Author: manufacturing.com.de

A trio of manufacturing related research initiatives led by the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland (NMIS) have received a £14m funding boost through Glasgow City Region Innovation Accelerator programme. The three projects will accelerate productivity and sustainability across local manufacturing and engineering specialists, with smaller businesses working alongside partners including Boeing, SSE Renewables, Howden, Thales and Babcock. The projects are supported with £5.4m from the UK Government and up to £8.6m from industry partners. One project, ReMake Glasgow, will see a first-of-its-kind national ReMake hub developed at NMIS’ flagship facility next to Glasgow Airport within the Advanced Manufacturing Innovation District Scotland.…

PepsiCo has announced that its beverage plant in Northern Spain aims to become the company’s first plant globally to reach net-zero emissions by 2025. The beverage plant, in Álava Basque Country, which produces iconic brands such as Pepsi, as well as local brands KAS and Bitter KAS, aims to reach net zero emissions next year, thanks to the electrification of the plant’s operations, leading to the elimination of 1,849 tonnes of CO2 per year. The production plant has been using electricity from renewable sources since 2015 and now, thanks to this decarbonization project, natural gas will be replaced by electric…

Students in West Cumbria have been tasked by the Robotics and AI Collaboration (RAICo) and the Industrial Solutions Hub (iSH) to design and build robots which will be showcased at a major robotics and artificial intelligence (RAI) industry event. Students aged 16 to 18 from West Lakes Academy and the Energy Coast University Technical College (UTC) are taking part in the challenge, with the aim of each school developing a small robot capable of transporting a mock nuclear waste barrel. The four-week sprint challenge is designed to encourage creativity, innovation and an enthusiasm for science and technology, focusing on RAI.…

One of the UK’s leading manufacturers of precision aerospace components has secured a string of new £multi-million contracts – just a few days after it was named as a King’s Award for Enterprise winner for International Trade. Arrowsmith Engineering (Coventry), which is part of the rapidly growing ASG Group, has sealed long-term agreements with ITP Spain, Incora and Rolls-Royce in the UK and Germany, delivering the largest order book in its 57-year history. It marks what has been a strong export period for the business, with overseas sales rocketing by nearly 400% following the pandemic and accounting for 35% of…

Despite its resilience and ability to absorb and adapt to change, the global manufacturing industry hasn’t had it easy in recent times. But, as Guy Menchik, Chief Technology Officer at Stratasys explains, things could be on the up thanks to certain breakthrough trends that could provide the vital shot in the arm needed to help ease the strain for the industry and those operating at its sharp end. Be it sudden or ongoing geo-political events, global pandemics or cross-border trade wars, the global manufacturing industry will always be subject to disruptions that impact it in some shape or form. However,…

The automotive industry is complex. Alongside pressures to improve the sustainability of production processes and the vehicles rolling off the line, carmakers are also looking to push the limits of performance and aesthetics. Innovative approaches, such as Physical Vapour Deposition (PVD) coatings, can make this possible, particularly when adopted by partners within the supply chain, as Dr Yuen-Ling Kong of Vestatec discusses. Traditional methods of metal coating, such as painting and electroplating, have become less favourable in recent years due to potentially harmful waste products and questions around safety. Hexavalent chrome, for example, is banned under the EU’s 2017 REACH…

Domino Printing Sciences (Domino) has announced it has been awarded first place in the internationally recognised Change Awards’ ‘Future-Ready Leadership’ category, for its robust and sustainable approach to managing change across its entire business. At the end of April ’24, judges of the Change Awards announced Domino as one of the winners in the programme that honours the best examples of change leadership and innovation across different sectors. Domino’s Change Management Framework, a comprehensive training programme for both management teams and employees, was integral to the company taking top prize in the Future-Ready Leadership category. Domino’s award submission demonstrated the…

The World Economic Forum, in collaboration with global consultancy Kearney, has released a new White Paper exploring the actions manufacturing leaders are taking to redesign their global value chains along key trends that are reshaping those and transforming manufacturing systems. “From Disruption to Opportunity: Strategies for Rewiring Global Value Chains,” is based on a survey of 300 global operations executives as well as 30 consultations, revealing a playbook of proven strategies enacted by leading manufacturers to redesign and future-proof their value chains  in response to global challenges. However, the results also indicate a significant gap between strategic intent and operational…

DS Smith, the leading fibre-based sustainable packaging company announces an investment of €6 Million in its La Chevrolière facility located near to the city of Nantes in the West of France. The investment has allowed the company to expand the size of the production space in La Chevrolière by 4,000 square metres and has been made in response to an increasing demand for sustainable corrugated cardboard by existing and potential DS Smith customers in the region. The new equipment includes a Bobst Mastercut 2.1 die-cut machine, and a cardboard pallet production line. A new 2,500 m² workshop dedicated to the…

Creating a truly circular economy that will enable us to meet national and global net zero targets is evidently no easy feat and will require multiple technologies, innovations, and new ways of working, explains Julie Walker, Technical and Manufacturing Manager at Vitafoam. Getting to this point in the PU foam industry will mean leveraging numerous enabling actions, ranging from using sustainable and recycled materials to extending trim life and pushing the envelope on nascent technologies, such as biomass-balanced polyols and isocyanate production. While all of these will be critical to creating a sustainable sector, the use of plant-based sources is…