EPSRC Theme Day in Manufacturing Research - Report

EPSRC THEME DAY IN MANUFACTURING RESEARCH THURSDAY 15th APRIL 2010

REPORT

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Contents Summary .................................................................................................................................... 3 Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................... 4 Manufacturing ............................................................................................................................ 5 Methodology .............................................................................................................................. 5 The Panel.................................................................................................................................... 7 Observations............................................................................................................................... 9 Recommendations .................................................................................................................... 11 Annex 1: EPSRC Support for Manufacturing Research .......................................................... 14 Research Capability.................................................................................................................. 16 Adaptive Technologies............................................................................................................. 19 Simulation and Design ............................................................................................................. 20 Simulation and Design ............................................................................................................. 22 Research Capability.................................................................................................................. 22 Simulation and Design ............................................................................................................. 25 Systems & Operations.............................................................................................................. 27 Annex 3 List of Attendees .................................................................................................. 39 Annex 4 Panel Biographies................................................................................................. 43 Annex 5 Theme Day Methodology..................................................................................... 50 Annex 6 Quantitative Findings ........................................................................................... 56 Annex 7 Break-Out Sessions .............................................................................................. 62

1. Summary The EPSRC Theme Day in Manufacturing Research took place in London on Thursday 15th April 2010. As a review of this important topic is timely given the current economic climate and focus on a more resilient economy, EPSRC was interested in assessing a representative sample of funded research projects relevant to Manufacturing research by an independent panel of international and industrial experts. These findings will then inform EPSRC strategy.

The key findings of the panel’s observations and perceptions were;

Overall, the quality of the majority of projects was viewed to be impressively high, with a large number of world-leading projects.

Engagement of users was extremely high, and importantly usually appropriate for the individual project, giving good routes to exploitation; many different routes are used as is appropriate and desirable.

Continuity of multi-year funding for the Innovative Manufacturing Research Centres (IMRCs)1 had helped grow a strong community.

The panel noted that the best projects were a mixture of IMRC and smaller projects; the EPSRC portfolio should include a balance of projects of different sizes and scopes.

One area of concern was the research quality in manufacturing operations management research; although traditionally this is seen as a difficult area to review due to falling between engineering & business schools, some projects were felt to be very poor, insufficiently rigorous and low in research content.

Overall there was a lack of adventure and creativity; the portfolio needed more balance between basic and applied research, including more work on disruptive technologies that were high risk but could potentially have high pay-back, and any future call for Centres needed to have adventure as an assessment criterion.

EPSRC should look at different models for assessing and funding adventurous research.

Also the Centre model should incorporate the right mix of expertise and disciplines to tackle the interdisciplinary challenges that existed in the area.

There were some concerns over the support of early careers researchers; the IMRC model tended to give low visibility to the younger members of the teams; generally the number of Fellows in the portfolio was surprisingly small. Though manufacturing is essentially a collaborative process, and maybe the fit to the traditional Fellowship model is more difficult, this remains a concern for the long-term future of the community.

Also there were issues over the mobility of early careers researchers, who tended to stay in the UK (or even in the same group) rather than

1 Innovative Manufacturing Research Centres (IMRCs); for more detail, see http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/research/centres/pages/currentimrcs.aspx

work abroad, leading to concerns over the awareness of the international context and the strength of international links.

The panel were impressed by the Challenging Engineering2 approach that challenges the research leaders of the future to be collaborative, creative and ambitious in the early stages of their career, and the use of the Engineering Doctorate (EngD)3 model for training doctoral students, and the way both tackled the required multi-disciplinary4 approach for manufacturing disciplines.

Areas for EPSRC to look at for the future included; Green Technologies, Convergent Technologies, Internet & the Real World, Whole Systems Process Modelling.

There were also issues about EPSRC helping industry understand who does what in academia; in particular, there were some interesting ideas about how EPSRC could describe its portfolio which could profitably be pursued.

Manufacturing research should be clearly articulated as encompassing the breath of the value chain from ‘innovation to integration’

The panel observed the need for the Centres to be more focused and clear what their strengths are.

The panel observed a need for EPSRC's vision to be reflected in its research portfolio.

2. Acknowledgements EPSRC would like to thank the following people for helping with the success of the Manufacturing Research theme day:

The members of the Evaluation Panel for their hard work and enthusiasm under the Chairmanship of Professor Dame Ann Dowling (University of Cambridge)5;

The grant holders and researchers for their posters and discussions with the Evaluation Panel;

The theme day plenary speakers for their excellent and stimulating talks (Professor Brian Collins (Cranfield University) and Professor Mike Gregory (University of Cambridge);

EPSRC colleagues for their help in organising the event and assistance on the day itself;

2 Challenging engineering provides exploration funding and developmental support for talented engineering researchers at an early stage in their careers. For more details, see http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/funding/grants/newac/Pages/challengingeng.aspx 3 The Engineering Doctorate (EngD) is an alternative to the traditional PhD for students who want a career in industry. A four-year programme combines PhD-level research projects with taught courses, and students spend about 75% of their time working directly with a company. For more details, see http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/funding/students/coll/Pages/engdoctorate.aspx 4 Or “Trans-disciplinary” 5 EPSRC is particularly grateful to those members of the panel whose travel plans were subsequently disrupted by the Icelandic Volcanic ash cloud

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The Copthorne Tara Hotel, Kensington, London for the venue.

3. Manufacturing EPSRC defines Manufacturing research as;

“The design and development of new and existing manufacturing processes, systems and networks, as a means of creating and recovering maximum value from the product or product idea, including delivering a service through life”.

From this broad definition, EPSRC has organised the portfolio into three themes, each of which includes a number of sub-themes described as;

Adaptive Technologies All aspects of novel manufacturing technologies. This is broadly sub-divided into four categories: materials processing (the processing of metals, alloys, composites, polymers, ceramics etc., and related technologies), automation and handling (regarding remote operation), process engineering (the processing and handling of fluids and soft solids), and electrical engineering (electronic manufacture).

Simulation & Design Research on the design of engineered, manufactured and constructed products and environments; the design of processes which leads to the creation of products; modelling and simulation of process, manufacturing and supporting systems. A much smaller part of this sub-theme is focussed on innovation in design and testing technology.

Systems & Operations Research into the enabling science and organisational aspects of manufacturing. The largest area is in business process (management and business processes related to a variety of sectors, project and asset management, procurement, servitisation, operational research and scheduling, and innovation processes). It also includes research in instrumentation and control engineering, systems engineering and resource efficiency (energy efficiency and waste minimisation). The sub-programme also includes a small amount of research in ICT enablers directly relevant to manufacturing (in information and knowledge management, software engineering, HCI and network computing).

EPSRC currently commits funding of £300M in this area, with over £700M on the research into the underpinning fundamentals and theory, and over £100M exploiting the outcomes of that research (often in collaboration with the Technology Strategy Board). More details on these Themes and sub-themes, and the EPSRC funding landscapes for each are given in Annex 1.

4. Methodology A Theme Day is a well-established mechanism used by EPSRC to evaluate the effectiveness of EPSRC’s support for research in an area that cuts across its programme boundaries. By definition it complements its regular programme and sector reviews.

A secondary aim of the Theme Day mechanism is to provide advocacy by generating information on research achievements and successes that can be used to demonstrate the importance of research. Thirdly it provides an

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opportunity for individuals within a particular research community to network with others.

The objectives for this Theme Day in Manufacturing Research were to;

Internationally benchmark the strength of EPSRC academic manufacturing research.

Assess the user-led and knowledge exchange aspects of the funding and indicate how well these are contributing towards economic impact.

Assess and identify any limitations in the current funding landscape and approach, highlight gaps and provide recommendations to maximise outcomes

The key outputs of the event will help building the case for Manufacturing Research and therefore inform strategy and activities in this area.

During the Theme Day, an independent panel of experts provide their opinions and perceptions on a representative sample of grants from across the portfolio and draw conclusions about the portfolio as a whole, or major segments of it. Notably, a Theme Day is not concerned with constructing league tables of grants or researchers, nor to isolate individual failures.

The Theme Day assessment looked at projects coded by EPSRC as being related to manufacturing research; this could be from industrially-inspired research through to very blue-skies research (and everything in between). To provide a representative sample but a manageable volume for a one-day event, it was decided to invite 72 posters to the event.

The most significant single activity relevant to the current EPSRC Manufacturing Portfolio is the Innovative Manufacturing Research Centres (IMRCs) which currently includes 16 centres with a total grant commitment of over £120M. Consequently half of the posters presented at the Theme Day were allotted to the IMRCs (most were allotted two posters per Centre, with the largest Centres given three posters) to present their research highlights.

The majority of the rest of the posters were selected from the portfolio by choosing projects that had recently finished (< 6 months ago) or were to shortly finish (< 6 months to go); a small number of projects not meeting these criteria were selected to ensure the range of posters more closely matched the wider EPSRC Manufacturing research portfolio, as described in the Landscapes documents, presented in Annex 1.

Each poster was allocated a pairs of “speakers” from the panel to spend 10 minutes at an allotted time discussing the contents of the poster with the presenter. After 5 minutes for discussion, each speaker was asked to assess each poster against an international benchmark, across the following primary criteria:

What is the inherent scientific quality of this work?

Is there evidence of dynamism in the work in an international research context?

What links has the researcher built with users of research?

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Each speaker was asked give a score from 1-5 for each criterion for each poster (with 5 corresponding to “internationally leading”) and complete a proforma6. However, it is important to note that the key findings for a Theme Day are not the individual project scores but the aggregation of those scores (overall, by Theme, by sub-Theme, by sector etc).

A more detailed description of the Theme Day Methodology is described in Annex 5.

In addition, break-out sessions provided delegates an opportunity to directly inform EPSRC’s strategy in this area. Each delegate took part in two sessions; firstly a SWOT analysis, facilitated by EPSRC staff; and then (having identified a number of opportunities from the previous session), a session designed to explore these opportunities in greater detail. Full details of this session are given in Annex 7.

Panel members talking to presenters as part

of the assessment process at the Manufacturing Research Theme Day.

Delegates taking part in the break-out Sessions

5. The Panel The panel of international and industrial experts assembled for the Theme Day to review the EPSRC portfolio of Manufacturing research was:

Panel member Institution

Professor Dame Ann Dowling (Chair)

University of Cambridge, UK

Mr Clint Atwood Sandia National Labs, USA

Dr Dheeraj Bhardwaj Laing O’Rourke plc

Professor Duane Boning MIT, USA

Professor James Browne National University of Ireland, Galway

6 Whilst panel members were not asked to agree a common score as a pair for each poster, in practise the two scores for each poster generally showed little variation (i.e. within half a mark) for each criterion.

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Panel member Institution

Mr Steve Burgess Rolls-Royce plc

Professor George Chryssolouris University of Patras, Greece

Professor Tugrul Daim Portland State University, USA

Professor Adrian Demaid Emeritus Professor at The Open University

Dr Harald Egner Fraunhofer IPA, Germany

Professor Udo Lindemann Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM), Germany

Professor Geoff McFarland Renishaw plc

Professor Mitchell Tseng University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong

Dr Rick Wysk North Carolina State University, USA

EPSRC would like to thank all the panel members for their time and dedication for this Theme Day.

Back Row: Dheeraj Bhadwaj, Tugrul Daim, Duane Boning, Adrian Demaid, Steve Burgess, Udo Lindemann, Clint Atwood, Harald Egner, James Browne

Front Row: Mitchell Tseng, Geoff McFarland, Ann Dowling, George Chryssolouris, Rick Wysk

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6. Observations The independent panel of experts’ opinions and perceptions on the portfolio, and the conclusions they drew about the portfolio as a whole, or major segments of it, were;

Headline Commentary Overall, the quality of the majority of projects was viewed to

be impressively high, with a large number of world-leading projects.

An area of concern was parts of the research quality in manufacturing operations management research. Although socio-technical research is traditionally challenging to assess, some projects were felt to be very poor, insufficiently rigorous and low in research content.

Engagement with users was extremely high and, importantly, usually appropriate for the individual project, giving good routes to exploitation. Multiple routes demonstrated by the different projects were deemed appropriate and desirable.

These findings are represented by the scores7 presented in the figures overleaf (definitions of the scoring system, further quantitative scores and analysis can be found in Annex 6);

Average Scores per Theme

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

4.5

Q1 ScientificQuality

Q2 Dynamism Q3 User Link

Sco

re Adaptive Technologies

Simulation and Design

Systems and Operations

7 It should be emphasised that the metrics and graphs were produced as inputs to the panel conclusions and that there has been no statistical analysis as to the significance of differences between scores. The intention of the scoring was to assist the post-panel assessment rather than provide an absolute measure for each criterion.

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0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

5 4.5 4 3.5 3 2.5 2 1.5 1 NA

Score

Nu

mb

er o

f p

ost

ers

AdaptiveSim & DesSys & Ops

Spread of scores assigned by the panel to posters for Q1 (scientific quality)

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

5 4.5 4 3.5 3 2.5 2 1.5 1 NA

Scores

Nu

mb

er o

f p

ost

ers


Spread of scores assigned by the panel to posters for Q3 (user links)

Strengths & Highlights Continuity of multi-year funding for the IMRCs had helped grow a strong

community.

The panel noted that the best projects presented were a mixture of IMRC and smaller projects – both models were producing excellent work, and the EPSRC portfolio should include a balance of projects of different sizes and scopes, as well as fundamental and applied research.

High quality projects were identified across a wide breadth of the manufacturing portfolio. Excellence across such a wide subject area was very encouraging.

The panel were impressed by both the Challenging Engineering approach – which challenges the research leaders of the future to be collaborative, creative and ambitious in the early stages of their career – and the use of

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Teaming with and support from the industrial sector was viewed as world class and world leading.

Concerns Overall, there was a perceived lack of adventure and creativity. The

portfolio needed to include more work on disruptive technologies that were high risk but could potentially have high pay-back, and any future call for Centres needed to have adventure built into the Centre model.

There were some concerns over the support of early careers researchers; the IMRC model tended to give low visibility to the younger members of the teams; generally the number of Fellows in the portfolio was surprisingly small. Though manufacturing is essentially a collaborative process, and maybe the fit to the traditional Fellowship model is more difficult, this remains a concern for the long-term future of the community.

Also there were issues over the mobility of early careers researchers, who tended to stay in the UK (or even in the same group) rather than work abroad, leading to concerns over the awareness of the international context and the strength of international links.

EPSRC Focus Manufacturing research should be clearly articulated as encompassing the

breath of the value chain, from ‘innovation to integration’.

EPSRC's vision for Manufacturing Research should be reflected in the breadth of its research portfolio.


EPSRC should look at different models for assessing and funding adventurous research, such as the recently-pioneered “Bright IDEAS Awards – The Big Pitch”.

Future Centres must be more focused, and clear what their strengths are.

The Centre model must incorporate the right mix of disciplines to tackle the interdisciplinary challenges that exist in the research area of focus.

EPSRC should aim to help industry understand “who does what” in academia. In particular, there were some interesting ideas about how the EPSRC portfolio could be described in an integrated way, which could profitably be pursued.

7. Recommendations Following on from these observations, the panel made the following recommendations to EPSRC;

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The over-arching recommendation is that as Manufacturing research is an inherently collaborative and multidisciplinary activity, it is necessary to ensure that the research groups have the right mix of expertise to be able to tackle the research challenges.

EPSRC should look at different models for assessing and funding adventurous research.

Manufacturing operations management research is a key component for successful portfolio in Manufacturing Research; however, this area needs attention to ensure that it is delivering.

Innovation is required in the creation of new business models in many areas where manufacturing technologies and designs are being developed, if these are to succeed in creating new market opportunities. It is vital that this work is carried out concurrently in simulation and design and in systems and operations modelling if the UK is to maximise its return on investment in engineering (management) research. To do this, EPSRC & the manufacturing community need to build even stronger links with leading business schools that have a focus and capability in engineering and technology.

The EPSRC portfolio should include a balance of projects of different sizes and scopes, and develop appropriate associated metrics.

The portfolio needed to include more work on disruptive technologies that were high risk but could potentially have high pay-back.

EPSRC needs to look at addressing issues around demographics of the community to support the research leaders of tomorrow.


There were also issues about how EPSRC presents and describes its portfolio to help industry understand who does what in academia

Manufacturing research should be clearly articulated as encompassing the breath of the value chain from ‘discovery to integration’; EPSRC only plays into part of this chain and needs to better articulate who are the various key stakeholders at each stage and how they are integrated.

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Annex 1: EPSRC Support for Manufacturing Research To aid the Theme Day panel members in familiarising themselves with EPSRC’s grant portfolio in advance of the Theme Day itself, EPSRC portfolio managers prepared a series of “landscape documents”, each containing key facts related to the respective area of EPSRC’s manufacturing model. There were three documents prepared – Adaptive Technologies, Simulation & Design, and Systems & Operations.

The documents followed the format of previously published landscape documents, available on the EPSRC website at:

http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/research/landscapes/Pages/default.aspx

The landscape documents available on the EPSRC website cover specific academic portfolios within EPSRC’s remit. The document available for manufacturing more specifically covers manufacturing technologies and operations, and was in-and-of-itself insufficient information to provide a panel attempting to comment up the breadth of EPSRC-funded research related to the manufacturing sector.

As a result, the three landscape documents presented here are overviews of multiple portfolios that comprise the three fields in the manufacturing model. The introductory paragraph of each landscape document provides an account of the disciplines covered by the document.

Adaptive Technologies

At a Glance This sub-theme covers all aspects of novel manufacturing technologies, and is broadly sub-divided into four categories: materials processing (£81M of live grants related to the processing of metals, alloys, composites, polymers, ceramics etc., and related technologies), automation and handling (£916K of live grants regarding remote operation), process engineering (£7.4M of live grants focussed largely on the processing and handling of fluids and soft solids), and electrical engineering (£55M of live grants focussed on electronic manufacture).

Grants funded: 194

Grant value: £146, 903,856

User Collaboration (Done by value of contribution)

User Technology Strategy Board

Rolls-Royce plc.

Advance Nano-Tech Inc.

Jaguar Land Rover

Alps Electric UK Ltd.

The breadth of this sub-theme is reflected in the breadth of user engagement. The strong link with the Technology Strategy Board is a positive indication of the

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http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/research/landscapes/Pages/default.aspx

translation of EPSRC-funded research from the laboratory towards development and application. Within process engineering, there are strong financial contributions from BBSRC, and sitting underneath the listed top five collaborators are a strong list of major UK companies – Airbus, BAE Systems, BP, Ford, DSTL and Unilever, alongside companies indirectly arising from EPSRC-funding, such as Plastic Logic Ltd.

Leading Centres Loughborough ICMRC

Cranfield IMRC

Nottingham IMRC

Loughborough IeMRC

Herriot Watt IMRC

Universities within Sub Theme by EPSRC funding

More than £10 million Loughborough

Cranfield

Nottingham

£5-10 million Southampton

Cambridge

Glasgow

Sheffield

Brunel

Strathclyde

Heriot-Watt

Imperial

UCL

£2-5 million Manchester

Oxford

Warwick

Birmingham

Leeds

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£1-2 million Cardiff

Liverpool

Aston

Newcastle

Research Capability

Doctoral Training Centres Name of Centre University

Advanced Composites Centre for Innovation and Science

University of Bristol

Advanced Metallic Systems – Challenges in Global Competitiveness

University of Sheffield

Sustainable Chemical Technologies University of Bath

Science and Exploitation of Plastic Electronic Materials

Imperial College London

Photonics Systems Development University College London

Bioprocess Engineering Leadership University College London

Optics and Photonics Technologies Heriot-Watt University

Formulation Engineering University of Birmingham

Micro- and Nano-Materials and Technologies

University of Surrey

Doctoral Training Partnership in High-Performance Structural Metallic Systems

University of Cambridge, University of Birmingham and Swansea University.

Postdoctoral fellows Number of Postdoctoral Associates: 419 (6% of EPSRC total) (Researchers – PDRA, PGRA)

Fellowships

Advanced Research Fellow

Senior Research Fellows

Career Acceleration Fellows

Leadership

Fellows

Number 4 - - 2

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% Programme Total

- - - -

Name / University / Department

Dr. D.A.J. Moran/University of Glasgow/Electronics and Electrical Engineering

- - Dr. J.M. Allwood/University of Cambridge/Engineering


Dr. K. Kalna/University of Glasgow/Electronics and Electrical Engineering

- - Prof. D. Dye/Imperial College London/Materials


Dr. T. Anthopoulos/Imperial College London/Physics

- - -


Dr. C. Wu/

University of Birmingham/Chemical Engineering

- - -

Demographics Age Male Female Unknown

< 34 5 1 -

35 – 44 59 9 1

45 – 54 69 6 1

55 – 64 35 1 -

65+ 5 - -

Unknown 2 1 1

SWOT Analysis

Strengths Adaptive Technologies benefits from substantial financial investment.

The sub-theme is supported by a wide breadth of EPSRC funding mechanisms – existing IMRCs, new Centres for Innovative Manufacturing, Programme Grants, Innovation and Knowledge Centres etc.

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Large numbers of universities have all be successful in gaining high levels of financial support (>£5M).

UK areas of strength – Photonics and Regenerative Medicine – have been recognised with new EPSRC Centres for Innovative Manufacturing.

Strong portfolio of Doctoral Training Centres and Industrial Doctorate Centres.

Grand Challenges in Microelectronics Design and Silicon Technology have resulted in much more strategic vision for the UK.

Strengths in UK Petrochemical, Pharmaceutical and Personal products industries (move from bulk to speciality chemicals).

Weaknesses Few First Grants currently awarded across the sub-theme.

Much of the research tends towards the applied end of EPSRC’s support spectrum – concerns over adventure and creativity.

No Overseas Travel Grants within the portfolio – a lack of international engagement for new research concepts.

Early career researchers do not have high visibility within EPSRC – few independent grant holders and no prior opportunities to raise profiles within the IMRC model.

Loss of major electronics manufacturing industry from the UK.

Opportunities Continued high levels of industrial support will maintain industrial

relevance of EPSRC research.

Government strategies for “high-value” manufacturing have highlighted key areas of UK strength within Adaptive Technologies.

ESPRC & TSB contributions to ENIAC & ARTEMIS EU programmes provide real opportunities for the UK community to work with major research centres and industry throughout the EU.

UK strength in Power Electronics research has opportunities to contribute to national agenda for renewable energy.

World leading research base in Plastic Electronics and Solid State Lighting provide UK with excellent opportunity for creating real economic impact with appropriate further government support.

New EPSRC funded eFutures network grant provides vehicle to coordinate electronics design and technology communities.

Process Engineers well-placed to conduct research that reduces the environmental impact of manufacturing processes (reduced emissions, energy efficiency, sustainability etc.).

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Opportunity for process engineering to attract researchers from a broad discipline base to introduce different perspectives/expertise to address key manufacturing research challenges.

Threats Future research leadership is crucial to maintain current UK strengths.

Within materials processing, a perception exists that EPSRC investment is small and unfocussed. Whilst EPSRC figures show this to not be the case, the perception may lead to negative attitudes and community relationships.

Domination of Electronics and Photonics industrial community by SMEs provides challenges for engagement with academic research programmes and EPSRC strategy and lack of coherent voice.

Maintaining relevance of academic research portfolio to world leading industrial research programmes with lack of large scale electronics manufacturing in UK.

Lack of large UK companies means IP is bought by overseas industry and volume production is not sited in UK, thus providing further advantage to global competitors.

a. Adaptive Technologies

Perceptions Poor Excellent

International Profile

X

Future of Area (UK)

X

Crossing Borders X

User Collaboration

X

Future Research Leadership

X

Creativity & Adventure

X

Socio-economic Benefits And Global Competitiveness

X

Resources X

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Summary The Adaptive Technologies sub-theme benefits from a substantial funding pool that supports large Centres providing both research and training opportunities. The communities involved are well-connected to the industrial base, which provides substantial leverage of EPSRC funding, but is perhaps directing research away from adventurous areas with the potential for causing long-term change to the disciplines. There are undoubted social and economic benefits generated by the research but, for this to be maintained, a new generation of early career academics must continue to raise and maintain their profiles with research funding bodies and policy makers.

b. Simulation and Design

At a Glance The bulk of this sub- theme covers research on the design of engineered, manufactured and constructed products and environments; the design of processes which leads to the creation of products; modelling and simulation of process, manufacturing and supporting systems (£51.2M). A much smaller part of this sub-theme is focussed on innovation in design and testing technology (£4.4M).

Grants funded: 55

Grant value: £49 million

User Collaboration Users:

BAe Systems

Rolls Royce

Lonza Biologics plc

Gatsby Charitable Foundation

DEFRA

This area receives significant support from a wide variety of users across most sectors – aerospace, transport, retail, manufacturing, process industries software etc with significant levels of cash contributions on grants as well as non-cash contributions. Collaborators include some SMEs. Larger research projects in this theme often have a cohort of industrial collaborators with whom they have strong relationships; these collaborations are not confined to the IMRCs in this area.

Leading Centres Cambridge EDC

Bath IMRC

Heriot-Watt IMRC

SURegen (SUE 2 consortia led by the University of Salford)

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Electronics Design Centre for Heterogeneous Systems (Science and Innovation Award)


More than £5 million Bath

Cambridge

Imperial College

£2-5 million Brunel

Heriot-Watt

Warwick

£1-2 million Glasgow

Leeds

Newcastle

Manchester

Southampton

Cranfield

Reading

Salford

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Simulation and Design Research Capability

Doctoral Training Centres Name of Centre University

Sustainability for Engineering and Energy Systems

University of Surrey

Technologies for Sustainable Built Environments

University of Reading

Biopharmaceutical Process Development Newcastle University

Postdoc Fellows Number of Postdoctoral Associates: 157 2% of EPSRC total (Researchers – PDRA, PGRA)

Fellowships Advanced

Research Fellow

Senior Research Fellows

Career Acceleration Fellows

Leadership

Fellows

Number 0 0 0 0


< 34 2 1 1

35 – 44 11 4 0

45 – 54 20 2 0

55 – 64 8 4 0

65+ 0 0 0

Unknown 1 0 0

SWOT Analysis

Strengths Some successful major consortia located within centres of excellence, e.g.

Cambridge EDC, Bath IdMRC

UK design has historical strength and a strong reputation (People in Systems review*)

Established UK community at the mid-senior academic level

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Strong engagement with practitioners across the area

Clear exploitation pathways being followed in some area

Good levels of spin-outs from research projects

Industrially relevant training in some areas of the portfolio

Weaknesses

Uncertainty regarding UK capability and competitiveness in this areas outside the key consortia

Lack of international collaboration across the portfolio

Interface between engineering and the social sciences is one of the most difficult to support

An apparent lack of transformative research in this area (People in Systems review)

Area has difficulties recruiting UK students because of a lack of qualified undergraduates

Lack of Fellows could be seen as an indication of lack of academic rigour

Opportunities Opportunity to embed design into engineering and manufacturing, rather

than it being ‘tacked on’ the end

Change in IMRC funding model will provide opportunities for the EDC and IdMRC to maximise leverage and connections with wider community

Focus on this area as a result of the People in Systems review provides opportunity for the research communities to come together around the issues raised.

Maximise on the good international reputation in this area by forming international collaboration

TSB offers excellent funding opportunities to an industrially relevant area and community such as this one

Threats Risk of supporting isolated pockets of excellence scattered around the

country which do not interact and feed off one another

It is not clear that there is sufficient UK capability to develop future research leaders

Wider research community must raise its game so competitiveness is not lost once the current consortia funding ends

Close relationship with practitioners means this area is particularly sensitive to the economic environment

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Simulation and Design

Perceptions Poor Excellent

International profile

x

Future of area (UK)

X

Crossing borders X

User collaboration X

Future research leadership

X

Creativity & adventure

X

Socio-economic benefits and global competitiveness

X

Resources X

Summary Overall this is quite a well funded area of research. It has a good number of high quality centres of excellence but in the core design area they have a tendency to be isolated from the rest of the community. Six IMRCs feature in this area along with one SUE consortia and a number of large (over £1m) grants.

The UK community is well respected internationally, especially in the design tools and design process research areas. However, actual international collaboration on EPSRC research grants is low.

Much of this portfolio is characterised by good user collaboration, with strong relationships formed in the larger Centres and consortia at least. Collaborators provide significant levels of cash contributions to the grants in most areas, the exception being in the construction elements but here non-cash contributions are good, as they are across the rest of this portfolio.

The inherently applied nature of this area is demonstrated by four follow on fund grants in this area and three Technology Programme grants. There are also a good number of spin-outs in this area with 14% of grants completing between 2005 and 2009 resulting in the formation of a spin-out company.

Generally the demographics in the area are better than other areas of engineering with the majority of researchers in the 45-55 age range and a reasonable number younger researchers coming through. There are currently only 5 first grants in this area but there are three Challenging Engineering

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awards in the construction part of this portfolio. There are some female researchers, with the majority in the younger age brackets, it is hoped these will continue through they system and encourage more females into the discipline.

There are three Industrial Doctorate Centres, however, in the design area at least there are long standing difficulties recruiting UK students.

People in Systems Review – Summary http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/pubs/reports/Pages/ict.aspx

In January 2009 EPSRC held a theme day to evaluate its portfolio of research in the area of “People in Systems”. The primary objective of the Theme Day was to benchmark the ESPRC People in Systems portfolio internationally in terms of: research quality; creativity; academic impact; and, impact on the user community.

“People in Systems” (PinS) research is defined as engineering or ICT research where the role of the individual is essential, where there is a human or social element which is mental or physical (of sociology, psychology, ergonomics), and a technical element.

For the purposes of the review, the People in Systems portfolio was sub-divided into eight “Sub-Themes” according to a number of research topic codes used by EPSRC, two of these sub-themes overlap with the portfolio presented here, these were:

Design of Space - Urban and Land Management; Building Operations and Management

Design - Design Engineering; Design Processes

The panel’s findings on the themes given above were:

In general, a healthy portfolio. Research quality was good to very good or excellent.

There was a spectrum of projects shown. Fewer projects than expected were highly exciting, adventurous and potentially world leading, given the reputation of the UK design community. Some projects were less exciting but were doing work of real benefit to a narrower audience (more incremental). A particular highlight in terms of creativity was “Design Dialogues: An exploratory study of design narratives methodologies and tools towards achieving Factor 10 outcomes” (GR/S90645/02).

Technological aspects were strong, although in some cases the social and people aspects were downgraded or replaced by an engineering approach.

A potential gap was the use of good design to address social problems.

Although some good papers were being produced, there was perhaps a lack of real academic impact.

Connectivity to the international design community could have been better.

26

http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/pubs/reports/Pages/ict.aspx

There was some good industry connectivity shown (e.g. in the field of fashion design). A particular highlight in terms of user engagement was the network on “Risk Perception in Design” (GR/S15020/01) which brought together all relevant stakeholders.

c. Systems & Operations

At a Glance This theme covers research into the enabling science and organisational aspects of manufacturing. The largest area is in business process (£56M in management and business processes related to a variety of sectors, project and asset management, procurement, servitisation, operational research and scheduling, and innovation processes). It also includes research in instrumentation and control engineering (£12M), systems engineering and resource efficiency (£4M in energy efficiency and waste minimisation). The sub-programme also includes a small amount of research in ICT enablers directly relevant to manufacturing (in information and knowledge management, software engineering, HCI and network computing).

Grants funded: 89

Grant value: £97.1 million

User Collaboration Users:

BAE Systems

The Automation Partnership

Siemens

Ford Motor Co.

Mobile VCE

This area receives significant support from a wide variety of users across most sectors – aerospace, automotive, communications, construction and the power sector (including nuclear). Many of the research areas have cross-sector applicability, especially business process and systems engineering.

Leading Centres Loughborough IMRC (in Manufacturing and Construction)

Imperial IMRC (Innovation Studies Centre)

Cambridge IMRC (Institute for Manufacturing)

Cranfield IMRC

Health and Care Infrastructure IMRC (Salford, Reading, Loughborough, Imperial)

27


More than £5 million Loughborough

Imperial

Cambridge

Salford

Nottingham

Newcastle

£2-5 million Reading

Cardiff

Imperial

Warwick

Cranfield

£1-2 million Southampton

Glasgow

Manchester

Sheffield

Research Capability

Doctoral Training Centres

Name of centre University

Industrial Doctorate Centre in Systems

University of Bristol

Industrial Doctorate Centre: Innovative and Collaborative Construction Engineering

University of Loughborough

The Digital Economy Innovation Centre

Lancaster University

Doctoral Training Centre in Web Science

University of Southampton

28

PhD & Postdoc fellows Number of Postdoctoral Associates: 288 (4% of EPSRC total) (Researchers – PDRA, PGRA)

Fellowships Leadership fellows

Number 2

% Programme total

Name / university / department

Dr J M Allwood, Engineering, Cambridge University

Name / university / department`

Dr M O’Neill, Computer Science, University of Belfast


< 34 6 4 0

35 – 44 18 4 0

45 – 54 29 5 0

55 – 64 12 1 1

65+ 1 0 0

Unknown 3 2 0

SWOT analysis

Strengths The majority of the portfolio (more than half) is contained in large projects

and centres (>£2M) — especially in IMRCs. These centres have strong identities and visibility to industry and academic communities.

There is strong relevance to users in this area, and good user support from industry.

There is evidence of entrepreneurship in this theme. For EPSRC grants ending between 2005 and 2010, 33 spin out companies were launched (17 in the area of business process).

Many of the IMRCs in this theme have a high international profile.

Weaknesses Success rates in the area of business process (in manufacturing and

construction) are low outside of IMRCs, and have declined over the last five years.

29

There is little interaction and collaboration across the business process communities (e.g. between construction and manufacturing researchers).

Research in this area can be more applied in nature; this can lead to a lack in long term vision for the research.

There is a low proportion of female academics, although this is not the case for early career grant holders.

Opportunities Manufacturing is currently high on the Government agenda.

Many efficiency savings across the manufacturing sectors can be achieved through process optimisation: there is potential in this theme to address issues of sustainability.

Construction is also high on the Government agenda with the appointment of a new head of an Innovation and Growth Team in construction.

There is a small, dispersed community in systems engineering, including an Industry Doctorate Centre at Bath/Bristol. Further research in systems engineering has potential for high impact on high value manufacturing.

There is scope for more research in resource efficiency.

Threats The prevalence of large centres gives lower visibility to early career

researchers.

Since there is an almost negligible EPSRC portfolio of business process research outside of the IMRCs, and low responsive mode success rates, the future looks uncertain for the area at the end of the current IMRC funding period. The IMRCs will have to ready themselves to be competitive in future. However, there are positive signs: a number of First Grants have recently gone to researchers within construction IMRCs.

Economic downturn threatens user engagement, especially in industries like construction which typically invest relatively little in R&D.

There are barriers in certain sectors to adopt innovative solutions, e.g., due to fragmentation and a prevalence of SMEs, or because of a risk-averse culture.

Systems and Operations

Perceptions

Poor Excellent

International profile

X

Future of area (UK)

X

30

Crossing borders X

User collaboration X

Future research leadership

X

Creativity & adventure

X

Socio-economic benefits and global competitiveness

X

Resources X

Summary This is a diverse theme, covering a number of areas. Much of it tends to be more applied research with strong user engagement shown from the large project partner contributions, across a number of sectors. As with other research areas, where the balance is strongly towards directly relevant research, more long-term, transformative research can suffer. There is scope for more cross-sector interaction and knowledge sharing.

There are many large projects and centres in this theme, particularly a number of IMRCs relevant to manufacturing and construction sectors. Many of these centres have a strong international profile.

The future of research in the area, particularly in business process, looks uncertain due to the economic climate and the end of the current IMRC funding period. Systems engineering is a potential area for growth in the UK with clear benefits to manufacturing. Further research in process and resource efficiency would have clear benefits to the global sustainability challenge.

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Annex 2 List of Posters Presented at the Theme Day8 Number

Grant Reference

PI Name Organisation IMRC9 Grant Title

1 EP/D057310/2 van der Laan, Professor G

Diamond Light Source

Functional bionanomaterials and novel processing for targeted catalytic applications

2 EP/E001599/1

Professor Nigel Titchener-Hooker

University College London

UCL Bioprocessing

Creating Manufacturing Insights for Next Generation Biopharmaceuticals

3 EP/E001599/1

Professor Nigel Titchener-Hooker


UCL Bioprocessing

Creating Step Change Opportunites in the Production of Biological Drugs

4 DT/F002343/1 Slater, Professor N

University of Cambridge

ORT-VAC: live bacterial vectors for vaccine delivery

5 EP/E003125/1 Asenov, Professor AMA

University of Glasgow

Meeting the design challenges of the nano-CMOS electronics

6 EP/C534212/1 Desmulliez, Professor M

Heriot-Watt University

3D-Mintegration: the Design and Manufacture of 3D Integrated Miniaturised Products

7 EP/D502225/1 Henning, Professor I D

University of Essex

Portable Terahertz Systems Based on Advanced InP Technology - PORTRAIT

8 EP/C534247/1 Williams, Professor DJ

Loughborough University

Regenerative Medicine - A New Industry - testing

9 EP/F02553X/1 Professor Denis Hall


SMI Digital Tools and MEMS Simulation and Design

10 EP/D04099X/1 Spikes, Professor HA


LUBRICATION OF HIGH-SLIDING MICROMACHINES

11 EP/E002323/1 Professor Andrew Baldwin


Loughborough An Additive Future

8 Posters 9 and 35 were not presented at the Theme Day as the presenters were unable to travel due to the disruption by the Icelandic Volcanic ash cloud 9 Indicates whether a proposal is from an IMRC or not; for more information on individual IMRCs, see http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/research/centres/Pages/currentimrcs.aspx

32

Number Grant Reference


12 EP/H007598/1 Shaffer, Dr M


Large-scale solvent-free functionalisation of carbon nanotubes

13 EP/E001904/1 Professor Svetan Ratchev

University of Nottingham

Nottingham Lightweight structures manufacturing

14 EP/G049971/1 Professor Ken Young

University of Warwick

Warwick Making Products for Captain Kirk and Dr McCoy

15 EP/E00184X/1 Professor CA McMahon

University of Bath

Bath Manufacturing Research at the Bath IdMRC

16 EP/D065011/1 Fromme, Dr P


Detection of Fatigue Cracks in Multi-layered Aircraft Components using Guided Ultrasonic Waves



Nottingham High precision manufacturing processes.

18 EP/D050332/1 Rahnejat, Professor H


Automotive Transmission Rattle:Root Causes to Innovative Solutions



Nottingham High value adaptive technologies and systems

20 EP/D052696/1 Sims, Dr ND University of Sheffield

Process damping in milling: Theory, experiment, and practical solutions

21 EP/E001874/1

Professor David Stephenson

Cranfield University

Cranfield RUAM Ready to Use Additive Manufacture


PI Name Organisation IMRC Grant Title

22 EP/E00573X/2 Lin, Professor J


A novel process:solution-Heat-treatment, Forming and cold-die Quenching (HFQ)

23 GR/T07459/01 Professor Paul Conway


IeMRC Electronics Materials Processing and Manufacturing

33



technology

24 EP/D068649/1 Miles, Professor RE

University of Leeds

Integrated Functional Materials for System-in-Package Applications

25 EP/E001769/1 Professor Mike Gregory


Cambridge IfM

Manufacturing and Industrial Innovation

26 EP/E040241/1 Baumberg, Professor JJ


Flexible Plastic Industrial-Scale Photonic Crystals for Functional Colour

27 EP/E023967/1 Iannucci, Dr L


A unified approach to predicting failure in composite structures with geometrical discontinuities



Loughborough Future Automation



Loughborough Future Construction

30 EP/C009398/1 Sutcliffe, Dr CJ

University of Liverpool

High Throughput Selective Laser Melting of Cellular Components

31 EP/E00119X/2 Bennett, Professor NG

University of Portsmouth

A Physical Approach to Grain Refinement of Wrought Mg Alloys via Solidification Control

32 GR/S75505/01 Professor Mohamed Naim

Cardiff University

Cardiff

Business Systems Engineering: managing uncertainties through process, attitudinal and technological change

33 EP/E035922/1 Leevers, Dr P


Quantifying and Improving the Reliability of NDE

34 EP/F016905/1 Fernandes, Dr KJ

University of York

Process 2020 Innovation SatNav

35 EP/F02553X/1 Professor Denis Hall


SMI

Photonics and MEMS Adaptive Technologies/Digital Tools and MEMS Simulation and

34



Design

36 EP/E001874/1 Professor David Stephenson


Cranfield

Simulating and Designing a Product-Service System for Health Applications Based on Micro-Integrated Devices

37 EP/E004547/1 Bhaskar, Dr A

University of Southampton

The role of topology and shape in structural design

38 EP/D039614/1 Professor Colin Gray


HaCIRIC Improving Healthcare Building Performance through Simulation

39 EP/G006164/1 Clarkson, Professor J


Commercialisation of "P3: Signposting" - design process modelling and simulation software

40 EP/E001777/1 Professor John Clarkson


Cambridge EDC

Integrated Design for Real World Problems

41 EP/F016522/1 Gachagan, Dr A

University of Strathclyde

PROCESS INTENSIFICATION USING HIGH INTENSITY FOCUSSED ULTRASOUND TECHNIQUES

42 EP/E037631/1 Tjahjono, Dr B


An Evolutionary Approach to Rapid Development of Simulation Models

43 GR/T07459/01 Professor Paul Conway


IeMRC Simulation for high-value electronics manufacturing

44 EP/E001882/1 Professor Mike Kagioglou

University of Salford

Salford Building Simulation and Design

45 EP/E001645/1 Professor Stuart Green


Reading Digital practices in project-based environments

46 EP/H008012/1 Wang, Professor X

University of Leeds

SHAPE: Morphology Characterisation and Control of Particulate Products: Integrating Multi-scale Image Analysis and Modelling

35




PI Name Organisation IMRC Grant Title

47 EP/C524322/1 Smith, Professor R


A Multiscale Modelling Approach to Engineering Functional Coatings

48 EP/F016182/1 Lapkin, Dr A University of Bath

Adaptive processing of natural feedstocks

49 EP/G049971/1 Professor Ken Young

University of Warwick

Warwick

Designing Products for Captain Kirk and Dr McCoy

50 EP/E001777/1 Professor John Clarkson


Cambridge EDC

Successful Design Innovation for an Ageing Population

51 EP/F063822/1 Professor Terry Young

Brunel University

MATCH

Key Manufacturing findings and outputs from MATCH: Decision Making and Processes

52 EP/F063822/1 Professor Terry Young

Brunel University

MATCH

Key Manufacturing findings and outputs from MATCH: Engagement with Users

53 EP/E00184X/1 Professor CA McMahon

University of Bath

Bath Design Research at the Bath IdMRC

54 EP/F003501/1 Azapagic, Professor A

The University of Manchester

Carbon Calculations over the Life Cycle of IndustrIal Activities (CCaLC)

55 EP/F031858/1 Lalwani, Professor CS

University of Hull

Next Generation Manufacture Supply Chains and Economy Research Collaboration (NEX-GEM)

56 EP/F016360/1 Cronin, Professor L

University of Glasgow

Evolvable Process Design (EPD)

36



57 EP/F036930/1 Professor David Gann


Imperial Design and Collaboration

58 EP/F036930/1 Professor David Gann


Imperial Terminal 5 and Eco-cities

59 EP/G005451/1 Tiwari, Dr A Cranfield University

A Business Process Miner for Industry: A Genetic Programming Based Tool

60 EP/H006826/1 Tiwari, Dr A Cranfield University

A Web Business Process Optimiser

61 EP/D076900/1 York, Professor TA

The University of Manchester

Wireless Sensor Networks for Industrial Processes

62 EP/C534220/1 McMahon, Professor C

University of Bath

Bath

Knowledge and Information Management Through Life

63 EP/E001769/1 Professor Mike Gregory


Cambridge IfM

Manufacturing and Industrial Innovation

64 EP/E037208/1 Baden Fuller, Professor C

City University

Financial and Organisational Innovation in UK Biotech

65 EP/E001645/1 Professor Stuart Green


Reading High value construction in the 21st century

66 EP/E001874/1 Professor David Stephenson


Cranfield Product-Service Systems

67 EP/D058937/2 Elhag, Dr TMS


Procurement for Innovation: Developing a Framework for Continuous Innovation Diffusion and Knowledge Transfer through Integrative Procurement Systems

68 GR/S75505/01 Professor Mohamed Naim

Cardiff University

Cardiff Electronic Logistics Marketplaces

69 EP/D039614/1 Professor Colin Gray


HaCIRIC Healthcare Acquired Infection as a whole system problem

37



70 EP/E001882/1 Professor Mike Kagioglou

University of Salford

Salford

Advanced Construction Production Management

71 EP/E03733X/1 Jiang, Professor X

University of Huddersfield

A chip device for on-line assessment in nano-scale surface manufacture

72 EP/C534239/1 Gann, Professor D


Innovation and Productivity Grand Challenge

38

Annex 3 List of Attendees

Title First name Surname Institution

Mr Carl Abbot The University of Salford IMRC

Dr Jeff Alcock Cranfield University IMRC

Professor Adisa Azapagic The University of Manchester

Professor Chris Bailey University of Greenwich

Dr Daniel Balint Imperial College London

Dr Julie Bartnett MATCH

Mr Will Barton Technology Strategy Board

Professor Nick Bennett University of Portsmouth

Dr Alex Berrill University College London

Dr Atul Bhaskar University of Southampton

Dr Kevin Brown Nottingham IMRC

Professor John Clarkson Cambridge EDC IMRC

Professor Brian Collins Department for Transport

Dr Nathan Crilly University of Cambridge

Dr Donal Cronin AstraZeneca

Professor Glyn Davies Imperial College London

Dr Andy Davies Imperial College London IMRC

Professor Phill Dickens EPSRC Manufacturing Group

Professor Terry Dickerson University of Cambridge

Dr Alexander Edwards University of Cambridge

Dr Taha Elhag University College London

Dr Kiran Fernandes The University of York

Dr Paul Fromme University College London

Dr Tony Gachagan University of Strathclyde

Professor David Gann Imperial College London IMRC

39


Dr Tiziano Ghiso Cambridge EDC IMRC

Professor Martin Goosey leMRC

Professor Patrick Grant EPSRC Manufacturing Group

Professor Colin Gray HaCIRIC IMRC

Ms Jane Gray The Manufacturer Magazine

Professor Stuart Green University of Reading IMRC

Professor Mike Gregory Cambridge IFM

Professor Richard Hague Loughborough University IMRC

Dr Abdul Hannan Ali Imperial College London

Dr Robert Harrison Loughborough University IMRC

Dr Colin Harrison EPSRC Manufacturing Group

Professor Ian Henning University of Essex

Dr Ben Hicks University of Bath IMRC

Professor Mike Hoare UCL Bioprocessing IMRC

Professor Paul Jennings University of Warwick IMRC

Professor Nick Jennings EPSRC Manufacturing Group

Professor Jane Jiang University of Huddersfield

Professor Mike Kagioglou The University of Salford IMRC

Dr Alistair Keddie EPSRC Manufacturing Group

Professor Chandra Lalwani University of Hull

Dr Alexai Lapkin University of Warwick

Dr Howard Lightfoot Cranfield University IMRC

Dr Harris Makatsoris Brunel University

Dr Peter Martin The University of Manchester

Dr Jennifer Martin MATCH

Professor Chris McMahon University of Bath IMRC

Dr Angelika Menner Imperial College London

40


Professor John Murphy BAE Systems

Professor Mohamed Naim Cardiff University IMRC

Dr Aydin Nassehi University of Bath

Dr Wendy Nice Rolls-Royce

Professor Paul Nightingale Sussex University

Dr Catherine Noakes University of Leeds

Professor Bill O'Neil

Dr Andrew Potter Cardiff University IMRC

Professor Andrew Price HaCIRIC IMRC

Professor Homer Rahnejat Loughborough University

Professor Svetan Ratchev The University of Nottingham IMRC

Dr Emma Rosamond Loughborough University

Dr Joel Segal Nottingham IMRC

Dr Neil Sims The University of Sheffield

Professor Roger Smith Loughborough University

Dr David Snoswell University of Cambridge

Professor Hugh Spikes Imperial College London

Dr Brian Squire The University of Manchester

Dr Ian Stone Brunel University

Dr Chris Sutcliffe The University of Liverpool

Professor Bruce Tether Imperial College London IMRC

Professor Tony Thorpe Loughborough University IMRC

Professor Nigel Tichener - Hooker UCL Bioprocessing IMRC

Dr Ash Tiwari Cranfield University

Dr Benny Tjahjono Cranfield University

Dr Chris Turner Cranfield University

41


Professor Xue Wang University of Leeds

Dr Andy West leMRC

Dr Jennifer Whyte University of Reading IMRC

Professor Stewart Williams Cranfield University IMRC

Professor David Williams Loughborough University IMRC

Dr Joe Wood University of Birmingham

Professor Eric Yeatman Imperial College London

Professor Trevor York The University of Manchester

Professor Ken Young University of Warwick IMRC

Professor Terry Young MATCH

Professor Mark Zwolinski University of Southampton

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Annex 4 Panel Biographies

Professor Dame Ann Dowling, University of Cambridge Ann Dowling is Head of the Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge where she is Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Chairman of the University Gas Turbine Partnership with Rolls-Royce. She has held visiting posts at MIT (Jerome C Hunsaker Visiting Professor, 1999) and at Caltech (Moore Distinguished Scholar 2001). Ann Dowling's research is primarily in the fields of combustion, acoustics and vibration and is aimed, in particular, at low-emission combustion and quiet vehicles. She was the UK lead of the Silent Aircraft Initiative, a collaboration between researchers at Cambridge and MIT who have released the conceptual design of an ultra-low noise and fuel efficient aircraft, SAX40.

Ann Dowling is a Fellow of the Royal Society (Council Member), Royal Academy of Engineering (Vice-President 1999-2002) and is a Foreign Associate Member of the US National Academy of Engineering and of the French Academy of Sciences. She has served on a number of industry and government advisory committees, and chaired the Royal Society/Royal Academy of Engineering study on nanotechnology and the Engineering Panel of the UK Research Assessment Exercise, 2008. She was appointed CBE for services to Mechanical Engineering in 2002, DBE for services to Science in 2007, and received an Honorary ScD from Trinity College Dublin in 2008.

Expertise: Mechanical engineering, combustion, acoustics and vibration.

Dr D Bhardwaj, Laing O’Rourke plc Dr Bhardwaj is very well qualified in both research (former professor of Computer Science & Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and MBA from Imperial College London) as well as practice in Laing O’Rourke and elsewhere. He is also visiting fellow at Imperial College Business School.

Dr Bhardwaj has worked in multiple posts and institutions (both in India and USA) in different areas of mathematics and computer sciences & Engineering. Particular areas which he has taught and researched in are Scientific Computing, Parallel, Distributed and e-science (Grid Computing), Seismic Data Processing for Oil and Gas Exploration and Strategy Dynamics & Innovation. He has nearly 50 research papers in international journals and refereed conferences. He has been advisor to several departments of Government of India and private businesses. He is recipient of Young Scientist Awards from Department of Science and Technology and Indian National Science Academy India.

Dr. Bhardwaj is currently an Innovation Strategist at Laing O’Rourke. Laing O’Rourke (largest privately owned construction company in UK) have just completed a £100m investment in a new construction products manufacturing factory in the UK and are in the planning for further facilities.

Expertise: Construction, Business Strategy, Business Incubation & Development, Innovation, Mathematics and Computer Sciences

43

http://silentaircraft.org/

http://silentaircraft.org/sax40

http://www.nanotec.org.uk/

http://www.nanotec.org.uk/

Professor D S Boning, EECS MIT Duane Boning is Professor and Associate Head of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT. He is affiliated with the MIT Microsystems Technology Laboratories.

Duane S. Boning received the S.B. degrees in electrical engineering and in computer science in 1984, and the S.M. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering in 1986 and 1991, respectively, all from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was an NSF Fellow from 1984 to 1989, and an Intel Graduate Fellow in 1990. From 1991 to 1993 he was a Member Technical Staff at the Texas Instruments Semiconductor Process and Design Center in Dallas, Texas, where he worked on semiconductor process representation, process/device simulation tool integration, and statistical modeling and optimization.

Dr. Boning is a Fellow of the IEEE, is Editor in Chief for the IEEE Transactions on Semiconductor Manufacturing, and has served as chairman of the CFI/Technology CAD Framework Semiconductor Process Representation Working Group. He is a member of the IEEE, Electrochemical Society, Eta Kappa Nu, Tau Beta Pi, Materials Research Society, Sigma Xi, and the Association of Computing Machinery.

His research interests include the modelling and control of variation in IC and MEMS processes, devices, and circuits. Particular emphasis is on modelling of chemical mechanical polishing (CMP), plasma etch and embossing processes; and statistical characterization and design for manufacturing in advanced IC technologies.

Expertise: Semiconductor process, process/device simulation tool integration, statistical modeling and optimisation.

Professor J Browne, Galway University Jim Browne graduated with a BE in Industrial Engineering from NUI Galway in 1974. Later he graduated with a Masters Degree in Engineering Science from NUi, Galway and a PhD (1980) and DSc (1990) from the University of Manchester. He has worked in industry in Ireland and in Canada and in the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology. Professor Browne is the founder director of the Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) Research Unit. A former Dean of Engineering, he has many years experience of working in applied research and development (R&D), including extensive experience of European Union and industrially based projects. During his tenure as Dean of Engineering, he led the Faculty in developing a new suite of undergraduate engineering programmes in areas such as biomedical engineering, electronic and computer engineering and environmental engineering, and in the initial development of the case for a new Engineering Building in NUI Galway. He has served on the advisory committees of many national, international and European Union R&D programmes and has wide experience as a participant and an evaluator of international R&D programmes. He has also served on the board of the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies, as a member of the Irish Council for Science, Technology & Innovation (ICSTI), and as Chairman of the very successful Galway Science & Technology Festival.

Expertise: Engineering science, Computer Integrated Manufacturing

44

http://www-eecs.mit.edu/

http://www-eecs.mit.edu/

http://www-mtl.mit.edu/home.html

http://www-mtl.mit.edu/home.html

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/189180/environmental-engineering

Mr S Burgess, Rolls-Royce plc Stephen Burgess, Manufacturing Process and Technology Director of Rolls-Royce, Rolls-Royce has 25 years experience in aerospace manufacture and currently holds a principle role in Strategic Operations managing the acquisition of manufacturing capability to support global operations. Stephen is recognised at a national level for his strategic vision of manufacturing and has a number of influential roles on industrial advisory groups including; Chair for Centre of Excellence for Customised Assembly (CECA) Steering Board, Board of Directors for the University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) and Chair for Industrial Advisory Board Nottingham Innovative Manufacturing Research Centre (NIMRC).

Expertise: Manufacturing Process & Technology

Professor George Chryssolouris, University of Patras He is currently very influential in Europe and it would be good to show him our full portfolio. His CV is an unusual mix of the academic and commercial at a very high level including time as a professor at MIT and as CEO of the Greek telecom operator.

He is the Director of the Laboratory for Manufacturing Systems and Automation (LMS). LMS is working on a variety of research subjects including production systems planning and control, software development for industrial networking, innovative manufacturing processes, virtual reality engineering applications, and quality control and metrology.

Professor Chryssolouris was Chief Executive Officer of OTE, the national Greek telecom operator, and member of its board of directors (1996-1999), and it became the first Greek company to be listed in the NYSE (New York Stock Exchange). Professor Chryssolouris was also advisor to the Prime Minister of Greece on education and technology (1996-1998).

Professor Chryssolouris worked at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) in the USA and he led a research group for the development of information systems and automation for industrial applications. He taught at MIT undergraduate and graduate level subjects related to manufacturing, systems, design and automation.

Professor Chryssolouris has more than 200 publications in international scientific journals and refereed conferences. He is the author of two books published by Springer Verlag.

He holds a US Patent for a laser machine design. He was granted the Frederick W. Taylor Research Medal by SME (2001) for his outstanding contributions to manufacturing research. He was also the recipient of SME/s Young Outstanding Manufacturing Engineer Award (1986).

Expertise: Manufacturing systems and automation, development of information systems

Professor Adrian Demaid, Independent - Jersey Adrian Demaid is Professor of Engineering Systems. He founded the Knowledge Based Systems in Engineering research group, which was dedicated to developing novel computing languages fitted for representing technical

45

knowledge. His teaching is characterised by the research and development of case studies to present engineering in its context, an interest that led to his becoming a founder and trustee of the European Society of Materials Engineering.

Expertise: Engineering systems, Material Engineering

Professor Udo Lindemann, TU Munich Dr. Udo Lindemann is the head of the Institute of Product Development at the Technical University of Munich since 1995, where he was also dean for study matters, vice dean and dean of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. Dr. Lindemann studied mechanical engineering at the University of Hannover, where he graduated in 1974 with a main focus on thermal process engineering: He received his PhD at the Technical University of Munich in 1979. His industrial experience includes leading positions at Renk AG, Augsburg, in divisions such as mechanical engineering design and product development, board membership of MAN Miller Druckmaschinen GmbH where he was responsible for production, logistics, quality, services, personal and factory planning. In addition to his job-related activities, Prof. Dr.-Ing. U. Lindemann was VDI-EKV-representative of the "VDI-Gemeinschaftsausschuss", "Industrielle Systemtechnik (GIS)" and the "VDI-Ausschuss Methodisches Konstruieren". He also was assessor for the "VDI-Bezirksverein" in Augsburg and for the "DIN-NSM AA4 CAD-Normteildatei". He is one of the editors of the German journal "Konstruktion" and co-editor of several international journals. Since the initiation of "The Design Society" in 2003, he has been an active member of the management board and its President since 2007. In 2008 he became a member of the German Academy of Science and Engineering. He has published about a dozen books on engineering design in German and English topics including cost efficient design, human behaviour in design, methodical design and structural complexity management.

Expertise: product development theory and methodology; product development processes; product development; and design management; new tools for product development; empirical design studies.

Dr Rick A Wysk, North Caroline State University His research and teaching interests are in the general area of Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) and medical device design and manufacturing. In particular, he is interested in: 1) lean manufacturing (waste elimination and setup reduction), 2) product/process engineering, 3) Computer-Aided Manufacturing, 4) Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMSs) planning, design and control, and most recently 5) the engineering of medical products. Dr. Wysk has coauthored six books including Computer-Aided Manufacturing, with T.C. Chang and H.P. Wang -- the 1991 IIE Book of the Year and the 1991 SME Eugene Merchant Book of the Year. He has also published more than one-hundred fifty technical papers in the open-literature in journals including the Transactions of ASME, the Transactions of IEEE and the IIE Transactions. He is an Associate Editor and/or a member of the Editorial Board for five technical journals. Dr. Wysk is an IIE Fellow, an SME Fellow, a member of Sigma Xi, and a member of Alpha Pi Mu and Tau Beta Pi. He is the recipient of the IIE Region III Award for Excellence, the SME Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award and the IIE David F. Baker Distinguished Research Award. He has held engineering positions with General Electric and Caterpillar Tractor Company. He has also served on the faculties of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and

46

Texas A&M University where he held the Royce Wisenbaker Chair in Innovation. He is a veteran of the U.S. Army, and served in Vietnam, where he earned a Bronze Star and an Army Commendation Medal with an Oak Leaf Cluster.

Expertise: Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM), medical device design and manufacturing, lean manufacturing, computer-aided manufacturing, flexible manufacturing systems (FMSs) planning, design and control, engineering of medical products.

Professor Tugrul Daim, Portland State University Professor Daim is currently on the faculty of Department of Engineering and Technology Management at Portland State University where he had held an adjunct position teaching classes until he joined full time in 2005. He taught or is scheduled to lecture in other institutes in US (Oregon Graduate Institute) and other countries including Korea (SUNY Seoul Distance Learning Program), South Africa (University of Pretoria), Turkey (Bogazici University) and in Germany (University of Saarland and Technical University of Hamburg at Harburg). He teaches a wide range of classes in Technology Management.

He worked at Intel Corporation for over a decade. He had held management positions ranging from technology planning, development, transfer to new product development. He was responsible for development of a new server microprocessor. At Intel he managed global teams located in Asia (Malaysia), Europe (Ireland, Denmark), Middle East (Israel), and South America (Puerto Rico, Costa Rica).

He frequently consults, lectures to and collaborates with companies on topics including Technology Intelligence, Technology Roadmapping, Technology Evaluation and Forecasting, Technology Transfer, Technology Management for Services, and Product and Technology Integration. Companies and organizations he has been working with include Bonneville Power Administration, Intel, Tektronix, Cascade MicroTech, Elsevier, IBM, HP in US; Samsung, LG, ETRI, STEPI, KTTC in Korea; Marks and Spencer, Castrol Oil, Colgate-Palmolive, Siemens, Dr Kuttner in Europe; Koc Holding and Turkpetrol Holding in Turkey. Professor Daim is the Co Director of Technical Activities and Program Co Chair of Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology.

Recently he has been elected to be the Editor-in-Chief for International Journal of Innovation and Technology Management.

Professor Daim conducts funded and collaborative research. His current research interests include evaluation of technologies in the energy and healthcare sectors.

Expertise: Technology evaluation and acquisition, new product development, technology forecasting, manufacturing management.

Dr Clint Atwood, Sandia National Laboratories Dr. Clint Atwood is a Principal Member of Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratories where he manages a portfolio of collaborative technology development projects between Sandia and Lockheed Martin Corporation. He has worked at Sandia almost 35 years (manufacturing). Prior to his work in developing and managing industry collaborations, he was the Rapid Prototyping Team Leader at Sandia, responsible for the development and integration of laser-assisted Rapid Prototyping and Direct Metal Fabrication technologies into

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manufacturing. He is Past Chairman of the Rapid Prototyping Association of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers, Past Chairman of the DTM Selective Laser Sintering Users Group, and Past Chairman of the 3D Systems North American Stereolithography Users Group, past member of the Board of Directors of the Laser Institute of America, past member of the advisory committee for the University of Texas Solid Freeform Fabrication Symposium. He has participated as a panel member in many reviews of technology development in the United States and internationally including: the World Technology Evaluation Center worldwide assessment of rapid prototyping technologies; Loughborough IMCRC; National Science Foundation (NSF); Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Office of Naval Research (ONR) and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Clint has authored and presented many papers worldwide on the integration, applications, and development of rapid prototyping technologies. Prior to his work in Rapid Prototyping, Clint supervised the Heavy Machining Section, Miniature Machining Section, and Machinist Apprentice Section at Sandia.

Expertise: Manufacturing, Rapid Prototyping, Machining, Selective Laser Sintering, Laser Engineered Net-Shaping.

Professor Geoff McFarland, Renishaw plc, Group Engineering Director Geoff McFarland, Group Engineering Director, has a degree in mechanical engineering, and is a visiting professor at the University of Bath and an honorary professor at Heriot-Watt University. After working in the medical device and electronic manufacturing sectors, Geoff joined Renishaw’s research facility in Edinburgh in 1994, before moving to headquarters to become Director and General Manager of the CMM Products Division. Geoff was appointed to the Board in July 2002. He heads the group engineering function and is also responsible for group IP and patents. Geoff is a non-executive director of Delcam plc.

Expertise: Mechanical engineering, medical devices and electronic manufacturing sectors.

Professor Mitchell Tseng, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Prof. Tseng started his production engineering career in developing key enabling manufacturing technologies for IT industry. Some of them, including diamond machining for polygons in laser printers, are still widely used in industry. After serving in industry for two decades, he joined HKUST in 1993 as the founding department head of Industrial Engineering. He also held academic positions as a member of faculty in the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

He is an elected fellow of the International Academy of Production Engineers (CIRP), and ASME. Professor Tseng is internationally known for his work in Mass Customization and Global Manufacturing. He was invited twice, 2003 and 2007, as Keynote Speaker for Manufuture Conference, the European Union Summit for Manufacturing professionals and policy makers. Professor Tseng has been serving as a co-chair of the International Mass Customization and Personalization Conferences (MCPC) since its inauguration in 2001. In 2007, MCPC was held in Media Lab, MIT. The research results have been brought directly to industries through a development arm in Zhejiang Advanced Manufacturing Institute of

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HKUST. Sponsors of his research and consulting projects include AT & T, Astec-Emerson, Esquel, Honeywell, Lucent Technologies, Intel, SAP, Rockwell International, Liz Claiborne, Motorola, Nokia, GAP, Ford Motor, Norvullus, Tecton, Synocus, Yueshen, OOCL, Novellus, Ove ARUP, HK Air Cargo Container Limited and others.

Professor Mitchell M. Tseng joined the HKUST faculty as the founding department head in 1993 after working in industry for almost two decades. He started his career in industry as a Manufacturing Engineer and progressed through several senior management positions; Manufacturing Technology Manager at Xerox, CIM Technology Manager, Group Manager in charge of Applied Intelligent Systems Group and US Area Engineering Manager for Systems Integration Services at Digital Equipment Corporation. He previously held faculty positions at University of Illinois at Champaign Urbana and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Expertise: Production engineering, IT, Manufacturing technologies

Dr Harald Egner, Fraunhofer IPA Harald Egner has been with Fraunhofer for well over 25 years and since 2009 he is working with Prof. Engelbert Westkämper of Fraunhofer IPA and is in charge of the UK activities on behalf of Fraunhofer IPA and the Fraunhofer Production Alliance. Apart from his UK activities he is responsible for European business development including FP7 and European network initiatives as well as supporting the Manufuture ETP.

After graduating at the University of Stuttgart with a master’s degree in mechanical engineering Harald officially joint Fraunhofer after working there already part time during his studies. His work at Fraunhofer in Stuttgart took him from the early stages of automation in the early 80s to design for automation and into product development. His focus in the 90s was very much on customer driven product development and relevant methodologies such as QFD. All through his professional career he was working very much on the application and implementation of technology, particularly for SME. Becoming deputy director of Fraunhofer TEG in 1999 Harald focused on more general innovation and strategic issues. From 1999 to 2001 he was a elected member of the Fraunhofer internal advisory board (Hauptkommission) for the board of Fraunhofer directors. Before leaving Stuttgart Harald was a Deputy director of Fraunhofer TEG.

To gain new experience Harald moved with his family to the UK in 2002 with a focus to build new European business partnerships and networks with a particular focus on EU projects funded through European Framework Programme. The activities resulted in a large number of successful proposals for various Fraunhofer Institutes particularly in the impact driven “Research for SME” part of Framework Programme.

Due to his vast experience in working with SME on national and European level Harald was on the advisory board to the SME unit inside DG Research from 2003 (FP6) to 2008.

From the time Harald came to the UK to date he was involved as a board member with Faradays and KTNs and started to learn about R&D infrastructure in the UK. The latest involvement was in activities to arrange a joint UK/Fraunhofer funding programme and in the Hauser Review.

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Annex 5 Theme Day Methodology A Theme Day is a well-established mechanism EPSRC with the main aim of evaluating the effectiveness of EPSRC’s support for research in an area that cuts across its programme boundaries. By definition it complements its regular programme and sector reviews.

A secondary aim of the Theme Day mechanism is to provide advocacy by generating information on research achievements and successes that can be used to demonstrate the importance of research.

Thirdly it provides an opportunity for individuals within a particular research community to network with their peers, the panel and other stakeholders (see Annex 3).

The objectives for this Theme Day in Manufacturing Research were to;

Internationally benchmark the strength of EPSRC-funded academic manufacturing research and assess the ability of EPSRC to deliver manufacturing skills and knowledge

Assess the user-led and knowledge exchange aspects of the funding and indicate how well these are contributing towards economic impact

Assess and identify any limitations in the current funding landscape and approach, highlight any gaps and provide recommendations to maximise outcomes

By implication, the key outputs of the event would help building the case for Manufacturing Research and therefore inform strategy and activities in this area.

The rest of this Annex deal with the following aspects of the Theme Day methodology;

Selection of the Portfolio of Projects

Selection of the Panel

Poster Presentations

Evaluation Framework

Theme Day Agenda

a. Selection of the Portfolio of Projects The Theme Day assessment looks at projects considered by EPSRC as being related to manufacturing research; this could be from industrially-inspired research through to very blue-skies research (and everything in between). The definition of what constitutes Manufacturing Research is described briefly in Section 3 of the main report, and in more detail in Annex 1. To provide a representative sample whilst maintaining a manageable volume for a one-day event, 72 posters were selected to be invited to the event to present their research highlights.

The most significant single activity relevant to the current EPSRC Manufacturing Portfolio is the Innovative Manufacturing Research Centres (IMRCs – for more

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http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/pubs/reports/Pages/default.aspx

details, see http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/research/centres/pages/currentimrcs.aspx) which currently includes 17 centres with a total grant commitment of over £120M. Whilst the IMRC mechanism and the individual IMRCs have been extensively reviewed over a number of years in more detail than the Theme Day methodology could provide, clearly the research outputs of the IMRCs constitute a considerable proportion of EPSRC’s activity in this area. Consequently half of the posters presented at the Theme Day were allocated to the IMRCs (most were allotted two posters per Centres, with the largest Centres given three posters).

The majority of the rest of the posters were selected from the portfolio by choosing projects that had recently finished (< 6 months ago) or were to shortly finish (< 6 months to go); a small number of projects not meeting these criteria were selected to ensure the range of posters more closely matched the wider EPSRC Manufacturing research portfolio, as described in the Landscapes documents, presented in Annex 1.

However, it is important to note that the key findings for a Theme Day are not the individual project scores but the aggregation of those scores (overall, by Theme, by sub Theme, by sector etc) to show the higher-level trends and messages to EPSRC.

b. Selection of the Panel To put together a panel of appropriate standing to assess the EPSRC’s portfolio in Manufacturing research, nominations for potential panel members were sought from

IMRC Directors,

EPSRC SAT Members,

EPSRC Manufacturing Group members,

Technology Strategy Board (TSB)

Relevant EPSRC Strategic Partners

TWI

Based on the nominations, EPSRC then invited potential panel members to;

Cover the technical scope of the review (as described in Annex 1)

Able to provide a broader view

To provide either international & industrial perspectives

Provide an appropriate geographic representation

The full panel was;

Member Organisation

Professor Dame Ann Dowling (Chair) University of Cambridge, UK

Mr Clint Atwood Sandia National Labs, USA

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http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/research/centres/pages/currentimrcs.aspx

http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/research/centres/Pages/currentimrcs.aspx

http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/about/governance/sats/pages/default.aspx

http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/manufacturing/Pages/emg.aspx

http://www.innovateuk.org/

http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/about/partner/Pages/strategic.aspx

http://www.twi.co.uk/

Member Organisation

Dr Dheeraj Bhardwaj Laing O’Rourke plc

Professor Duane Boning MIT, USA

Professor James Browne University of Galway, Ireland

Mr Steve Burgess Rolls Royce

Professor George Chryssolouris University of Patras, Greece

Professor Tugrul Daim Portland State University, USA

Professor Adrian Demaid Emeritus Professor at The Open University

Dr Harald Egner Fraunhofer IPA, Germany

Professor Udo Lindemann Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM), Germany

Professor Geoff McFarland Renishaw PLC

Professor Mitchell Tseng University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong

Dr Ryck Wysk North Carolina State University, USA

c. Poster Presentations Each poster would be presented to a pair of panel members, with 15 minutes allowed per poster (with a suggestion of around 10 mins for discussion with presenter, and 5 mins discussion between pairs) and then each panel member would score (see Annex 6 for the outcomes) the poster against the evaluation framework discussed below. Each poster would be seen by the most appropriate panel member (and one other) except in cases where there are conflicts of interests (e.g. collaboration with the project, steering committee membership, visiting position at the same institution etc).

d. Evaluation Framework Individual panel members were asked to score posters (from 1 to 5) against five main criteria as follows (Questions 1 to 3 as primary criteria, 4 to 5 as secondary criteria), which was developed specifically for this review. As the secondary criteria often proved difficult to score, the main findings of the report focus almost exclusively on the primary criteria.

Primary Criteria Question 1. What is the inherent scientific quality of this work?

1. Weak

2. Nationally competitive

3. Nationally leading

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4. Internationally competitive

5. World leading

Question 2. Is there evidence of dynamism in the work in an international research context?

1. Seems to have been pursuing the same angle of research for too long

2. Slow to respond to changes in the research environment

3. Responds to changes in the research environment

4. Responds rapidly to changes in the research environment

5. Proactive in pursuing new directions and pushing research boundaries

Question 3. What links has the researcher built with users of research?

1. None or little apparent

2. OK – Weaker relationships with small proportion of available links

3. Fair – Strong links with a very small proportion of relevant users or wider number of weaker links

4. Strong – Excellent links with some relevant users

5. Very strong – strong beneficial links with key relevant users

Secondary Criteria Question 4. What is the researcher’s attitude to entrepreneurship?

1. Anti-entrepreneurship

2. Reluctant

3. Open to opportunities

4. Strong – Excellent links with some relevant users

5. Keen and proactively seeking out appropriate opportunities

Question 5. Have they experienced success as an entrepreneur?

1. No

2. Preparing to launch a business

3. Indications of success

4. Successful

5. Serial entrepreneur with string of successful business

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The diagram below represents a logic flow between these questions, the overall aims of EPSRC, the questions likely to elicit the information required and the sources of evidence the panel were expected to use to come to their overall conclusions and recommendations;

e. Theme Day Agenda In addition to the poster presentations, the Theme Day Agenda incorporated other strands to provide a fuller picture of the UK Manufacturing research area to the panel and further opportunities to influence EPSRC strategy and provide evidence for EPSRC to make the case for Manufacturing;

The Full agenda 10.30: Introduction – Catherine Coates

10.45: Plenary - Brian Collins (Cranfield University)

11.30: Session 1

Posters Session – Group 1 (Blue)

Strategy - Group 2 (Red)

Strategy - Group 3 (Green)

12.30 Lunch Working Lunch - Panel meet Young Researchers

13.30 Panel - Closed Session

14.00: Session 2

Strategy – Group 1

Posters Session – Group 2

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Strategy – Group 3 (continued)

15.00: Coffee

15.30 Session 3



Posters Session - Group 3

16.30 Plenary Talk – Mike Gregory (University of Cambridge)

17.00 Wrap Up – Vince Osgood

ii) Plenary Presentations a. “Research in manufacturing - a critical investment for a balanced

economy” by Professor Brian Collins, Professor of Information Systems at Cranfield University

b. “Shaping Public Research to Support Industrial Innovation” by Professor Mike Gregory, University of Cambridge

iii) Breakout Sessions on Strategy Purpose – the Theme Day methodology allows delegates to have periods when they are not presenting their posters. Having gathered so many of the key players, this provided an excellent opportunity for them to directly inform EPSRC’s strategy in this area. Each delegate took part in two sessions;

a. Each group (~30 delegates) completed a SWOT analysis, facilitated by EPSRC staff.

b. Each group (same groups as session A) identified 3-5 opportunities from the previous session to explore further. Each of these opportunities was explored using a pre-defined list of questions, displayed on proformas. The key opportunities may help to influence future strategy of UK manufacturing research beyond this workshop as a community-led activity in partnership with EPSRC.

The outcomes of these sessions are summarised in Annex 7.

Annex 6 Quantitative Findings Individual panel members were asked to score posters (from 1 to 5) against five main criteria as follows (Questions 1 to 3 as primary criteria, 4 to 5 as secondary criteria)

Question 1. What is the inherent scientific quality of this work?

Weak

Nationally competitive

Nationally leading

Internationally competitive

World leading

Question 2. Is there evidence of dynamism in the work in an international research context?

Seems to have been pursuing the same angle of research for too long

Slow to respond to changes in the research environment

Responds to changes in the research environment

Responds rapidly to changes in the research environment

Proactive in pursuing new directions and pushing research boundaries

Question 3. What links has the researcher built with users of research?

None or little apparent

OK – Weaker relationships with small proportion of available links

Fair – Strong links with a very small proportion of relevant users or wider number of weaker links

Strong – Excellent links with some relevant users

Very strong – strong beneficial links with key relevant users

Question 4. What is the researcher’s attitude to entrepreneurship?

Anti-entrepreneurship

Reluctant

Open to opportunities

Strong – Excellent links with some relevant users

Keen and proactively seeking out appropriate opportunities

Question 5. Have they experienced success as an entrepreneur?

No

Preparing to launch a business

Indications of success

Successful

Serial entrepreneur with string of successful business

After the scores were collected, scores from both speakers were averaged to form a single score for each poster. Notably, in nearly all cases there was strong agreement between each pair of scores for the posters. The averages, ranges and interrelationships of the scores against each of the criteria were then analysed as follows against theme, sub-theme and sector relevance.

0.0

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

2.5

3.0

3.5

4.0

4.5

AdaptiveTechnologies

Simulation andDesign

Systems andOperations

Theme

Mean

sco

re Q1 Scientific QualityQ2 DynamismQ3 User LinkQ4 Entrepreneurship AttitudeQ5 Entrepreneurial Success

Fig. 1. Mean score assigned by the panel for each of the criteria assessed for the 3 themes

Figure 1 shows the mean score awarded by the panel for all posters lying within each of the three themes of Adaptive Technology, Simulation & Design and Systems & Operations. Where projects crossed a number of thematic areas, their score was included in the mean for their primary theme. Mean scores are given for each of the five criteria outlined above. The scores show, for example, that posters in the Adaptive Technologies theme were ranked highest on average in terms of scientific quality (Q1); posters in the Systems & Operations theme were ranked lowest.

The spread of the scores for questions 1 to 3 are given in figures 6, 7 and 3.

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0.0

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

2.5

3.0

3.5

4.0

4.5

Aerospaceand Defence

Construction Healthcare Electronics

Sector

Mean

sco

re Q1 Scientific QualityQ2 DynamismQ3 User LinkQ4 Entrepreneurship AttitudeQ5 Entrepreneurial Success

Fig. 2. Mean score assigned by the panel for each of the criteria assessed for posters relevant to a number of manufacturing sectors

Figure 2 shows the mean score awarded by the panel for posters relevant to four main manufacturing sectors. Again, mean scores are given for each of the five criteria. The highest mean score against Q3 (user links) was given to posters relevant to the healthcare sector.

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

0 1 2 3 4 5 6

Q1 Scientific quality

Q2

Dyn

am

ism

Fig. 3. Scores assigned by the panel for Q2 (dynamism) against those for Q1 (scientific quality). Note that a number of data points overlap.

Figure 3 shows the relationship between the scores given by the panel to all projects for Q2 (dynamism) and those scores for Q1 (scientific quality). There is strong positive correlation between the scores awarded against the two criteria.

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0

1

2

3

4

5

6

0 1 2 3 4 5 6

Q1 Scientific quality

Q3

Use

r lin

ks

Fig. 4. Scores assigned by the panel for Q3 (user links) against those for Q1 (scientific quality). Note that a number of data points overlap.

Figure 4 shows the relationship between the scores given by the panel to all projects for Q3 (user links) and those scores for Q1 (scientific quality). There is weak positive correlation between scores given against the two criteria; however, there are a number of posters perceived to have low user links but high scientific quality, and vice versa.

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

AdaptiveTechnologies -

Materials Processing

Simulation andDesign (all)

Systems andOperations -

Business Processes

Sub-theme

Mea

n s

core Q1 Scientific Quality

Q2 Dynamism

Q3 User Link

Q4 Entrepreneurship Attitude

Q5 Entrepreneurial Success

Fig. 5. Mean score assigned by the panel for each of the criteria assessed for posters within relevant sub-themes and themes. These account for around 80% of all of the posters.

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Figure 5 shows the mean score awarded by the panel for all posters lying within the Simulation & Design theme, posters in the materials processing area of the Adaptive Technologies Theme, and posters in the Systems & Operations theme on research in business process. These posters accounted for around four out of every five proposals presented at the Theme Day. Mean scores are given for each of the five criteria outlined above. Of the three areas, business process had the lowest mean score in terms of scientific quality (Q1); materials processing had the highest.

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

5 4.5 4 3.5 3 2.5 2 1.5 1 NA

Score

Nu

mb

er o

f p

ost

ers


Fig. 6. Spread of scores assigned by the panel to posters for Q1 (scientific quality)

Figures 6, 7 and 8 show the spread of scores assigned by the panel to posters within the three themes, against questions 1 (scientific quality), 2 (dynamism) and 3 (user links), respectively.

For Q1 (scientific quality) the modal score for projects within the Adaptive Technologies and Simulation & Design themes was 4; for posters with the Systems & Operations theme it was 3.

For Q3 (user links) the modal score for projects within the Adaptive Technologies and Systems & Operations themes was 5; for posters with the Simulations & Design theme it was 3.

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0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

5 4.5 4 3.5 3 2.5 2 1.5 1 NA

Score

Nu

mb

er o

f p

ost

ers


Fig. 7. Spread of scores assigned by the panel to posters for Q2 (dynamism)

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

5 4.5 4 3.5 3 2.5 2 1.5 1 NA

Scores

Nu

mb

er o

f p

ost

ers


Fig. 8. Spread of scores assigned by the panel to posters for Q3 (user links)

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Annex 7 Break-Out Sessions

Session A: SWOT analysis The strategy breakout sessions aimed to gather a community perception of the current state-of-play of manufacturing research in the UK. A SWOT (strengths-weaknesses-opportunities-threats) analysis was performed separately for each of the three groups of participants. These SWOTs were then collectively summarised and the key points presented to the panel during the wrap-up session.

These summaries are reproduced below:

What are the strengths of UK Manufacturing Research? UK University Knowledge Base

o Has good international profile

o Produces a large number of highly-cited papers

o Has retained strength in engineering design

Invention and Innovation

Industrial Collaboration is strong and is supported by:

o World-leading companies across a number of sectors based in the UK

o Small industries are prepared to adopt new ideas

o Strong industrial – academic links

Breadth and Depth exists in the UK research base

o Multi-disciplinarity of research

Established funding models - bringing stability for the research base with mechanisms that allow some flexibility, including:

o Increasing RCUK/TSB alignment

o Centre models (IMRC brand)

o Exemplar industrial models (e.g. Rolls Royce University Technology Centres and Advanced ‘X’ Research Centres as well as similar models being adopted by other companies/sectors)

Increasing awareness of KT and exploitation routes across UK academia

What are the weaknesses of UK Manufacturing Research? (Public) perception of area is poor – seen as boring, failing, having a lack

of prospects

Skills gap exists

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o School education insufficient

o Lack of UK graduates and PhDs

o Gender and age imbalance

Research translation

o There are a lack of incentives and processes by which it can be achieved leading to a low ability generally to do this successfully

o Valley of death gap exists in the UK – the gap in funding from research through development to commercialisation

Financial environment

o The cost of research in the UK is high

o Capital equipment is ageing with limited funding to renew

o Lack of industrial cash

Strategy

o Lack of high-level strategic direction

o No one body exists to represent the whole area resulting in no collective vision

o Lacking alignment between government priorities and individual university strategies

What are the opportunities for UK Manufacturing Research? ICT Enablers

o Digital Technologies for Manufacturing

o Virtual systems in Manufacturing

Next Generation Technologies

o Paradigm shift in product development

o Exploiting the strength of research base

Design Integration

o Integration of Design with Manufacturing

o Customised Design and Manufacturing

Holistic Systems

o Cradle-to-cradle approaches

o Supply networks

o Integration of sustainable materials to manufacturing processes

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User-embedded research

Strong links between academia and industry place us in a strong position to do this

What are the threats for UK Manufacturing Research? Local and Global Economic Climate

o The impact of this on industrial R&D spend

We are part of a global Marketplace with the following impacts:

o Greater funding is available elsewhere

o Low-cost manufacturing economies

o Growing competition

Sustainability of research funding and leadership

o Recruiting and retaining (UK) students and staff is an issue

o Fragmentation of research (research dependent on funding available)

Expectations upon Research

o Academic/industrial differences in the expectations from research collaborations

o Challenges of IP issues

Target-driven metrics

Session B: Opportunities for UK Manufacturing Reosearch The second strategy session aimed to identify and explore key opportunities for UK manufacturing research. The participants were first asked to vote on which opportunities from the previous session they would be willing to explore in more detail and then, through discussion with their colleagues, assess the feasibility and added value of each approach. Although it was made clear that these opportunities would not feed into the panel assessment exercise, the participants were informally invited to take these opportunities forward beyond the workshop and encourage community-led activities based on their discussions.

Documents

EPSRC Theme Day in Manufacturing Research - Report