Interview with Brian Holliday - Managing Director Siemens Digital Industries

You’re presenting the keynote at this year’s Engineer Conference, please tell us a little more about this.

My intention is to offer some insight into the benefits of industrial digitalisation, to look beyond the hype to the company, employee and economic benefits of embracing digital technology and to explore some practical examples in Edge Computing, AI and Cloud Technology to name a few.

How do digitalisation, digital twinning, industry 4.0, etc, have the potential to improve the productivity and efficiency of UK manufacturing?

Industry 4.0 (the digitalisation of industry) represents the world’s next industrial productivity leap and again it’s derived from technological progress. This time, it’s all about data and the unprecedented networking of humans and machines. It will continue what we’ve started, with tools that augment both human physical and intellectual effort augmenting current levels of automation in industry.

Digital twins are already much more than geometry-based CAD models - they help us rapidly design, prototype and deploy both products and production plants in the virtual world helping to avoid much of the cost associated with traditional new product introduction or plant investment (without the downtime) – but also, digital twinning enables a faster time to market which in turn means competitiveness. Much of the value of the digital twin is yet to be widely realised – namely the digital twin of the performance of machines, plants and supply chains. This is where the IOT connectivity that we increasingly expect, enabled by MindSphere and Industrial Edge, connects a wealth of industrial data to increasingly advanced applications that help improve our insight to performance and enable us to act on it. This could mean a predictive failure intervention or use data to improve a product design or the enablement of a completely new business model.

Industry 4.0 is a global race – it’s about building unprecedented agility into what we do - it offers significant opportunities if we embrace it and the threat we’ll fall behind if we don’t.

Sum up the Made Smarter vision in one sentence?

Made Smarter is all about the UK embracing the fourth industrial revolution so we can dramatically improve our manufacturing productivity, growth and high value jobs footprint – all of which sets us up for a leading role in the future of manufacturing.

How far along the road are we to achieving this vision?

We’ve made a good start and there are pockets of excellence, although we must catch up given how little we automate in comparison with other industrialised nations today.
We’re becoming more joined up as industry, government and the innovation community and we’re starting to realise the benefits, at the same time as starting to help take the long tail of smaller manufacturers with us through the Made Smarter north west pilot. The North West was chosen because it represents much of our manufacturing and industrial activity and the institutional stakeholders there were willing participants when it came to collaboration and the support required to set up and scale such an innovative intervention.  

What are you most looking forward to at The Engineer Conference and Expo
this summer?

I am looking forward to spending time in detailed debate with my peers; with those in the industry who are trying to unpick and solve productivity problems through technology. This is a leading-edge discussion for engineering and one of our major challenges for the 2020s.

The Engineer Conference takes place 4-5 June at NEC, Birmingham, and is co-located with Advanced Manufacturing, The Engineer Expo and Subcon. Register now for a free visitor pass HERE.

Interview with Dr Nick Hawker - CEO First Light Fusion

Dr Nick Hawker is CEO First Light Fusion. At The Engineer Conference in June, he is presenting ‘Projectile Fusion: A New Approach To Fusion Power’ on 4 June at 13:30. We caught up with him before the show to ask all about his nuclear fusion project and its potential to change the industry. 

Please tell us more about your nuclear fusion project and how this has the potential to change the industry as we know it.

For fusion reactions to occur, the fuel source (involving a pair of hydrogen isotopes) needs to be held in a hot, dense plasma state for a sufficient length of time. There are two approaches to achieving this: magnetic and inertial fusion. In magnetic fusion, magnetic forces combine to hold the plasma in a steady state meaning the fuel is always hot and always reacting. Magnetic fusion has a very low density and must hold the plasma for a long time for the reaction to occur. In inertial fusion, the fuel is heated and compressed with an implosion. The plasma is held together by its own inertia and is highly dense, however unlike magnetic, this state only exists for a fraction of a second. The main challenge has been controlling the enormous complexities involved and finding a configuration that holds the fuel together long enough to return more energy than it consumes.
First Light Fusion is developing a new model for inertial fusion where the plasma is held together for a hundred times longer than mainstream inertial fusion, meaning less density is required and an abundant source of energy is created. The project uses a pulsed power machine, ‘Machine 3’. Per Joule of energy, Machine 3 is 1000x cheaper than the mainstream inertial confinement schemes, such as NIF, which uses lasers to create a target and thus dramatically increases costs.
Therefore, as the demand for fusion energy rises, our innovative model produced from a simple machine has the potential to provide an efficient, safe, abundant source of power that can change the energy landscape forever.

What are the challenges associated with creating commercial fusion?

The primary challenge is gaining enough equity to maintain the project, particularly a private company like ourself. There is also the challenge of having enough money to fund the core technology alongside the fusion reactor, something many of our competitors are doing.
First Light Fusion is well funded backed by private equity rather than government money, meaning we can be more rapid in our development and more agile. Furthermore, we plan to partner with world-class engineering companies who can build the fusion reactor while we commercialise our intellectual property by supplying the ‘science bit’. We therefore have the financial foundations to prosper commercially as our company develops.

What are the future benefits of the work you are doing? 

Our fusion project, if successful, will meet the exponentially-rising demand for electricity over the coming decades. It is doubtful that the solar, wind and battery growth will meet the IPCC’s target of net zero emissions by 2050, meaning a significant scientific breakthrough is required. If successful, we can create an abundant, efficient source of energy which is well-financed and commercially viable. At a time when more than one billion people have no access to electricity, our vision is a world where fusion energy, together with existing renewable technologies, brings light into every home. We have every confidence that First Light Fusion can meet this challenge. 

What are you most looking forward to at The Engineer Expo, Subcon and Advanced Manufacturing this summer? 

We are looking forward to meeting the best suppliers, latest innovations and leading practical advisers which will help build new partnerships moving forward. Clearly, partnerships are crucial to our business, particularly when finding an engineering company capable of building a fusion reactor. The Engineering Conference will provide the perfect opportunity to achieve this. Additionally, the broad sector expertise present at the conference will be invaluable for us and will provide an opportunity to exchange experiences and learn. 

What would you put into Engineering Room 101? 

I would put ‘minimum viable product’ into engineering room 101. Smart phones are some of the most incredible bits of hardware every produced, but the software is often sorely lacking. In the name of ‘Agile’ developers rush to get their product out there half-conceptualised, half-implemented and buggy, and there is an entire language and culture developed to justify this. To paraphrase my favourite webcomic, there is no programming language that can clarify your intentions.

The Engineer Conference takes place 4-5 June at NEC, Birmingham, and is co-located with Advanced Manufacturing, The Engineer Expo and Subcon. Register now for a free visitor pass HERE.

Interview with Jeremy Pullin - Head of AM and Design to Manufacture at Sartorius Stedim Lab

Jeremy Pullin is Head of AM and Design to Manufacture at Sartorius Stedim Lab Ltd. At The Engineer Conference in June, he is presenting ‘Additive Manufacturing: Has it entered the manufacturing mainstream?’ on 4 June at 13:30. We caught up with him before the show.

- You’re somewhat of an additive manufacturing veteran. How has it changed over the last 20 years?

It has changed in many ways, 20 years ago for example the term Additive Manufacturing was not commonly used at all. The additive layer technologies at the time were most commonly called Rapid Prototyping because that’s exactly what they were mostly used for. As the parts produced started being used as ‘final use’ parts they were commonly called ‘Rapid Manufacturing’. In reality, to be a true manufacturing ready technology in all but a few markets, it takes a lot more than simply being able to manufacture the goods, so this term was at best premature and at worse misleading. In the end it was agreed that the term Additive Manufacturing would be adopted industry wide. Over the last 20 years the number of technologies has grown as have the number of available materials. By far the biggest growth though has been in the number of manufacturers and users. The biggest reason for this is that many of the key patents registered in the 1980’s and early 90’s have expired meaning allowing new players to enter the market. In 1999 you simply could not buy an FDM (Fused Deposition Modelling) printer for less than £10,000 and they were only manufactured by one company (Stratasys). Now you can buy FDM printers for a few hundred pounds with start-ups popping up on an almost daily basis. Despite the drop in price, the number of materials that these newer machines can process has increased resulting in more versatile platforms. Of course it would be unfair to say that the prices of those early machines were driven purely by the restricted number of suppliers as key component systems such as electronics have drastically reduced in the same timeframe. The appearance of cheaper systems has led more users and wider adoption generally which in turn has led to the growth of associated revenue streams such as system support, materials and sub-contract services. In all the total AM industry value has enjoyed a compounded growth rate of around 20% year on year. Another big change that the market expansion has brought is the entry of 3^rdparties such as material companies. 20 years ago the big material companies were not interested as the market place was too small for them. BASF for example have now released materials for all of the main polymer AM technology processes and they will continue to do this being joined by others such as 3M. The same is true for the powdered metals markets with entries to the market by companies such as Sandvik and Carpenter Technology.

- How far down the road have we come in relation to its adoption into the manufacturing process?

The technologies have travelled a long way through the classic Gartner hype cycle in the last 20 years. You still hear claims such as ‘Imagination is your only limitation’ and ‘If you can dream it you can make it’ which is sure to get AM professionals everywhere rolling their eyes in despair and searching for a piece of wall not covered in health and safety notices and year planners to bang their heads against. Fortunately though we have come a long way since former 3D Systems CEO Avi Reichental declared that 3D printing could be “as big as the internet was in its day” back in 2012. The industry goes through cycles of catchphrases both in company marketing and observers comments. At one time you couldn’t get through a product launch or AM seminar program without hearing the word revolution. It was all about how additive technologies were the dawn of a ‘new industrial revolution’ and how they were about to revolutionise the world. There was even talk about how AM would make money obsolete as people would be 3D printing everything themselves (including their own 3D printers) so would no longer need to buy things. After this there was a phase where everything was described as ‘game changing’. People would talk about how the technology was a game changer and how their latest product release was a game changer to these game changing technologies etc. The phrase of choice now though is ‘Industrial’ but this is also a bit of a stretch right now. The growth in the sub $5,000 desktop machines (that were incorrectly predicted by some to be in every home by now) has slowed down. The fastest growing area now is in the larger, more expensive equipment. At one time AM machines for metals were very much the underground indie band at the AM festivals. Now however they are still not the headlining act but are at least appearing lower down the order on the main stage. This in part is due to the smaller companies being bought by larger concerns such as 3D systems, Renishaw and GE with much larger knowledge pools and R&D facilities than where they were as they first came stumbling out of the university labs and start-ups where they were spawned. Adoption is now at an early yet credible stage. For several years now there have been parts fitted in both military and civilian aircraft. Parts have been produced in their millions for markets such as hearing aids and dental implants and we are now seeing custom 3D printing parts being offered in the automotive field such as the ‘Mini Yours’ project by BMW to name but a few. I say adoption is early because although these are all credible real world use cases, we have barely begun to scratch the surface of where we are going.

- Where does it go next? 

When talking about his drinking Paul Gascoigne famously said “I never make predictions and I never will”. Predictions are a funny game but we can see trends and look at a few things that have started to happen and are almost certain to continue. Once of the shifts in the AM world is towards series parts. AM is still moving away from its identity as ‘prototyping technologies’ but it is too often now said that they will only ever be a good fit for custom parts. Don’t get me wrong they are a great fit for this which is precisely why they are being so widely adopted in the medical world. The geometries that they are capable of producing however, also mean that there are times where they can add functional advantages that have nothing to do with lead times or reduced economic batch quantities. Aerospace is a great example of this where parts can be produced with internal lattice structures rather than solid volumes, resulting in lighter weight parts. Lattice structures also result in increased surface areas making them ideal for thermal exchange so we are seeing heat exchangers / cooling structures being printed with extremely high efficiency rates. The cost per part may well be higher right now when compared with technologies such as casting , moulding or machining but the ability to reduce part counts and add value though inherent functionality can more than justify this. We have already seen this in examples such as the fuel nozzle developed by GE for the LEAP engine. Here GE are ramping up to production volumes of around 38,000 parts per year with the part count being reduced from 27 per assembly to 3. To be clear Additive Manufacturing is not going to replace other manufacturing technologies such as injection moulding but its adoption will grow as a mainstream complimentary technology. Right now more parts are produced per year by injection moulding than any other technology and it’s not going to disappear any time soon. AM technologies are strong in areas where injection moulding is weak such as initial investments (for tooling), lower economic batch quantities and design flexibility. Conversely however AM is weak in areas where injection moulding is strong such as amount of available materials, cycle times and cost per part. For this reason the two technology groups will coexist quite happily. Injection moulding has had a 120 year head start so it’s no surprise that adoption levels still need to go some way to catch up but they will. Another big change is the move to automation in AM for things such as material and part handling which will also continue. We are already starting to see automated cells where parts flow from printing to post processing and inspection. The automated cells of today will turn into the mass production automated lines of tomorrow. As far as materials are concerned, as more companies enter the field, the number of materials available will not simply grow but rather explode as happened in other manufacturing industries before. Right now there are a lot of commercial releases of reinforced materials, flexible materials and metal alloys but in the labs are smart materials such as colour changing and so called programmable polymers. Some of the biggest changes are being brought about bigger companies entering the field. Well established groups such as Renishaw and Ansys have already made their moves though a combination of acquisitions and the incorporation of their own expertise but we are now seeing true industrial giants active in the field. I’ve already mentioned companies such as GE, BASF and 3M but there are others such as Autodesk, Siemens, Hewlett-Packard, DMG Mori and Ricoh who have entered the market. The R&D capacities of these companies (and other major players who will soon join them is going to accelerate the maturing and adoptions of AM in ways that it has not seen in its history.

- What’s the biggest challenge facing the UK manufacturing industry right now?

Going to conferences and reading papers now you hear many of the same concerns that have been repeated since the dawn of the industrial revolution namely shortages of people with the right skills, access to markets, and lack of funding for start-ups. All of those things are still true but the biggest challenge right now is a lack of confidence. Uncertainty is stifling investment whether we are talking about investment in new manufacturing facilities, upgrading existing ones or simply supporting inventors and entrepreneurs. Some of this uncertainty is caused by Brexit of course but there are other factors. We are still suffering from a dent in confidence that was caused by the last financial crash and this will probably continue for some time to come. There is another effect caused by the fact that our national psyche is more risk adverse than those of many other nations. In the Additive Manufacturing field for example, U.S. companies such as Carbon Inc and Mark Forged have started up around 5 years ago and both have pulled in hundreds of millions of dollars in venture capital. The UK continues to be blessed with talent pools which at the very least match those found in the Boston and Silicon valley areas of the States but the same rarely happens. UK industry needs to stop feeling so sorry for itself and start shouting and screaming a bit more about what it has to offer to attract more investment and create the atmosphere of confidence that it needs.  

- What are the biggest opportunities and how does industry take advantage of them?

Advances in communication technology offer a huge opportunity. We have had the means to communicate rapidly with each other for many years but now we have a multitude of collaborative working platforms such as MS teams. This allows people spread across different sites around the world to chat and create files simultaneously. We are no longer simply able to trade and communicate across borders and great distances but we can work together across them too. This brings great opportunities not just for collaborations but also to decentralise organisations. The advantages of having groups put together on a small number of large sites are being eroded by the new breed of collaborative platforms. This means that organisations can relocate across many smaller sites each being able to work leaner and more dynamically whilst pulling in talent from more diverse areas rather than simply continuing to fish for talent from the same old pool time after time.

- How do you feel about Brexit and the impact it may have on UK manufacturing?

Brexit is an opportunity and a threat in short it is a big risk. As with any risk there is of course the chance that it could all work in the UKs favour but to be honest at this moment nobody really knows. The biggest problem for UK manufacturing will not be the tariffs but rather the lack of a customs union hampering the flow of goods in and out of the country. There are arguments on both sides of the debate about the size of the detrimental effect it will have on the constantly proclaimed skills shortage but it’s hard to see how Brexit could possibly improve the situation.

- What are you most looking forward to at The Engineer Conference/Expo, Subcon and Advanced Manufacturing this summer?

I’m looking forward to making new contacts whilst also catching up with existing ones. Keeping yourself up to date is a never ending challenge and these conferences / expos are a great way of doing that. Very often you don’t have to come away from these things with anything more than the sparks for new ideas to make the visit a valuable one.

- What would you put in Engineering Room 101?

The way that engineers are portrayed. There is the classic scenario where you are talking to somebody and as soon as you mention you are an engineer they instantly think that you must be able to sort out their central heating system, and strip out and repair the gearbox on their clapped out Ford Fiesta. You then have to tell them that actually you can’t do any of those things and that they don’t need and engineer they need a plumber and a mechanic which are not the same things. There is also the problem that engineering is portrayed as a stereotypical male profession. This is going to be difficult to change until we show all pupils at an age before they take their school options that gender has no effect on your ability to be an engineer.

The Engineer Conference takes place 4-5 June at NEC, Birmingham, and is co-located with Advanced Manufacturing, The Engineer Expo and Subcon. Register now for a free visitor pass HERE.

GUEST BLOG: Stainless Steel vs Aluminium

Although stainless steel and aluminium might look similar, there are a lot of key differences between the two materials. In this blog post, we cover just a few of these to explain how the two materials compare. If you’d rather learn by video or don’t have time to read through this blog post, then you’re in luck! We’ve also created a quick, 60-second guide as a YouTube video right here https://youtu.be/ETwkW3odY1I

Weight

Stainless Steel is typically 2.5 x denser than Aluminium, therefore making it the heavier material. Due to Aluminium’s lightweight properties it is often favoured in the aerospace industry.

Strength

Compared to Aluminium, Stainless Steel is stronger due to a higher tensile strength… However, Aluminium is more ductile.

Tensile Strength definition: the resistance of a material to breaking under tension.
Ductile definition: Ductility is a physical property of a material associated with the ability to be hammered thin or stretched into wire without breaking.

Corrosion Resistance

Stainless Steel has a multitude of differing grades in both Austenitic and Ferritic, offering different levels of corrosion resistance to suit any application. If Stainless Steel does rust, it can be scrubbed away and the chromium shield will renew itself. Aluminium has a thin layer of Aluminium Oxide, which protects the material from rusting. However, this does not protect the Aluminium from any other forms of corrosion.

Heat Resistance

Stainless Steel can be used at much higher temperatures than Aluminium. Aluminium can become very soft above around 400° Celsius.  

Welding

Stainless Steel is much easier and quicker to weld compared to Aluminium. This is because Stainless Steel shrinks less upon solidification and expands less when heated.

Cost

Aluminium is typically cheaper than Stainless Steel. However, both are recyclable materials.

This post was created by the UKF Group, which supplies a large range of both stainless steel and aluminium products, supporting customers through every stage of their projects. They will be exhibiting at Subcon at the NEC in June. Register for a free visitor pass now - www.subconshow.co.uk/register

GUEST BLOG: What is the best approach to warehouse management? Automation!

Automated warehouse management systems are designed to overcome some limitations of conventional systems by maximizing storage capacity in terms of efficiency, speed, space, precision and operating costs.

The main automatic warehouse management systems include:

Stacker crane automatic warehouse

In a stacker crane automatic warehouse, pallets are stored and handled by means of stacker cranes, and these operations are efficiently managed by means of the central WMS IT system.

The structure may be prefabricated or free-standing, can be very tall and is able to manage a large number of product codes.

The main benefits of stacker crane warehouses compared to conventional systems are:

• Picking process speed: the goods are brought to the operator, reducing order fulfillment times
• Space optimization: handling aisles are reduced to a minimum
• High selectivity and high density
• More control of products in store
• Low operating costs

This type of automated warehouse provides a clear improvement in terms of storage efficiency and operating costs, although the initial investment is high.

Vertical lift module automatic warehouse

Vertical buffer module, or Vertical Lift Module (VLM) automatic warehouses are leading-edge, compact automated storage structures which can be perfectly integrated with production processes and internal ERP systems.

Perhaps the most obvious benefit of a vertical automatic warehouse is the saving in floor space, which may be as high as 90%.

Compared to conventional models, management with a VLM also provides a sharp improvement in safety, speed and inventory precision, cutting times, costs and errors.

In other words, this is a real revolution in efficiency, the spread of which is perhaps only hampered by lack of awareness of the results and potentials of this particular automatic management model.

Those who are worried about having to stop or slow down production because they view automatic systems as complex and therefore think lengthy assembly times are required have no cause for concern. The installation times for a vertical warehouse are very similar to those for conventional static solutions and the transition to automatic operation can also take place gradually.

The idea that automatic vertical warehouses cost a lot more than conventional solutions is another of the common misconceptions about automatic warehouses. The investment is definitely not unaffordable and a rapid ROI is guaranteed. In Italy, the option of “Hyper and Super Amortization” for tax purposes under the Industry 4.0 scheme makes the transition to automatic warehouse management even more financially attractive.

In other words, there are many reasons for investing in an automatic vertical warehouse.
Now let’s take a look at the differences between them and stacker crane warehouses.

Difference between stacker crane and vertical warehouses

The first difference between stacker crane and automatic vertical warehouses is that the latter do not need aisles for transporting goods, and all the space available is used for storage.

What’s more, any type of goods can be stored in a vertical warehouse, from heavy, bulky products to small parts, without the limitations imposed by pallets.

The automated system guarantees the optimization of spaces between trays, improving storage efficacy.

Improving stock management, increasing warehouse security, speeding up inventories.These and many more are the advantages of vertical warehouses.

But how much do you really know about them?

Do you know what the main advantages of automatic vertical warehouses are?

• Saving time during picking and storage operations
• Saving 90% of floor space
• Goods are completely secure and all access to stock is tracked
• Safety and improved working conditions
  

Do you know how they work? Test yourself!

Answer these 5 questions and find out how much you know about this new logistics solution.

Join the quiz now!

https://www.modula.eu/blog/en/how-much-do-you-know-about-vertical-warehouses/

This post was written by Alice Bellelli, Modula Marketing Mananger at Modula S.P.A. Modula S.P.A is exhibiting at Subcon 4-6 June 2019 - register now for free at www.subconshow.co.uk/register