IfM has just published a report, commissioned by BSI (British Standards Institute), which looks at the challenges for UK manufacturers of ‘going digital’ – and how standards and good practice can help the UK benefit from the digital revolution.

Professor Andy Neely, Head of the IfM and the Cambridge Service Alliance, suggests that industry leaders should focus on five key areas if they want to survive the journey to a digital future.

Professor Andy Neely, Head of the IfM, introduces the IfM's take on digital manufacturing.

Eoin O’Sullivan, Head of the  Centre for Science, Technology and Innovation Policy, reflects on different policy perspectives, priorities and initiatives in key manufacturing economies (USA, Germany and Japan) and considers the implications for the UK.

The IfM is part of a new research hub to transform the way medicines and other high value materials are made.

IfM alumnus Keno Mario-Ghae has been named Young Engineer of the Year at the National Microelectronics Institute’s (NMI) 2016 Awards.

Start-up Nuritas, which uses artificial intelligence and DNA analysis to create health-benefiting ingredients has won the 5th Food & FMCG Innovation Pitching Event held in London on 23 November at Food Matters Live.

Stewart McTavish, Director of ideaSpace, Cambridge’s hub for early stage innovation and CTM Head Dr Tim Minshall reflect on how Stewart came to be running ideaSpace, how he has seen his vision for it become a reality, what he plans to do next – and how he invented crowdfunding.

Dr Jag Srai, Head of the IfM’s Centre for International Manufacturing (CIM), and his team have developed a new way to help companies embrace the challenges and opportunities of digitalising the extended supply chain. 

Dr Alexandra Brintrup, recently appointed to the new post of Lecturer in Digital Manufacturing, explains how the IfM’s Distributed Information and Automation Laboratory (DIAL) has been at the forefront of digital thinking for the last two decades with its research into intelligent processes, products and services.

Issue 6 of the Institute for Manufacturing Review is now online. Articles include the digitalisation of manufacturing economies, new ways to manage the digital end-to-end supply chain and the importance of standards and best practice in the digital era.

IfM Head, Andy Neely and Head of the IfM's new Policy Links unit, Carlos Lopez Gomez, have written an article on the post-Brexit challenges for UK manufacturers for Prospect Magazine. 

Former IfM MET student, Christopher Bellamy was named Young Design Engineer of the Year at the British Engineering Excellence Awards.

The IfM has won a Cambridge BID Customer Experience Special Recognition Award for its participation in the Cambridge Science Festival 2016.

Dr Hamid Mughal, Director of Manufacturing at Rolls-Royce, visited the IfM this week to share his thoughts on UK manufacturing.

Researchers from the IfM’s NanoManufacturing group have created an innovative carbon nanotube structure which allows them to create extremely flexible batteries with superior performance.

Professor Andy Neely has been invited to be a panellist at the Financial Times Future of Manufacturing Summit on Tuesday 4 October in London.

Senior leaders from major food and FMCG firms, part of the Open Innovation (OI) Forum, are holding a pitching event on 23 November at Food Matters Live, ExCel, London.

Professor Andy Neely, Head of the Institute of Manufacturing and Founding Director of the Cambridge Service Alliance, has been awarded an Achievement Medal for Manufacturing.

The IfM has published a new consultation paper looking at the UK’s High Value Manufacturing (HVM) landscape over the next 15 to 20 years.

A revolutionary continuous-flow waffle machine designed by undergraduate students at the IfM has been entered into the James Dyson Award 2016 competition.

Jag Srai, Head of CIM, gives Cambridge Business magazine an insight into what the IfM is doing to address the challenges involved in the modern supply chain.

The 2016 annual R&D Management Conference was hosted in Cambridge by CTM between 3 and 6 July, with more than 450 delegates from 35 countries.

A roadmapping workshop facilitated by IfM ECS brought academics and industrialists together to develop an industrially-relevant strategy for bulk superconductivity research.

September is just around the corner – and at the IfM this marks the start of a busy season packed with courses, conferences and events for our industrial and academic delegates.

Wenrong Lu, doctoral researcher, presented DIAL’s latest work on data mining for inventory management at the 8th IFAC Conference on Manufacturing Modelling, Management and Control (MIM 2016).

The annual R&D Management Conference was held in Cambridge between 3 and 6 July, with more than 450 delegates from 30 countries.

Researchers from the Distributed Information and Automation Laboratory, Philip Woodall, Vaggelis Giannikas and Wenrong Lu, visited YH Global’s headquarters in June as part of the ITALI project.

Dr Jag Srai, Head of the IfM's Centre for International Manufacturing, was a panellist at The Economist's Manufacturing Forum.

Researchers from the Distributed Information and Automation Laboratory Raj Srinivasan and Ajith Parlikad had a new book, Decision-Making in Asset Management, published by the Institute of Civil Engineers (ICE).

Two IfM graduate students reap the rewards of their entrepreneurial approach to agri-tech.

Researchers?from the Distributed Information and Automation Laboratory?won the best paper award at the 2016 International Conference on Information Quality.?

Alena Puchkova, research associate in DIAL, participated in the AGIFORS Airline Operations Conference that was held on the 16-19 May 2016 in Seattle, USA.

The report follows a workshop which explored effective practices for building and nurturing effective international collaborations in manufacturing research which was hosted for the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills.

Professor Duncan McFarlane talked about how we should be thinking about automation at a summit on collaborative innovation at London's Royal Festival Hall.

Our new White Paper looks at the theoretical challenges underpinning business model innovation and makes recommendations for academia, business, funding councils and government.

The Business Model Innovation White Paper (developed jointly by the University of Cambridge and the University of Exeter) looks at the challenges and opportunities presented by the unifying concept of the business model.

Intellectual property (IP) is clearly fundamental to technology-based companies but Dr Frank Tietze from the IfM’s Centre for Technology Management thinks that many firms can benefit from taking a more strategic approach to IP management.

Dr Imoh Ilevbare, Product Manager for IfM Education and Consultancy Services, describes the IfM’s approach to developing business tools and processes from cutting-edge research.

Alan Thorne of the Cambridge Auto ID Centre at the IfM considers the latest developments in RFID ID and its benefits.

On 12 May, the IfM held its annual Briefing Day – attended by more than 150 senior industrialists and policymakers who heard about the IfM’s latest research and the work it is doing with industry and government.

The third Strategic Intellectual Property Forum, a half-day seminar designed to help companies better understand innovation and IP management, will take place on 24 May at the IfM.

Jag Srai, Head of the IfM’s Centre for International Manufacturing, took part in The Forum, a recent BBC World Service programme discussing the history of the wheel and its twenty-first century uses in modern logistics and performance art.

Friction is immensely important to us – without it, for example, we could not walk or even crawl – yet it is only 50 years since a special word –  ‘tribology’ – was first coined to describe its study.

Dr Chander Velu, head of the IfM’s Business Model Innovation research programme, explains why the time has come to put business model innovation under the microscope.

IfM’s Head, Andy Neely explains how a focus on offering services can capture added value for manufacturing businesses.

The IfM’s Design Management Group uses experience-based and academically-underpinned tools to transform a company’s product range, deliver sustainable growth and produce improvements to productivity.

James Moultrie looks for universal appeal when beauty in is the eye of the beholder.

James Moultrie, Head the IfM’s Design Management Group, argues that good design is just as important for industrial products as it is for consumer goods such as cars and electronics. 

The Cambridge Value Mapping Tool has been developed and refined over the last five years. It uses a structured and visual approach to identify ‘value uncaptured’ in the form of failed value exchanges: value missed, destroyed, surplus, and absence.

Dr Vaggelis Giannikas, research associate in the Distributed Information and Automation Laboratory, has been awarded a Cambridge-PSL-French Embassy Fund to establish a new collaboration with Paris Sciences et Lettres Research University (PSL).

Researchers from the Distributed Information and Automation Laboratory, Dr Vaggelis Giannikas and Dr Alexandra Brintrup represented the Cambridge Auto-ID lab at the GS1 Global Forum in Brussels in February.

Tariq Masood and Brian Robertson from the Distributed Information and Automation Laboratory attended quarterly meeting of Advanced Manufacturing Supply Chain Initiative (AMSCI) - Advanced Manufacturing of Homes, Buildings and Infrastructure (AMHBI) which was held at Grundfos Pumps Ltd, Sunderland on 15th April 2016.

Dr Ajith Parlikad, Head of the IfM’s Asset Management Group, explains how effective asset management can deliver significant value both for manufacturers and for infrastructure owners and operators – and how his team is developing a ‘social network of things’ which has the potential to revolutionise the way in which organisations manage their assets.

Frank Tietze knows more than most about IP and hopes to help Cambridge and the UK do a lot better in the global IP charts.

The Cambridge Service Alliance have launched a new white paper 'Supplying Innovation - Unlocking Innovative Behaviours in the Supply Chain'.

How BASF’s experiences are shared by many of the companies taking part in a research project run by the IfM’s Strategic Technology and Innovation Management Consortium.

Professor Bill O’Neill from the Centre for Industrial Photonics at the IfM shows how new techniques are pointing the way to new processes at the nanoscale. 

Dr Steve Hoath, Senior Research Associate at the Inkjet Research Centre of the IfM explains how his and colleagues’ work is focused on understanding the underlying science of inkjet printing.

Zhenglin Liang participated in The System Engineering and Management Science Conference which took place in Beijing from the 1st – 2nd April 2016.

Roger Connor is President, Global Manufacturing & Supply at GSK. He met Judith Shawcross, Head of Professional and Executive Development at the IfM, to talk about the time he spent in Cambridge on the Manufacturing Leaders’ Programme (MLP) – and how it remains relevant to the challenges he faces today.

Issue 5 of the Institute for Manufacturing Review is now available online. Articles include the importance of business model innovation, advances in inkjet printing and fluid engineering, the 'social network of things' and the benefits and challenges of embedding roadmapping.

Understanding fluids and their behaviour is key to developing new manufacturing processes and a wide range of applications. Professor Ian Hutchings, Head of the Inkjet Research Centre, and Dr Ronan Daly, Head of the Fluids in Advanced Manufacturing Group, explain how the IfM’s research in this area has evolved over the last ten years – and where they see it heading.

Read the March issue of the Centre for Technology Management Newsletter.

Jon Parkins has been announced as the EPSRC Science Photo Competition entry winner for the Innovation category.

IfM ECS has recently worked with Colour Marketing Services, a manufacturer of colour systems and samples.

More than 1000 visitors of all ages visited the IfM on Saturday 19 March for the annual Cambridge Science Festival.

A new book Circular Business: Collaborate and Circulate has been published today.

The People, Projects and Activities 2016 report provides an insight into the range of work we do in all areas of manufacturing, from carbon nanotubes to global supply chains, from supporting national R&D strategies to understanding the impact of the ‘digital revolution’.

From wind farms to data storage, from deodorants to floor tiles, tribology is involved in many aspects of modern life – yet most people have never heard of the word, let alone know what it means.

The IfM’s Centre for Science, Technology and Innovation Policy (CSTI) and its knowledge exchange unit, Policy Links, held a ‘smart specialisation’ workshop this week bringing together the agri-tech community in the East of England. The workshop was designed to identify the distinctive strengths of the region as one of Europe’s leading agri-tech clusters. 

On Thursday 25 February the Centre for International Manufacturing took part in the launch of Leeds University's Cities themed Design and Production Group.

Dr Alena Puchkova, research associate in the Distributed Information and Automation Laboratory, presented a paper called "Balancing push and pull strategies within the production system" at the 7th IFAC Conference on Management and Control of Production and Logistics.

Preparations are in full swing for a record attendance at this year’s R&D Management Conference, hosted by the Centre for Technology Management at Churchill College.

This new Practice Guide examines the front end of innovation and considers how this can be organised using formal processes to avoid such failures in innovation processes, and to improve the success of the innovation pipeline.

In this interview podcast, Andy Neely discusses his views on how the manufacturing landscape wouldn't be the same without academia.

Today sees the launch of the Manufacturing metrics review report lead by Professor Sir Mike Gregory prepared for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

Former President of Mexico, Vicente Fox and his wife Marta Sahagún de Fox visited the IfM last week. They were in Cambridge to understand more about the future trends in manufacturing and their implications for Mexico’s economy.

The Liverpool City Region (LCR) has a vision to become a global manufacturing hotspot with the smartest networks, talent, technology and investment.

Dr Jag Srai, Head of the IfM’s Centre for International Manufacturing, was interviewed for ITV’s Anglia News last week about the prospects for manufacturing in the region.

In January 2016 the IfM’s Centre for Science, Technology and Innovation Policy (CSTI) brought together a high profile group of policymakers and practitioners from UK and German institutions to share experiences and identify best practices in implementing innovation policies.

The new Alconbury Enterprise Campus in Cambridgeshire needed a clear vision to develop the economic potential of the exciting new facility. It required a better understanding of the sector strengths of the region, and to identify any gaps that could be used to inform decisions on training provision for its technical and vocational training centre.

Dr Tim Minshall who leads the bit-by-bit project at the IfM explains why Additive Manufacturing (or 3D Printing) could have huge application in sectors from cars to space stations.

More than 50 manufacturing companies visited the IfM last week. A mix of SMEs and multinationals, they were all there to learn how automation can help grow their businesses, improve their productivity and create better working environments for their staff.

A new Executive Briefing from the Cambridge Service Alliance, 'Seven Critical Success Factors in the Shift to Services’, sets out a roadmap for making the shift to services journey.

What more can universities and companies do to develop effective and mutually beneficial strategic partnerships? A report by Tomas Coates Ulrichsen and Eoin O’Sullivan at the Centre for Science, Technology and Innovation Policy (CSTI) at the IfM focuses on this important question.

Dr Veronica Martinez explains that UK manufacturing companies often cannot compete on price alone, while product differentiation is getting more difficult and expensive. Services are the key to creating a more diversified business and to building stronger customer relationships, she argues.

On 28th January DIAL hosted the Smart Products Through-Life workshop which was second in the series of three, which aims to establish collaboration and outline the research roadmap required to support smart products through-life.

Dr Rob Phaal from the Centre for Technology Management at the IfM in this short video makes the case for lean and agile strategy as a source of competitive advantage.

A quarterly meeting of Advanced Manufacturing Supply Chain Initiative (AMSCI) – Advanced Manufacturing of Homes, Buildings and Infrastructure (AMHBI) was held at BRE, Watford on 22 January 2016 with a consortium dinner the night before. The meeting was jointly organised by Laing O’Rourke, BRE and University of Cambridge - DIAL and Engineering Design Centre (EDC).

DIAL's research associate Vaggelis Giannikas and PhD student Wernong Lu visited China during the Singles' Day festival in November as part of an ongoing research project between DIAL and YH Global.

I've been struck recently by the range of people talking about new digital and data developments in manufacturing. Of particular interest has been the apparent explosion of discussion about industrie 4.0, internet plus and the industrial internet.

Cambridge Auto-ID lab will be presented at the GS1 Global Forum by DIAL's researchers Vaggelis Giannikas and Alexandra Brintrup.

Distributed Information and Automation Laboratory group is currently engaged in scoping a research project to look at Enhanced Repair of Domestic Appliances.

DIAL's Torben Jess had a unique opportunity to work as an intern with Boeing Research and Technology in St Louis for three months.

Andy Neely, Head of the at the IfM, explains why he thinks this is a wonderful time to be involved with manufacturing.

In this webinar Andy Neely revisits original research conducted by the Cambridge Service Alliance which set out to answer the question - 'what capabilities do firms need to successfully innovate their business model for services and solutions'.

2016 promises to be an exciting year for everyone involved in manufacturing as we continue to embrace new technologies, new business models and changing customer expectations - as well as the increasingly pressing need to run businesses in a way which will preserve our planet for future generations.

Congratulations to Tadas Kartanas, who was selected as the 2nd best short oral presentation at the recent 2nd Vita Scientia conference at the Joint Centre for Life Sciences in Vilnius, Lithuania.