1. Collective Supply Chain Resilience (CORES)

 

Collective Supply Chain Resilience (CORES) project started from 1st of February 2022 and collaborated with several companies including AML, Enspan.io and MTC. Considering that disruptive events bring big challenges for supply chain management with the target to reduce vulnerability and increase robustness and resilience of supply chains, this project aims to help supply chain members optimise resilience by risk predictions using collective learning.

This project brings together expertise in Artificial Intelligence, Industrial Information Systems, and Supply Chain Management, and draws on practical expertise from our industrial partners who form a multi-tier aerospace supply chain.

 

People: Associate Prof. Alexandra Brintrup, Lingxuan Kong and Dr. Ge Zheng

 

Project partners: AML, Enspan.io, MTC

 

2. "Morphing Factory" Made Smarter Centre

The "Morphing Factory" Made Smarter Centre aims to deliver a platform for next generation resilient connected manufacturing services. It will allow future manufacturing operations to be delivered by ubiquitous production units that can be easily repurposed, relocated and redeployed in response to changing market demand. This vision will be delivered through 3 closely related strands:

(1) An underpinning fundamental research programme to define the principles, methods and models for future morphing factories in terms of architecture, topology, configuration methods, IoT digital awareness, in-process monitoring and AI based autonomous control. (50%).

(2) A dynamic challenge-driven applied research programme to address emerging industrial needs and validate and demonstrate the results through a set of application studies including smart machining, production integrated 3D printing and autonomous assembly integrated into a common hyperconnected morphing factory cloud (45%).

(3) A programme of networking and engagement activities with other ISCF Made Smarter research and innovation centres, industry and the general public to maximise the impact of the research, encourage accelerated technology uptake and increase the public awareness (5%). 

 

3. Elastic Manufacturing Systems

 

Elastic Manufacturing explores how manufacturing companies can rapidly change their product volume and product mix. A key mechanism of interest is how manufacturing resources can be provisioned and deprovisioned to respond to variations in demand and supply. The project focuses on three sectors – food,  automotive, and aerospace. The project also investigates how technology providers can enhance the elasticity of manufacturers in these sectors. The project answers these questions through case studies, laboratory-based testbeds, demonstrators, and industrial pilots.  

 

People: Prof. Duncan McFarlane, Prof. Tim Minshall, Dr. Chander Velu, Dr. Nikolai Kazantsev, Dr. Sudhir Rama Murthy, Darius Danaei

 

Project partners: University of Nottingham and Imperial College London 

 

4. Enhancing the Port Efficiency Through 5G and Predictive Data Analysis (5G Ports) 

 

This Department for Culture, Media and Sports funded project under the 5G Testbeds and Trials programme brings together the technological advancements in the fields of 5G, IoT and predictive data analytics to improve the efficiency of the operation of the quay cranes at the Port of Felixstowe. It will also show how the use of 5G technology, replacing fibre optical cable, will improve the performance of remote-control yard cranes enabling the port to increase both efficiency and safety and develop new skills amongst its workforce. The predictive maintenance use case from this project is monitoring the condition of the critical components of the cranes using low-cost IoT sensors to collect information on the vibration, temperature, acoustics etc. The speed, low latency, and high capacity of 5G are harnessed to send high volumes of data generated by the IoT sensors for the artificial intelligence-based predictive maintenance system. This system will be able to detect anomalies in the cranes and alert the operators so that preventive maintenance can be targeted at these areas before the failure happens.

 

The project will demonstrate the effectiveness of AI using 5G IoT to improve the efficiency of quay cranes by reducing their downtime attributable to component failures and thereby increasing their availability and moves per hour.

 

People: Prof. Ajith Kumar Parlikad, Dr. Manu Sasidharan, Dr. Manuel Herrera, Dr. Jorge Merino Garcia

 

Project partners: Hutchison Ports, Bluemesh Solutions Ltd, Three UK

 

5. Digital Construction on a Shoestring 

 

The Digital Construction on a Shoestring Project is derived from Digital Manufacturing on a Shoestring. The project focuses on breaking down the barriers in digital construction, such as cost and complexity, by developing individual digital solutions for which the total cost of deployment is kept low. The programme centres around the Manufacturing and Construction phase of the RIBA Plan of Work including suppliers and off-site construction SMEs, and on-site construction SMEs to increase digital capabilities across all the construction sector’s SMEs and thus ensure the entire sector can benefit.

 

The project follows the Digital Shoestring Approach to identify digitalisation priorities of construction SMEs and supports incremental adoption of individual digital shoestring construction solutions which can be integrated iteratively. The solutions are designed and developed based on a simple structured procedure and deployed to companies by following step-by-step instructions. The project has so far identified the top ten priority digital solutions required by suppliers and off-site, and on-site construction SMEs through a set of digital requirements workshops.

 

For further information please visit the research profile and blog post about the project.

 

People: Prof. Duncan McFarlane, Dr. Gökçen Yilmaz, Liz Salter, Jan Kaiser

 

6. Digital Logistics on a Shoestring

 

Many small-and-medium-sized logistics companies perceive digitalisation as complex and financially unattainable. In this regard, the vision of this project, part of the Digital Manufacturing on a Shoestring programme, is to increase the digital capabilities of logistics companies using low-cost, easily accessible "off-the-shelf" components. This will be achieved by investigating the challenges the UK logistics SME sector faces, their key competitive factors, their business constraints, and the low-cost digital solutions required as a priority. Overall, the project aims to develop lab demonstrators and industrial pilots of digital solutions so that logistics SMEs can interact with them and explore their potential benefits.

 

People: Prof. Duncan McFarlane, Jaime Macias, Liz Salter, Dr. Anandarup Mukherjee, Dr. Greg Hawkridge.

 

7. CDBB Digital Twin Project

 

The West Cambridge Digital Twin Research Facility forms part of the Centre for Digital Built Britain’s (CDBB) work at the University of Cambridge within the Construction Innovation Hub (CIH). This project aims to provide a demonstrator to address the challenges associated with the production of a National Digital Twin (NDT), an ecosystem of connected digital twins, securely sharing infrastructure and built environment data to support better economic and societal outcomes. Taking the West Cambridge campus of the University of Cambridge as the case, the developed digital twin acts as a realistic digital representation of assets, processes and systems within the buildings, providing a two-way connection between the physical world and the digital counterpart. Data from the physical world informs the digital twin which enables asset owners and operators to make better operational, maintenance, investment and planning decisions to create value, increase resilience and secure sustainability. Leveraging semantically enriched data management framework and digital twin enabled analytical framework, the following goals are pursued, including- a) Sustainability: To achieve the Zero/Neutral Carbon emission in the West Site Cambridge campus via better energy consumption and management, b) Serviceability: To improve the asset performance and ensure the wellbeing of labour in West Cambridge and optimal working environment.

 

People: Prof. Ajith Parlikad, Dr. Xiang Xie, Dr. Nicola Moretti, Dr. Jorge Merino

 

Project partners: Computer Laboratory at the University of Cambridge

 

8. Low Cost Automation using Off the Shelf Technologies (LoCOST)

 

LoCOST (Low Cost Automation using Off the Shelf Technologies) is a research project funded by Boeing with the aim of establishing a pathway, justification and prioritisation for the exploitation of low-cost, off-the-shelf technologies within their operations. The project leverages concepts established in the Digital Manufacturing on a Shoestring project, which focusses on small- and medium-sized manufacturers, and considers how these concepts can be applied within a global manufacturer like Boeing. Focus topics include understanding the common low-cost needs within Boeing, reusable patterns for the secure integration of IoT technologies, simplifying data capture from lab equipment, monitoring consumable stock levels and waste monitoring.

 

People: Prof. Duncan McFarlane, Liz Salter, Dr. Greg Hawkridge, Dr. Zhengyang Ling, Dr. Anandarup Mukherjee

 

Project partner: Boeing

 

9. Digitally Optimised Through-Life Engineering Services (DO-TES)

 

Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) are pursuing Through-life Engineering Services (TES) for their customers while maintaining the product’s function over the entire lifecycle. This allows the OEMs to boost low-cost service values as well as ambitious benefits in the competitive global market. This ambitious project is called Digitally Optimised Through-Life Engineering Services (DO-TES) that embrace legacy TES practices with digital technology, including prognostics, and logistics and inventory management. The DO-TES project is led by OEM aerospace partners (Rolls-Royce UK and BAE System), with a consortium of leading universities (University of Cambridge and Cranfield University), software platform providers (ANSYS) and market disseminators (CFMS).

 

For more information about this project and its outputs, visit the project’s website.

 

People: Associate Prof. Alexandra Brintrup, Dr. Kwangkyu (Alex) Yoo and Dr. Liming Xu

 

Project partners: Rolls Royce, BAE Systems, ANSYS, CFMS, Cranfield University

 

10. Next Generation Converged Digital Infrastructure (NG-CDI)

 

NG-CDI is an EPSRC prosperity partnership project with BT that aims to improve the efficiency of the UK’s digital infrastructure. The project’s showcase highlights all of the exciting, new applications and services that we’d like to see in the next 5 to 10 years such as industrial automation, smart homes, virtual reality, or self-driving vehicles. This poses huge challenges for the network infrastructure in terms of capacity, latency and resilience, among others, necessitating a shift in the current network management. To this end, the DIAL team working at NG-CDI focuses on the following areas: Network automation on the deployment and operation of physical and virtual devices; optimal network maintenance and service availability; network assurance integrating AI and machine learning tools for enhancing performance, user experience and network security; and network analytics for the overall support of the network decision-making.

 

For more information about this project and its outputs, visit the project’s website.

 

People: Prof. Ajith Kumar Parlikad, Prof. Duncan McFarlane, Dr. Manuel Herrera, Dr. Alena Puchkova, Maharshi Dhada, Yaniv Proselkov

 

Project partners: BT, Lancaster University, University of Surrey, University of Bristol

 

11. Airline Performance & Disruption Management Across Extended Networks (APEMEN) 

 

APEMEN (Airline Performance & Disruption Management) is a research project carried out in collaboration with Boeing. This project is exploring how short term optimisation and disruption management strategies can be better used to cater for within-day airline operational delays. The specific focus of the project is on areas such as fleet, passengers, crew, dispatch and navigation and their interface to other short term adjustments in areas such as maintenance, airspace, ramp and airport operations.

 

People: Prof. Duncan McFarlane, Associate Prof. Alexandra Brintrup, Dr. Alena Puchkova, Dr. Anna Ledwoch

 

Project partner: Boeing

 

12. The Cambridge Auto-ID Lab

One of seven Auto-ID Labs around the world working in the field of automated identification of objects in the supply chain. The Cambridge lab offers state-of-the-art industrial facilities for testing research developments.

 

Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction projects:

 

1. Risk-Informed Bridge Management

 

This research project is providing rational means to enable asset managers to evaluate the factors that affect bridge failure risk, select, and prioritise appropriate mitigation measures, and improve the allocation of scare monitoring and maintenance resources. It is developing risk-informed, data-driven, and value-based approaches to better monitor and manage the ageing bridge infrastructure network in the context of constrained budgets and the challenges of climate change. The brings focus to the development of a series of tools that enable bridge owners and managers to better understand the risks associated with bridge monitoring, enabling informed decisions about balancing the cost of monitoring and value of information gained from data capture against the risk of bridge failure and associated socio-economic and environmental effects to the wider transport system.

For more information about this project and its outputs, visit the project’s website.

 

People: Prof. Ajith Kumar Parlikad, Dr. Manu Sasidharan