we are doing thatnumber may increase a little,” saidMr Harley, Laing O’Rourke’s

director for advancedmanufacturing.

Achieving the sort of numberspoliticians were seeking, while alsoresponding to increasing demandsfrom consumers for affordablehomes which could be tailored totheir personal choice would meansignificantly changing the way theconstruction industry worked.

Laing O’Rourke plans to do that byincreasing off site production anddeveloping reconfigurablefactories and automated assemblysystems that can supply homes toconstruction sites as a set ofmodules. Advancedmanufacturing techniques arealready at play in the design ofmodern office blocks like theLeadenhall Building in the City ofLondon – dubbed the London‘Cheesegrater’ because of itsappearance. Virtual reality versionsof the Cheesegrater had been built31 times before physical work

began, It was now possible tocapture data for living conditions,modify designs accordingly andcreate strategies for preventativemaintenance before a building wasconstructed.

There would come a time in thenot too distant future when 90 percent of construction would be“completed off site, in a clean,safe factory environment,” said MrHarley. By incorporating “Plug andPlay” connections for mechanicaland electrical services, LaingO’Rourke believes that once sitework is complete, a typical housecould be built and ready foroccupation within a day.

Meanwhile, zero carbon ratedapartments could be constructedone floor a day, with a typical blockbeing ready for occupation in aweek. The AMRC will be playing itspart in that revolution byspearheading a £1.6 millionresearch project, which is part of a£104 million programme, launchedby Laing O’Rourke and backed bya £22.1 million grant from theDepartment for BusinessInnovation and Skills.

It will develop advanced ways ofmaking modular systems for newhomes, other buildings and theirsupporting infrastructure;investigating the automatedassembly of mechanical andelectrical services for buildings.

Meanwhile, the AMRC TrainingCentre will identify training needs,develop accredited programmesand provide training for workersusing the new technologies andtechniques the AMRC develops.

Laing O’Rourke reckons that asmany as 600 new, direct jobscould be created by itsprogramme and a further 1,000 inits diverse supply chain.

Robots and other flexible,advanced manufacturingtechnologies will be harnessed aspart of the programme, but LaingO’Rourke’s ambitions don’t endthere. Stephen Harley sees a daywhen robots will also be used onbuilding sites, but he told theFactory 2050 Conference theywould need to be able to worksafely with humans who willprovide the dexterity needed tomodify, fit out and finish the homesof the future.


Event Reviews

Digital natives will engineertomorrow’s factories withsurgical precision

Tom Newman, Meggitt, Dr MarkRobinson & Dr Gail Clarkson, TheUniversity of Leeds, Dr Dermot Breslin,The University of Sheffield

Tomorrow’s factory workers willneed to be more like today’ssurgeons, following procedures, butable to use their knowledge toadapt to new circumstances, withequipment like intelligentworkbenches as their assistants,according to Tom Newman.

Mr Newman, from FTSE 100 globalengineering group Meggitt, saidtechnological advances andautomation would not replaceworkers in the factories of 2050, orturn them into simple machineminders, but tomorrow’s factoryworkers would expect to workdifferently.

People born after the millenniumwere “digital natives” who didn’t justconsume content, but socialised,learnt and challenged each other

Laing O'Rourke prefabricated house

Robots foldingfaçade panesfor the Laing

O'Rourkeprefabricated

house


Event Reviews

New technologies offersignificant efficiency andquality benefits if systemsare made to communicate

Javier Gutierez (below), NationalInstruments and Paul Davies, Boeing

Cheapcomputingpower andrapidly evolvingnewtechnologiesare creatingopportunities to

increase the intelligence anddecision making capabilities ofmachinery on the shop floor.

The challenge, however, is tocreate an open platform approachthat enables the technologies totalk to each other, according toJavier Gutierez, businessdevelopment manager forEmbedded Design and Testing atNational Instruments.

Mr Gutierez told the Factory 2050conference that all manufacturerscould reap benefits from newtechnologies like wearables, smarttools and inspection systems andintelligent communications.

The question was how could thosetechnologies be brought togetherto improve shop floor efficiency,while also enabling qualityassurance data to be collecteddigitally, allowing live, digitaldocumentation to be created,which would enable procedures tobe changed, when necessary, ‘onthe fly.’

Javier Gutierez cited commercialaircraft builders as one example ofmanufacturers who could reapsignificant benefits from intelligenttooling systems.

One model of aircraft might haveas many as 400,000 different holesinto which the specified boltneeded to be fitted and securedwith the appropriate tool, chosenfrom what could be a range ofmore than 1,000 differenttightening tools.

Linking smart glasses, worn by theassembly worker, to an intelligenttool could enable the tool torecognise the task and reconfigureitself on the fly.

“The technology is mostly thereand computing power is there,”said Mr Gutierez.

“Smart tools, intelligentcommunications, industrial robots,smart inspection, mobilemanipulators – how can we makeall these different componentswork together, using a platform-based approach?

“There are so many embeddedplatforms that decision with analgorithm and porting it to a targetis a big challenge. Augmentedreality systems that merge virtualdata with the real world could playa vital role in ensuring assembliesare as they should be, but won’tplay a part in metrology in the nearfuture,” Paul Davies told theconference.

Mr Davies, an associate technicalfellow in Boeing Research &Technology’s AdvancedProduction Systems group, saidwearable devices would have arole in providing instructions,tracking what was happeningduring assembly and validating itagainst a CAD model.

“This kind of technology could findwhether the part is in the rightplace and oriented correctly or if apart has been missed out, but notfor metrology because theresolution is only five millimetres,”said Mr Davies.

“It will also be able to locate partsnot in the CAD model and thingsthat shouldn’t be there.”

online. The 2050 generationwould be used to kinaestheticlearning – people who learn bydoing things, rather than listeningor reading – and would be usedto accessing a range ofinformation online if they hit aproblem.

“People are going to expect towork differently. They are notgoing to expect linear proceduresand manuals to guide themthrough their work,” said MrNewman.

Organisational psychologist DrMark Robinson, from theUniversity of Leeds, told theFactory 2050 Conference thatinnovation in processes andimprovements in managementprocedures and communicationwould be increasingly important inthe factories of the future. Ascurrent systems becameautomated the workforce of thefuture would need to be moreskilled and competition for thebest employees would increase,said Dr Robinson.

Colleague Dr Gail Clarksonemphasised the links betweenaltruistic behaviour within teamsand their success, while Dr Dermot Breslin, from theUniversity of SheffieldManagement School, highlightedwhen groups undertook breaks toperform undemanding tasks, thisimproved their problem solvingperformance.

Dr Clarkson suggestedmanufacturing could benefit fromthe lessons of biologicalevolution.

“The more altruism in a group, themore likely it is to out competeanother group,” she said.

Dr Breslin said allowing the mindto wander could triggersubconscious moments ofcreativity, but taking a break froman activity with a high cognitivedemand to carry out a routinerepetitive task had been shown tobe even more beneficial. What’smore, research showed we wereat our most creative during the“post lunch slump” from 1pm to2pm, when the executive part ofthe brain slowed down.

“You don’t come up with the mostoriginal idea, but you come upwith loads of ideas,” said DrBreslin, adding: “If you want toencourage creativity, you ought tobe positively encouraging peopleto take breaks, particularly breakswhere people go off as a group todo something that involves afundamental mind shift.”

Automated guided robots working on aBoeing 777 fuselage

Meggitt factory, also above.


Evolution could power arevolution in machineadaptability formanufacturing in thefuture

Dr Jack Chaplin, The University ofNottingham and David Brown, Hexagon Metrology

Manufacturing systems that canevolve and adapt to change couldbecome a reality intomorrow’s factoriesthanks to a £2.6million researchprogramme.

Delegates to theFactory 2050 conferenceheard Dr Jack Chaplin fromthe University of Nottingham’sManufacturing and ProcessTechnologies Research Divisionoutline work on the development of‘Plug and Produce’ machines.

The machines are beingdeveloped as part of anEngineering and PhysicalSciences Research Council(EPSRC) project.

Each machine has £30 RaspberryPi Model 2 computer embedded,allowing it to be plugged in andout of a production process whichthen modifies itself to take accountof the change in resources.

“No single agent is in control, allare sharing responsibility,” DrChaplin explained. “If you plugsomething in, it announces itself tothe system, thinks for itself and

talks to its neighbour.”

With 'Plug and Produce', it shouldbe possible to add new piecesequipment to the process withouthaving to reconfigure themanufacturing system. Similarly, ifa piece of equipment breaks downor has a problem, the systemshould reconfigure itself so that itcan keep manufacturing.

The Nottingham team isdeveloping three demonstrators aspart of the programme. One isdesigned to assemble hinges forcar doors, another is going tosimulate a plant makingcustomisable pharmaceuticals andthe third, called the FutureAutomated Aerospace AssemblyDemonstrator, could build flaps for

aircraft wings.

Hexagon MetrologyUK’s director and

general manager,David Brown told

the conference thatautomation had

become a key driver formetrology, which was rapidlytransforming into an IT business.

“We don’t see ourselves asmetrologists. We are an ITcompany,” said Mr Brown.

“Metrology has evolved into an ITworld. We capture data, analyseand present it; providinginformation the world can react to.Automation is a key driver.”

Event Reviews

Internet of Things offersmajor productivity benefitsfor companies withcompatible data

Richard Allan, PTC and Martin Kelman,ATS Global

With more devices now connectedto the internet than people on theplanet, new opportunities areopening up for significantproductivity savings, according toRichard Allan senior regional salesdirector for the UK, Belgium andthe Netherlands at PTC.

PTC specialises in computer aideddesign, product, application andlifecycle management and theInternet of Things (IoT). It recentlyacquired Axeda, which providesadvanced cloud-based servicesand software for managingconnected products and machinesand implementing Machine-to-Machine (M2M) and IoTapplications.

PTC also owns ThingWorx, the firstIoT platform designed to build andrun the applications of theconnected world. Richard Allantold delegates to the Factory 2050conference how one customerwho manufactures milkingmachines, was responding todemand by enabling its machinesto collect data on local weatherconditions and when individualcows were ready to be milked.

Enterprise systems were availablethat could collect data frommultiple plants, but in many cases,plants operated as isolated silos,with applications that used non-standard Key PerformanceIndicators, which meant theinformation could not be usedproductively.

“There are good systems thatprovide good information and canhave an impact on the process,but they are all very disparate andonly five per cent of theinformation can be found, so howcan it be used?” said RichardAllan.

“There is little use in getting reamsof reports about things that havealready happened – it’s too late.”

Martin Kelman, from industrial andprocess automation specialist ATSGlobal, told the conference thatnew standards that enable off theshelf products to workcooperatively were among theadvances needed to allowcompanies to reap major benefitsfrom future automation.

Information Technology needed tobe as flexible as the manufacturingsystems it supports, said MrKelman. IT policies werehampering shop floor operationaltechnology (OT) as a result of thetrend towards locating ITresources in remote data centres.

“OT is all about automation. ITpolicies prevent OT from working,”said Martin Kelman.

Most factories brought together arange of stand-alone equipmentwith no standard means ofcommunicating, which meant theyhad to be “mashed together inquite a complicated way.”

A single factory could use 50 to100 separate technologies tocontrol everything. Ideally, whatwas needed was a single portalthat was not application specificand could be used to shareinformation within an enterpriseand connect to the supply chain.Research centres could help todrive forward standards that wouldallow ‘Plug and Play’ machineryand automation to be developed.

“IT systems have to be as flexibleas the manufacturing systems theyare supporting. We need to driveforward IT to meet the demands ofthe manufacturing we have today,”Martin Kelman concluded.

Hexagon MetrologyAutomation

Quick fire presentationsoutline new areas ofresearch

Researchers from the University ofWarwick are looking for ways toenable designers to understandthe impact their decisions will haveon the cost of a finished product.

Ken Asare, from the University ofWarwick, told delegates to theFactory 2050 Conference thattypically, costs were mainlyworked out by a company’sfinance department when theproduct was ready to go tomarket.

However, moves to develop costand resource databases couldmean that, in future, designers willhave control over the cost of whatthey are designing.

Meanwhile Claire Jevons, from theIndustrial Doctorate Centre at theAMRC outlined attempts beingmade to create a framework formodelling costs that would help tounderstand the drivers and predictfuture changes so that it wouldbecome easier to quantify theimpact of emerging newtechnologies.

Ken Asare and Claire Jeavonswere among a number ofresearchers delivering quick firepresentations of new researchduring the Conference. Delegatesalso heard how attempts werebeing made to assess thesharpness of tools using highresolution 3D scans.

The research had already shownthat ground tools were blunterthan pressed tools, after carryingout the same cutting strategy.

Further research was being carriedout to investigate errors and thesource of errors in robot milling,

comparing the results of finiteelement analysis and the results of cutting wear measurements.

Dr Hatim Laalej, from the AMRCwith Boeing, outlined research into the measurement oftemperature in machining, using a thermal camera andthermocouples 1.5mm from thecutting edge. Trials showed thatresults were repeatable and theresponse time from the thermalcamera was far superior.

Further work on improved sensing and measurement without having to take acomponent off a machine, whilstalso collecting tool and machineperformance data was explainedby AMRC technology fellow TomMcLeay.

UK manufacturers mustinvest to reap the benefitstechnology offers for aradical rise in productivity

Brian Holliday, Siemens

Manufacturingcould be on thecusp of a radicalincrease inproductivity, butthe UK risksbeing leftbehind because

it is still chronically under investingin technology, according to BrianHolliday, from Siemens.

Mr Holliday, managing director forSiemens Digital factory Division inthe UK, Ireland, Nigeria andGhana was delivering the openingaddress at the Factory 2050conference, organised by theAMRC. He told the 200 delegatesthat many of the technologies thatwould feature in Factory 2050 werein use today.

“What we need to do is to applythem. We have a job to do to showwhat is possible today,” said MrHolliday. Research showed thatUK manufacturing could increaseproductivity by more than 27 percent and employment by sevenper cent if companies followed thelead of the world’s leadingautomators.

Manufacturing was entering afourth industrial revolution.Following on from the creation ofthe loom, the diversification oflabour and electrification androbotics and automation, the latestrevolution would be characterisedby ‘autonomous automation.’

The latest revolution was beingdriven by a number of factors, saidMr Holliday. Energy shortages andrising costs had increased theneed for greater efficiency andcompetitiveness.

Meanwhile, consumers werebecoming increasingly demandingand the pressure was on tosignificantly reduce the timeneeded to get products to market.

Tomorrow’s factories would haveto integrate software and designcapabilities with the flexibility to beable to make a wider range ofproducts in the same plant.

“Manufacturers need to designquicker, make quicker and shipquicker. We are also seeingdemand for the internet to be builtin to products,” said Mr Holliday,

adding: “We have got to find waysto become more flexible because,increasingly, as consumers wewant more tailored products.”

Increasing use of off the shelftechnology and consolidation ofstandards was allowingcompanies to collaborate moreeasily and the ’industrialisation’ ofIT meant the price to enter thetechnology market was dropping.

Software and technologycapabilities were no longer aconstraint, but there were stillchallenges to be faced – not leastin ensuring safety and security asdemand for remote access andcontrol to plant operationsincreased.

There was also a need to connectto the supply chain.

“If we believe the future involvesmaking smart products in smartfactories, we need to consider thesmart supply chains to whichproducers will need to connect,”said Mr Holliday.


Event Reviews

Siemens digital factory, above & below

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Cyber threats rise as moremachines are plugged into the Internet of Things

Stephen Hailes, UCL

One in threemanufacturershave faced adirected cyberattack duringthe last yearand the number

of vulnerabilities is growing,according to Professor StephenHailes, from the Department ofComputer Science at UniversityCollege London.

Professor Hailes warneddelegates at the Factory 2050conference that people had feltsecure in the past because theybelieved equipment wasn’tplugged into a network or it wason a network that was securefrom attack.

However, people wereincreasingly plugging equipmentinto the Internet without realisingit – to such an extent that therewere now a number ofcompanies with industrial controlsystems that were known to beinsecure and infected becausethe cost of taking the systemdown was too high.

Professor Hailes said the numberof internet connected deviceswas high and projected to rise,meanwhile, the number of “zeroday vulnerabilities” – flaws insoftware, hardware or firmwarethat are exploited before or asthey become generally known –was also growing.

Just over one in four cyberattacks are targeted at industryand both the motivation forattacks on industrial controlsystems and the methods usedare different to other attacks, withattackers having specific targetsand objectives.

Attacks had ranged from adisgruntled employee whocaused a major sewage leak anda targeted attack which causedserious damage at a Germansteel plant to the Stuxnet attackagainst Windows computers andSiemens control systems, whichProfessor Hailes described as“an act of cyber warfare.”

Professor Hailes warned thatrelying on data encryption orthinking that security could be‘bolted on’ to systems would notwork.

“Security isn’t a technology youbuy. It’s something you do,” saidProfessor Hailes.

“We aren’t actively identifyingthreats. We need to be pro-activeand find out how people aregoing to attack systems byattacking these systemsourselves.

“We need collaboration betweenindustry and researchers and weneed, as researchers, exposureto real systems.”

Professor Hailes also called forcompanies hit by cyber attacks to be more willing to talk aboutwhat had happened. “Sharinginformation about incidents isreally important,” he said.

Additive manufacturingoffers new options forpersonalisation andreduced costs

Neil Hopkinson, The University of Sheffield

Newdevelopments in additivemanufacturing(AM) technologycould help tosatisfy risingdemand for

personalisation and open the wayfor products with electricalcomponents that have beenprinted inside.

Neil Hopkinson, Professor ofmanufacturing engineering at the

University of Sheffield and directorof its Centre for Advanced AdditiveManufacturing (AdAM), told theFactory 2050 Conference that AMwas already being used to makebespoke hearing aids.

Investigations were also underwaythat could lead to the developmentof bespoke running shoes for eliteathletes and then on topersonalised sports footwear forthe consumer market.

Event Reviews

The National Metals Technology Centre Quarterly Journal

3D printing

An EOSINT DMLS system laser-sintering


Event Reviews

Boeing had been using lasersintering to make parts for aircraftducting – something that wouldhave been unthinkable a few yearsago, while the ceramic tiles industryhad switched en masse fromscreen to inkjet printing designs.

Meanwhile, new High SpeedSintering technology beingdeveloped at AdAM could help tocut the cost, in addition toincreasing the speed with whichcomponents can be made, whilealso reducing the minimumnumber of components that couldbe made economically.

Professor Hopkinson said thefuture development of AMtechnology would give companiesgreater flexibility over where theyhad components made andincrease opportunities formanufacturing closer to the UK.

Decisions about where a part wasmade could be based on machineavailability and closeness to thecustomer, reducing lead times anddelivery costs.

Predictive manufacturingwill cut new productionline costs and improvequality

Researchers from the Universityof Warwick are using data andknowledge collected fromexisting production systems tohelp recognise patternsindicating the potentialperformance of new systems.

They hope their research intowhat they describe as ‘PredictiveManufacturing’ will result incloser integration of product andmanufacturing system design,quality improvements andreduced lifecycle costs.

Dr Kobby Kodua, from theWarwick Manufacturing Group'sDigital Lifecycle ManagementResearch Group, saysmanufacturers have a tendencyto start from scratch every timethey design a manufacturingsystems.

“Systems change, but you candetect a pattern or logic behindwhat is happening,” Dr Koduatold the Factory 2050conference.

Classifying manufacturingsystems, creating a database of

systems and collecting live datafrom those systems could help topredict what would happen if thesystem was reorganised.

The Warwick researchers havebeen testing out their theories bytrying to develop a productionsystem for remote laser weldingtwo sheets of metal that mightreplace a spot welding line,reducing costs by 35 per cent inthe process.

Manufacturers in the UK need toinvest more heavily in integratedequipment if they are to improveproductivity, Ernst Wagner,managing director of KASTO UK,the metal sawing and storagesystems specialist told theFactory 2050 Conference.

Mr Wagner said the UK wasquite active when it came tomaking investments, butcommonly the investment was instandalone equipment.

Citing KASTO’s own experienceas evidence, Mr Wagner saidthat of the 1,350 saws it had atplants in the UK, not one waspart of an integrated “store tofloor” solution, linkingwarehousing automatically withprocessing, marking palletisingand the like.

Electron Beam Melt Poolcourtesy of Arcam

KASTO automatic storagesystem stacker crane

KASTO band hydraulic-double column

AM head

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Event Reviews


Subsea oil and gas production may slow, but therewill still be plenty of opportunities to win business –and not necessarily at the lowest price.

NAMTEC: Supply Chain Opportunities aboundin the Oil and Gas sectordespite subseaproduction slow down

John Duffy, Vulcan SFM and David Thompson, Lloyds Register

John Duffy, from Vulcan SFM, the world leading supplier of largecastings and forgings to the oil and gas sector, told the NAMTECoil and gas supply chain conference that a supplier offering betterlead times could often beat one with a lower price.

He advised companies seeking to supply the sector, to develop areputation for quality and safety, which also encompassed theirsub-contractors.

They also had to offer top quality reporting and regular updates,keep their scheduling promises and ensure they could producedetailed documentation before, during and after carrying out thecontract.

Opportunities include making forgings, castings and fabrications,supplying materials, flanges and fasteners, welding services andsupplies, providing coating and painting services and carrying outinspection and testing. Mr Duffy also urged companies not tofocus solely on the North Sea, he said:

“The offshore subsea market is a truly global market.”

“Most of our business comes from the Gulf of Mexico andMalaysia. If you are interested in the market, don’t just look at theNorth Sea.”

He also urged companies to be bold and innovative.

“Be bold enough to question why some things are specified, if theproject is asking for material properties that are completelyunrealistic.

“There is broad scope for innovation, new products andservices,” he added.

David Thompson, from compliance, risk and technicalconsultancy Lloyds Register, warned that the sector supply chaincould be complex and opportunities to extend lists of supplierscould be restricted by the cost of audits and fears over the risk anew, unproven supplier could pose to a business.

He predicted that there could be an increase in requirements forthird part inspection in the European market, including jointinspections involving end users and manufacturers, starting at thematerials approval stage.

David Thompson said there could also be a move towardsindependent, third part inspection in the US, where most auditingwas currently carried out internally or by sub-contractors.


Event Reviews

27

Demand for oiland gas willcontinue togrow alongwith globaldemand forenergy

according to Adam Davey,economics and marketintelligence Manager for the UKoffshore oil and gas industry’sleading representative body, Oil& Gas UK.

However, pressure to reduce costswill remain high, despite hopes theoil price will recover, Mr Davey tolda well-attended conference onsupply chain opportunities in oiland gas, organised by NAMTEC.

Mr Davey said 57 per cent of theworld’s energy currently comesfrom oil and gas and the proportionwould still be 55 per cent in 20years time.

The unusually strong rise in USproduction, due to fracking, waslikely to continue, but there weresigns that people now believed theoil price would recover to $70 to$80 a barrel in the next few years,while Shell’s bid to buy gasexploration and production

company, BG Group, implied a $90 price.

However, UK operating costs perbarrel had more than doubledrecently, making the UK the mostexpensive place to operate.

“We have seen absolutely rampantgrowth in the cost of operations inthe UK, against a decliningproduction base, with companiespaying 40 to 50 per cent more tooperate 40 to 50 per cent lessproduction than 10 years ago,”said Mr Davey.

“Cost control and efficiency areabsolutely vital. Asset stewardshipand production performanceneeds to be improved.”

Companies were still investing inlooking for, and developing, new oiland gas reserves and around athird of the reserves under the UKcontinental shelf were still to beextracted.

Now was the perfect time forcompanies with big balance sheetsto explore, however, in many casesit was far easier to invest inimproving the performance ofexisting assets than to exploit newones.

Opportunities in Oil and Gas Future secure for oil andgas despite dramatic fallin the oil priceAdam Davey, Oil & Gas UK

Energy sector poses newchallenges for establishedand innovative materials

Deeper wells,the rise offracking anddemand forlow carbonenergyproduction are

posing new challenges formaterials and componentsuppliers.

Alastair Lang, businessdevelopment manager for theMaterials Processing Institute, toldthe conference that opportunitiesexisted in Carbon Capture andStorage (CCS) and the oil and gassector for companies that coulddevelop lower cost, lower gradematerials, with properties similar tohigher grade materials.

High strength, corrosion resistant,special materials were increasinglyin demand for use in sour wells,where hydrogen sulphide couldcause hydrogen embrittlement,and wells where sand extractedwith the oil and gas causederosion.

Exploration in ever deeper watersis also leading to demand formaterials capable of withstandinghigh temperatures and pressures,while new steels are needed toincrease the life of componentsused in fracking, where the natureof the material being extractedmeant pump parts currentlyneeded to be replaced every fewweeks.

Mr Lang said there wereopportunities to supply materialsand components for a range ofCCS systems.

These included CCS absorbers,which capture CO2 in flue gasses

in a solvent, and desorbers, whichseparate the solvent out, so thatthe gas can be compressed.

There were also opportunities tosupply pipeline materials, whichwould need to be able to withstandthe high temperatures andpressures the CO2 would besubjected to in order to increase itsdensity and allow the pipelines towork as efficiently as possible.

Alastair Lang, Materials Processing Institute

Oil & Gas event

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Event Reviews


NAMTEC: Supply Chain Opportunities in Oil and Gas

Power station projectoffers openings for oiland gas sector suppliers

Jim Doyle, Drax

The 448MWplant will be theUK’s first coal-fired CCS powerstation and willhave thecapacity tosupply enough

electricity for 630,000 homes.

Pulverised coal will be fed into theplant’s boiler, along with oxygenseparated from the atmosphere, toproduce flue gases rich in CO2,which will be cleaned and fed backinto the boiler. Highly purified CO2,separated from the flue gases, willbe compressed and transportedby pipeline and stored in an aquiferbeneath the North Sea.

Around two million tonnes of CO2 –about 90 per cent of the CO2

produced by the plant – will becaptured and the plant couldbecome a zero emitter of CO2 ifbiogas was used instead of coal,Dr Jim Doyle, EnvironmentalConsents Officer for Drax Power,told the NAMTEC conference onsupply chain opportunities in oiland gas.

Dr Doyle said the project aimed todemonstrate that Oxyfuel CarbonCapture and Storage was a

reliable, flexible and competitivelypriced low carbon technology,which improved the UK’s securityof energy supplies and could actas an anchor project fortransporting and storing CO2.

The pipeline, operated by NationalGrid, would have the capacity tocarry 17 million tonnes of CO2 ayear, which meant there would be15 million tonnes of excesscapacity, which could be used byother companies to reduce theirCO2 emissions.

Outlining opportunities forsuppliers, Dr Doyle said: “We havea lot of expertise locally in powergeneration, maintenance andpower station construction.

“We have expertise here to dealwith large projects and, if we canmake projects like this a success, I see no reason why we cannot bea world leader in CCS technology.”

Dr Doyle said the Drax projectwould need 20,000 tonnes of metalalone and there could beopportunities to retrofit thetechnology developed at Drax toother power stations, build newOxyfuel CCS power plants andexport the technology worldwide.

New Institute will cut thetime taken to commercialisenew materials

Plans to develop an Oxyfuel Carbon Capture and Storage(CCS) power plant at Drax power station in North Yorkshirecould create new business opportunities for companiessupplying the oil and gas sector.

Professor Colin Bailey, University of Manchester

World leadingUK researchcentres areaiming toradicallyreduce thetime it takes to get new

materials to market.

That is one of the targets for thenew Sir Henry Royce MaterialsInstitute business leaders heardwhen they attended a conferenceon plans for the Institute’sdevelopment at the AMRC withBoeing.

A total of £235 million is set to beinvested in the new Institute,which will be based at theUniversity of Manchester.

The Institute will carry out researchaimed at developing new materialsthat will help industry cut its costsand consumption of energy andraw materials at the Universities ofSheffield, Leeds, Liverpool, Oxford,Cambridge, Imperial College, aswell as Manchester.

It will also work with the NationalNuclear Laboratory and CulhamCentre for Fusion Energy.Professor Colin Bailey, DeputyPresident and Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University ofManchester told conferencedelegates UK researchers wereleading the world when it came todeveloping advanced materials.

“Advanced materials underpin allour industrial sectors. If we couldtake advanced materials to themarket more quickly we could havea significant impact on UK plc,”said Professor Bailey.

“Getting materials to marketcan often take more than 20years, we know that we canhalve that with the UK’sexpertise in materialsresearch.

Materials forManufacturing –Sheffield: the Sir Henry RoyceInstitute and the InnovationDistrict


Event Reviews

29

However, what was missing was afacility to design and test newmaterials and accelerate thesegetting to market. This is what theRoyce Institute will do.”

Professor Bailey said the newInstitute would be a national body,bringing together a network forindividual research centres and theCatapults, set up by government tohelp companies of all sizesdevelop new technologies forcommercial use.

Its creation had been incorporatedin the UK Science and InnovationStrategy, with work on the businesscase for its creation and how itwould be governed currentlyunderway with the Department forBusiness Innovation and Skills.

Once it was established, theInstitute would focus onaccelerating the use of advancedmaterials for engineering andenergy extraction and production,‘functional’ materials; includinggraphene, nano materials,materials used in the IT sector and‘soft’ materials, including biomaterials and ‘smart’ coatings.

The institute will not only focus ondeveloping new materials, it willalso look at ways of improving theperformance of existing materials.

Neil Glover, Rolls-Royce and Dan Johns, GKN Aerospace

Potential beneficiaries from thework of the Sir Henry RoyceMaterials Institute haveemphasised the importance ofits plans to develop new, highperformance materials andimproved metallic powders foradditive manufacturing

Neil Glover, head of materials atRolls-Royce said aerospacecustomers wanted future aeroengines with reducedenvironmental impact and betterperformance.

That meant Rolls-Royce neededhigher strength, highertemperature, lower densitymaterials that offered the samehigh levels of safety as the currentmaterials in use at the lowestpossible cost.

“We need them as quickly aspossible and we need to be able topredict what they will do inservice,” said Mr Glover. Rolls-Royce believed believed powdertechnology having an increasingpart to pay in aerospace and some

nuclear applications.

However, defects in powders,introduced during manufacturing –one of the issues which theSheffield arm of the Sir HenryRoyce Materials Institute hopes toaddress – was one of the keyfactors in reducing the in-servicelife of aero engine componentsmade from powders.

Additive technologies could have a

part to play in repairing extremelyhigh value aero enginecomponents which occasionallysuffered damage when sand, gritor even stones were sucked in.

However, research was needed toensure the techniques usedproduced a repair with the rightmicrostructure, geometry andperformance,” said Mr Glover.

Dan Johns, chief technologist forGKN Aerospace, said the additivemanufacturing technology to makeaerospace components was there,the question was how to scale it upfor industrial production and meetthe qualification requirements foraerospace.

One answer was to redesignexisting components for additivemanufacturing and save onmaterials.

“A one kilogramme titaniumcomponent, machined from billet,requires 26 tonnes of rocks at themining end. That same part madeby additive manufacturing requiresnine tonnes of rocks,” said MrJohns, a visiting Professor ofAdvanced Material Processing atthe University of Sheffield.

“With additive manufacturing, youcan move to a more organictopology, you can reduce materialwaste, be more efficient and winmore orders,” he added, citing asan example another componentwhich had been made as a nearnet shape forging.

When produced by additivemanufacturing the component hadrequired five times less rawmaterial and finish machining hadgenerated 13 times less swarf thanthe forging.

Research into high performance materialsand powders promise significant benefits,says industry

Titanium alloy F1 heat shield manufactured by theMercury Centre using electron beam melting

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Event Reviews


Materials for Manufacturing – Sheffield: the Sir Henry Royce Institute and the Innovation District

Mark Rainforth and Ian Todd, University of Sheffield (below) andJames Hughes, AMRC-NAMTEC

New materials, designed fromfirst principles, using computersimulation, while thetechniques for processing themare developed in parallel beforeany of the material has beenproduced and high strengthsteels that can easily be formedcould be closer to reality thanyou think.

University of Sheffield ProfessorsMark Rainforth and Iain Toddoutlined some of the currentresearch developments whichcould lay the foundations for futureinitiatives involving the Sir HenryRoyce Materials Institute.

They highlighted the work of theDesigning Alloys for ResourceEfficiency Project (DARE), whichinvolves the Universities ofSheffield, Cambridge and ImperialCollege, and focuses on theconcurrent design of materials andprocess routes.

Professor Rainforth outlined thedevelopment by Tata of a new, lightweight, high strength steel, whichwas still formable and is intendedfor vehicle chassis.

“We have seen dramatic changesin steel through materials design,”

said Professor Rainworth.

Meanwhile, a new approachinvolving work on both materialchemistry and process routes wasaiming to produce new metals thatwere more resistant to hydrogenembrittlement.

Professor Todd told the conferencethere was a huge push for novelmetals discovery around the world.

Dr James Hughes, director ofAMRC-NAMTEC, stressed theimportance of collaborationbetween researchers, engineersand industrial partners and theavailability of state of the artfacilities.

The translational research whichthe new Institute would carry out totake new technologicaldevelopments through to provingand pre-production would need toresult in a two or three foldimprovement, in order todemonstrate a business case fortheir introduction, he said.

Materials design bringsdramatic improvements tothe performance of steel

Investment will make suretomorrow’s innovativematerials are industry readyRichard Jones, The University of Sheffield

Development ofnew materialsthat will cutenergy and rawmaterial costsand that areready to gostraight into use

in industry is set to accelerate thanksto what could be a £30 millioninvestment in advanced manufacturingresearch in the Sheffield region.

University of Sheffield Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Innovation,Professor Richard Jones, told Sir HenryRoyce Materials Institute conferencedelegates that a new centre for theInstitute would be built close to theAMRC and its new Factory 2050development.

Prof Jones said: “We anticipate aphysical facility involving about £30million worth of investment, which willhappen right here in what we are startingto call the Sheffield AdvancedManufacturing Innovation District, rightnext to the AMRC and close to Factory2050.”

Urging businesses to make full use ofthe new Institute’s capabilities, ProfessorJones added: “This is already aninternationally significant centre fortransformational engineering research.

“We have very ambitious plans to takethis transformation further. We wouldreally like you to be part of this fantasticinnovation campus that we have here.”

Work at Sheffield will focus on thedevelopment of powder metallurgy,including improving the quality ofpowders – a factor which anotherspeaker, Neil Glover, from Rolls-Royce,said had a crucial impact on the servicelife of aero engine components.

The Sheffield facility will also specialisein developing new, high strength, lowweight materials and the techniquesmanufacturers will need to makecomponents from those materials.

Prof Jones and Mr Glover, who isresponsible for Rolls-Royce’s materialsengineering research and developmentprogramme, were among a number ofspeakers who emphasised the need toconsider manufacturability whendeveloping new materials.

“It’s great to have new materials but wehave to put together processes to exploitthose if they are to be manufacturable atscale,” said Prof Jones. “We want tohelp to create new materials, newprocesses and new products that willgive you, as companies, a competitiveedge and help our region to generate theexports we need.”

Neil Glover told the conference that oneof the reasons research was of vitalimportance to Rolls-Royce was becausethe majority of its £73.7 billion orderbook was for products that are still beingdeveloped.

With 48 per cent of its income generatedby providing services, the globalaerospace and marine and industrialpower systems supplier needs newtechnologies not simply to make enginesbut to service and maintain themthroughout their lifetime.

“We spend £1.2 billion a year onresearch and development, made 600patent applications in 2014 and workwith 31 university technology centresworldwide,” Rolls-Royce’s Neil Glovertold delegates to the Sir Henry RoyceMaterials Institute conference.

“We don’t do research in universitycentres because we think it is interestingor because we think it is fun. We do itbecause we need it.”

Titanium turbine blademanufactured by selectivelaser melting


Case Study

31

Case study

Howco: A leading global processor and supplier ofspecialist materials for the oil and gas sector isshowing its commitment to reducing environmentalimpact by cutting greenhouse gas emissions and theamount of energy it uses.

Howco Groupprocesses andsuppliesmaterials

including nickel alloy, duplex,stainless and low alloy steel usedto make components for criticalapplications, such as subseawell heads, down hole andsurface drilling and oil and gasproduction equipment.

The growing Glasgow-basedgroup has facilities in the USA,Canada, Norway, Singapore,Malaysia, China and Dubai, aswell as the UK, and is exploringopportunities for introducing newproducts and services.

Howco is also a major energyuser, spending more than £1.5million on energy a year.

Generating the energy itconsumes produces greenhousegas emissions equivalent to10,000 tonnes of CO2 over thesame period.

The group is committed tocontinually reducing itsenvironmental impact is at thecore of its business.

To help it achieve that aim andlimit the effect of energy costincreases in the future, Howcosought support from fromNAMTEC and its ERDF financedfinanced Direct CompanySupport Scheme.

NAMTEC appointed consultantsE9 to help the group to roll out aprogramme of energymeasurement, monitoring andmanagement that would enable itto achieve the internationalEnergy Management Systemsstandard, ISO50001:2011.

Howco’s European OperationsDirector, Andrew Marwood, said:"As market leader in the industrywe are constantly striving toimprove the company and itseffects on the environment.

“The funding and assistancefrom E9 has put us in anexcellent position to ensure thefocus and management structureis in place at each of our 5European sites, enabling us toachieve ISO 50001 accreditationduring 2015."

E9 helped Howco to use a rangeof techniques, including thermalimaging, metering and datalogging, to monitor plant andequipment, assess energydemand,create abreakdown ofenergy use atits sites anddevelopEnergyPerformanceIndicators.

Theconsultantsworked withHowco to setup energycommitteesand teamsand identifyopportunitiesfor energyreduction,better management andmonitoring; set energymanagement objectives andtimescales and identify theresources needed to achievethem.

The consultants also helpedHowco develop a framework forits ISO50001 energymanagement system usingEvolve software from E9, workedwith Howco to implement thenecessary processes andprocedures and trained staff who

would be responsible for thesystem, in addition toimplementing the auditingprocess.

Oil and gas sector materialsspecialist acts to cut energyconsumption

The growingGlasgow-based

group has facilities inthe USA, Canada,

Norway, Singapore,Malaysia, China

and Dubai

Upcoming Events & Courses


JUNE

15th: Stainless Steel MetallurgyAberdeenA one day technical course covering all aspects of the productionand use of a range of stainless steel alloys.

16th: Combating CorrosionAberdeenThe course aims to provide delegates with a full understanding ofthe principles of metallic corrosion and prevention mechanismsappropriate to a variety of applications.

17th: Nickel MetallurgyAberdeenThe course aims to provide learners with a sound understanding ofthe different characteristics of a wide range of nickel alloys, thefabrication of nickel components and the service condition to whichthey are suited.

18th: Metallurgical Failure Analysis & PreventionAberdeenThis course will enable delegates to determine how and why a metalcomponent has failed or fractured during service and identify means ofdetecting and preventing such failures in the future.

18th: Apprentice Mentoring: Engineering the Next Generation

AMRC Training Centre, RotherhamThis programme will provide an understanding of what is includedwithin the mentoring process for businesses employing apprentices.It will cover attributes required, the mentoring process and how towork with assessors.

22nd-25th: Advanced CNC Milling ProgrammeAMRC Training Centre, RotherhamA four-day course exploiting the use of CAD/CAM for 3D CNC millingprocesses. Explore advanced cutting strategies employed by CAMsystems. This is a practical “hands on” course with machining &computer activities.

25th: Fundamentals of MetallurgyMacaw, TynesideThis course provides an introduction to the principle alloy categoriesand their applications. It explains the properties of metals, how theyare tested, how metal products are made and where they are used.

JULY

1st: Metals Technology Certificate Various locations“METTECH” is a coordinated programme of training coursesintended primarily for technical staff who are routinely involved in theprocessing or testing of metals-based products. It is also suitable astechnical background for staff in engineering and commercialfunctions.

7th: Introduction to Machining AMRC Training Centre, RotherhamThis one day course provides an overview of the wide variety ofmachining technologies available for cutting and forming shapesfrom metal feedstock. It provides a wide-ranging account of thecharacteristics, advantages and limitations of traditional andadvanced techniques.

13th-16th: IOSH Managing SafelyAMRC Training Centre, RotherhamThis four day course is intended to increase the health and safetymanagement skills of managers and supervisors across yourbusiness. This nationally recognised and respected certificatedtraining for managers and supervisors has been designed, and isquality-controlled, by the chartered body for health and safetyprofessionals IOSH.

20th-23rd: Intermediate CNC Turning Programme

AMRC Training Centre, RotherhamA four-day intermediate course giving a more in depth view of CNClathe-work, and typical applications in today’s modern engineeringenvironment.

Upcoming courses

BOOK NOW!

Issue 13 – June 2015

Documents

Transcript of Issue 13 – June 2015