Digital Manufacturing on a Shoestring: Low Cost Digital Solutions for SMEs

  Prof. Duncan McFarlane

  Cambridge University

Biography:

Duncan McFarlane is Professor of Industrial Information Engineering at the University of Cambridge, head of Distributed Information & Automation Lab, chairman of Redbite Solutions Ltd and fellow of St John's College, Fellow of the IET, Honorary Academic Fellow at Trinity College, Melbourne and Visiting Professor at University of Melbourne. He has been involved in the design and operation of industrial automation and information systems for 25 years working both industrially and in academia. His research work has been in distributed, intelligent industrial automation, low cost digital systems, resilient control, RFID integration, track and trace systems, IoT and industrial logistics.  Since 2000 he has been Director of the Auto ID Centre [2000-3] and Auto ID Labs [2003- present] – a programme which has led to the origins of ideas such as Internet of Things and Intelligent Products.  He is founder and Chairman of RedBite Solutions Ltd - an industrial RFID and track & trace and IoT based asset management solutions company. He leads the Cambridge – Boeing research partnership and is Principal Investigator on the Digital Manufacturing on a Shoestring programme developing low cost digital solutions for small manufacturers.  From March to July 2020 he led a team which won the RAE Presidents Award for providing Industrial Engineering support to local hospitals managing the Covid-19 Epidemic. Since August 2020 he has also been Operations Logistics lead at Cambridge for its asymptomatic student Covid-19 testing programme.

Abstract:

Digital Manufacturing on a Shoestring is an approach to increasing the digital capabilities of SMEs via a series of low cost solutions.  Cost is understood to be one of the key barriers to digital adoption for SMEs and many companies cannot afford a major overhaul of their IT infrastructure in order to prepare for future digital solutions.

The Shoestring programme uses off-the-shelf, (possibly non-industrial) components and software to address a company’s (digital) solution needs, adding capabilities one step at a time with minimal a priori infrastructure required.   A modular approach using building-blocks with standardised interfaces is used to ensure solutions developed are reusable, and a service oriented architecture used to ensure solutions incrementally integrate.

This talk will introduce the Digital Manufacturing on a Shoestring programme. It will present the outcomes from a wide range of industrial workshops which have yielded digital solution priorities for manufacturing SMEs.  It will outline the design approach developed and illustrate its application to a number of industrial pilot studies.  It will discuss challenges associated with integrating low cost technologies into industrial solutions and the style of IT architectures best suited for integrating such solutions into industrial environments.

Metrology for metal additive manufacturing

  Dr. M. Alkan Donmez

  National Institute of Science and

  Technology

Biography:

Alkan Donmez has been with NIST for more than 30 years conducting and supervising research in advanced manufacturing sciences including machine tool metrology, precision manufacturing, machining process metrology, and metal additive manufacturing.  He is currently serving as a NIST Associate providing guidance for the Measurement Science for Additive Manufacturing program in the NIST Engineering Laboratory.  He is an Associate Member of the International Academy of Production Engineering (CIRP) and the Chair of its Scientific and Technical Committee on Precision Engineering and Metrology (STC-P).  He also serves as an Associate Editor of CIRP Journal of Manufacturing Science and Technology.

Abstract:

Metal additive manufacturing (AM) is rapidly maturing to become a viable alternative to conventional manufacturing methods, especially for complex, low volume, high value products.  However, significant number of influencing factors of the AM processes and their complex interactions cause high degree of variability in the resulting characteristics of these products.  Such high variability creates burden in qualification and certification of mission critical components, especially in aerospace and medical implant applications. Therefore, rapid qualification of AM process chain, including materials, machines, processes, and parts, is highly researched area to enable cost-effective, widespread use of this technology.  Rapid qualification will require better understanding of the physics of the complex AM processes and better characterization of the contributors in the process chain.  Metrology plays a key role in this quest.  In this presentation various instruments, tools and methods for in-process and off-line metrology will be summarized, with an emphasis on uncertainty assessment and traceability requirements.

Current understanding of biological identity at

the nanoscale and future prospects

  Prof. Kenneth A. Dawson

  University College Dublin

Prof Kenneth A. Dawson is recognized as a leading thinker on the principles governing the interactions of nanoscale entities with living organisms, and implications for bionanoscience. He is founder of the modern conception of the ‘protein (biomolecular) corona’ responsible for the biological identity of engineered nanoparticles. Professor Dawson is the current and founding Director of the Centre for BioNano Interactions (CBNI). His work aims to obtain a fundamental mechanistic understanding of the interactions between nanostructures and living systems. He is the discoverer of the ‘biomolecular corona’ effect, and related ideas in situ at the interface between nanoscale objects and biological processing machinery, for which he was awarded the US National Academy Cozzarelli Prize. He has also been awarded Richardson Prize and Medal of Royal Society of Chemistry, Sloan, Dreyfus, IBM Foundation prizes, and has been distinguished visiting Professor by Chinese Academy, Brazilian Science Foundation, the Canon Foundation. He is an Academician of the Royal Irish Academy, FRSC, various international scientific organizations. Professor Dawson has been recognised as ‘Highly Cited Researcher’ in Cross-Field by Clarivate Web of Science since 2018 Prof. Dawson is Chair of Physical Chemistry at University College Dublin, has been chairman of the National BioNanoscience Action, co-ordinator of the European Infrastructure, managed numerous large scale multi-sectoral cross-disciplinary research international and EU projects.

Abstract:

Nanoscale objects are processed by living organisms using highly evolved and sophisticated endogenous cellular networks, specifically designed to manage objects of this size. While these processes potentially allow nanostructures unique access to and control over key biological machineries, they are also highly protected by cell or host defence mechanisms at all levels. A thorough understanding of bionanoscale recognition events, including the molecules involved in the cell recognition machinery, the nature of information transferred during recognition processes and the coupled downstream cellular processing, would allow us to achieve a qualitatively novel form of biological control and advanced therapeutics. Here we discuss evolving fundamental microscopic and mechanistic understanding of biological nanoscale recognition. We consider the interface between a nanostructure and a target cell membrane, outlining the categories of nanostructure properties that are recognized, and the associated nanoscale signal transduction and cellular programming mechanisms that constitute biological recognition.

Atomically controlled polishing for precision optics

  Prof. Kazuto Yamauchi

  Osaka University

He has been a Professor at Osaka University since 2003 and is serving as a leader of the center of excellence for atomically controlled fabrication processes since 2008. He received PhD in 1991 from Osaka University. His working fields are precision engineering and its application to optics manufacturing especially for X-ray and high power laser optics. He is recognized to be fellows of SPIE and OSA respectively since 2017 and 2018.

Abstract:

Cutting-edge optics require extremely highly ordered surfaces especially in the fields of X-ray and high　power laser optics. We have developed atomically controlled polishing methods such as elastic emission machining (EEM) and catalyst referred etching (CARE) methods and applied them to precision optics in X-ray and deep ultraviolet (DUV) regimes, ultra-low scattering laser mediums, and so on. EEM utilizes chemical reaction between the surfaces of work piece and nanoparticles, can realize atomically smooth surfaces, and is used in deterministic processes with high spatial resolution of better than sub-0.1 mm. This is especially used for surface shaping and smoothing of ultraprecision hard X-ray optics to perform under a diffraction-limited condition. CARE method utilizes catalytic chemical reaction in atomic removals on the work piece surfaces, is used as a global polishing method, and realizes atomically smooth and crystallographically highly ordered surfaces on many kinds of oxide, carbide, and nitride substrates. Metal thin film deposited on an elastic pad and just water is employed as a catalyst and an etching solution, leading to a high compatibility to clean room processes and high environmental friendliness. We will show the removal mechanisms and application results of these methods.