Pathways to manufacturing

Centre for Science, Technology & Innovation Policy

This programme aims to advance understanding of key ‘manufacturability’ challenges facing emerging technologies. Working closely with lab-based scientists and engineers, we aim to develop a systematic process for early identification of manufacturing risk factors to inform project design and support the effective translation of emerging technologies into scaled-up commercial application.

Programme summary

For an emerging technology to make a significant industrial and economic impact, it must be developed and deployed at scale. This industrialisation and scale-up journey – the ‘pathway to manufacturing’ – involves significant uncertainties and risks related to a range of factors, including: production technologies; system integration; supply chains; resource efficiency and sustainability; compatibility with evolving standards and regulations; etc.

The ‘Pathways to Manufacturing’ programme aims to advance understanding of these underlying scale-up risks. In particular, we will develop a framework that can help researchers identify how, where and when they might usefully address these risk factors. We expect the outputs of this programme will be relevant, not only to university-based researchers, but also technology developers in industry, and policy-makers responsible for funding emerging technology scale-up R&D.

The initial phase of this project is a collaboration between the Centre for Science, Technology & Innovation Policy and the Fluids in Advanced Manufacturing group. The Institute for Manufacturing provides an ideal environment for this project, with research expertise spanning a spectrum of manufacturing domains, including: novel production technologies; engineering design; technology management; supply chains and operations management; sustainable manufacturing; etc.

The first phase of Pathways to Manufacturing programme involves three initial projects:

Overcoming manufacturability challenges: Lessons Learned

Peer-based learning projects, based on interviews and facilitated workshops, to capture effective practices and lessons learned from previous experience of overcoming manufacturability challenges to translating emerging technologies from lab-based research to scaled-up commercial applications.

Managing Lab-based Emerging Technology Scale-up: Case Studies

Systematic exploration of user-engagement practices, project design and management in the context of: (i) the manufacturability of microfluidic devices; (ii) novel processing of advanced functional materials; and (iii) scale-up of biological scaffold-based medical devices.

Building a Strategy Framework for Emerging Technology Scale-up Projects

Drawing upon findings from the lessons-learned and lab-based case study projects, we will build and test a novel framework to help researchers identify where, when and how they might address manufacturability challenges.

For more information about the programme please see the quick links section of this page. To register interest in receiving more information about the findings from the P2M programme, contributing your own experiences and effective practices, or participating in future workshops, please email crf33@cam.ac.uk