Author: Will Blackshaw

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InterAct partners with LightGuide to explore digital transformation, inclusion and innovation in manufacturing

On Wednesday 4th December, InterAct joined forces with LightGuide, Inc. to host a webinar focused on digital transformation, inclusion and innovation in manufacturing.

This session featured Professor Colin Lindsay from InterAct’s ‘Future of Work’ team and Dr Marisa Smith of the ‘Disability Inclusion in Manufacturing’ project, alongside LightGuide’s Managing Director – EMEA, Marc Baines.

The aim of the webinar was to examine the growth of digital solutions in manufacturing and what opportunities they offer organisations willing to embrace change. Colin, Marc and Marisa discussed how new technology have the capacity to empower employees, drive productivity and innovation, and diversify the talent pool to expand workforce inclusivity.

Discussing the event, Professor Lindsay said: “It’s always fantastic to have the opportunity to take part in these kind of sessions in partnership with industrial digital technology providers. InterAct’s mission has always been to bridge the gap between academia, manufacturing, and digital technology providers, building a network and breaking down barriers to get everyone speaking the same language. Webinars like this give us exactly the right platform to build those collaborative relationships and share insights from a variety of unique perspectives.”

The webinar also explored examples of innovative practice shared by LightGuide, a leading projected AR work instruction software provider offering inclusive workplace solutions. These solutions transform manual processes by projecting digital step-by-step AR work instructions onto an employee’s work surface, standardizing and error proofing the work. Coupled with 3D sensors and vision cameras, the system prevents and detects errors in real-time while capturing data and insights on your operator’s performance and quality.

Watch the full webinar recording on YouTube.
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News

Digital Catapult offers new collaborations through Digital Supply Chain Hub

Travel Mania / Adobe Stock

Transform your supply chain: Join the Digital Supply Chain Hub

Building on the success of the Made Smarter Innovation programme, the new Digital Supply Chain Hub platform aims to advance strategic collaboration between manufacturers and digital solution providers. The platform will meet industry demand to accelerate the digitalisation of supply chain operations, driving resilience and sustainability through the application of deep tech solutions.

The platform is designed to increase the adoption of digital solutions by UK manufacturers through facilitating connections and knowledge sharing with digital solution providers and academia. The hub offers tailored matching capabilities to connect businesses with the right partners to help address specific supply chain challenges. Members can:

  • Connect with businesses and supply chain professionals
  • Assess their organisation’s readiness to adopt digital technologies and supply chain’s resilience
  • Upskill with bespoke courses tailored to digital supply chain challenges.
  • Identify and connect with the right partners through the UK supply chain directory
  • Explore case studies of real-world deep tech adoption

Members will also be able to engage in dynamic discussions with industry professionals through “Circles,” the interactive forums focused on critical supply chain topics like resilience, sustainability, and digital adoption.

The hub is open to businesses of all sizes and can help tackle problems often encountered during the search for a suitable supply chain partner.

Start transforming your supply chain today

About the Made Smarter Innovation | Digital Supply Chain Hub

The Made Smarter Innovation | Digital Supply Chain Hub is a digital innovation programme that empowers individuals and organisations to work together to make supply chains smarter. Developed by Digital Catapult and funded by the Made Smarter Innovation challenge, the programme is designed to transform UK manufacturing through digitally empowered supply chains that are more efficient, resilient and sustainable.

The Digital Supply Chain Hub is helping businesses realise the relevance and critical value of digital supply chain technology by improving the flow of data through supply chains and the surrounding ecosystems. The application of digital tools and deep tech solutions creates opportunities to connect systems and value chains, creating a robust data system which can be leveraged to meet the supply chain challenges of today and tomorrow.

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Productivity Resources Sustainability

Beyond Ownership: Business models for sustainable, smart appliances

dusanpetkovic1 / Adobe Stock
Watch a short video explaining the potential of shared ownership business models in the manufacturing sector.

Research overview

What factors the drive consumer adoption of digitally enabled products?

This project, from InterAct funded researchers, has investigated the assumption that a lack of consumer demand lies behind manufacturers’ underinvestment in Industrial Digital Technology. It focused on domestic washing machines as a widespread product that could be ripe for innovation, and which is under pressure to improve its environmental performance.

The findings suggest that consumer resistance to digital features stems from a lack of clear perceived benefits. While manufacturers focus on promoting the technological features of their products as a competitive advantage, customers value outcomes and experience offered. Moreover, customers expressed a dislike for refurbished washing machines and scepticism about alternative revenue models as potentially exploitative. Demonstrating value for money and cultivating trust are major challenges.

For manufacturers, the key recommendation is to place the customer’s experience and expected outcomes (e.g. peace of mind and clean clothes on demand) at the heart of their innovation, rather than emphasise product features.

Technology should be harnessed to support delivery of such outcomes and may be enabled through business model innovation. For example, assured maintenance leading to peace of mind can be delivered through a combination of digital technology (condition monitoring, predictive analytics etc) and business model innovation (shared ownership, access-based service etc).

You can find out more about the project, it’s findings and the team’s recommendations in the full report below.

This research was conducted by Ahmad Beltagui (Aston Business School), Ana Isabel Canhoto, Daniela Castillo, Amireza Alizamani (University of Sussex – Business School), Ramin Behbehani (Brunel Business School) Niraj Kumar (Essex Business School), Maren Schnieder (Anglia Ruskin University). This work was supported by the UKRI Made Smarter Innovation Challenge and the Economic and Social Research Council via InterAct [Grant Reference ES/W007231/1].

For further discussions or to propose potential applications/collaborations, please contact Ana Canhoto or Ahmad Beltagui.

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Download “Beyond Ownership: Business models for sustainable, smart appliances” Beyond-Ownership-Report.pdf – Downloaded 5 times – 1.22 MB
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Productivity Resources

Webinar – Unlocking the UK’s regional manufacturing productivity

Watch the full recording.

Research overview

This webinar, led by InterAct researchers in partnership with The Productivity Institute’s ‘Midlands Productivity Forum’, offers an analysis of the comparative productivity of the manufacturing sector across different UK regions, specifically the East Midlands, West Midlands, and Yorkshire. Drawing on data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the manufacturing sector has been identified as the largest contributor to output growth per hour, with a rate of 0.7 compared to 0.1 for the total UK industries, underscoring its critical role in driving regional economic performance.

Expert researchers from InterAct’s ‘Future of the Economy’ team will examine findings of a recent report exploring key factors affecting regional productivity. You’ll hear more about the impact of collaborative R&D grants that foster technological advancements and innovation, as well as labour market dynamics that ensure the availability of skilled and adaptable workers. Our team will then highlight how the innovation ecosystems of these regions contribute to building resilience in the manufacturing sector.

The insights derived from this analysis are intended to support stakeholders—including regional policymakers and industry leaders—in making informed decisions to enhance regional economic growth. Join us on November 4th to find out more, as we work to promote a more productive, resilient, and sustainable manufacturing sector across the UK, ensuring long-term economic growth.

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News

InterAct Storytelling Fellow wins  Science and Research Award from International Digital Storytelling Festival

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From 27 – 29 September 2024, leaders from the InterAct Storytelling Fellowship programme joined fellow experts at the first International Digital Storytelling Festival in Zakynthos, Greece.

This event brought together practitioners of digital storytelling from across the globe to share and screen visual stories from a wide range of academic disciplines. The festival saw over 60 selected for screening over three days and six categories including:

  • Culture
  • Education
  • Environment
  • Health
  • Science and Research
  • Society

InterAct submitted several stories from across the Storytelling Fellowship programme for consideration, from which fellow Susan Lattanzio’s story ‘Digital Dinosaurs’ was selected as winner of the ‘Science and Research Award’.

Dr Susan Lattanzio is the Research and Industry Engagement Manager for the Made Smarter Innovation: Centre for People-Led Digitalisation. The Centre specifically focuses on the role of people and culture, and how these both influence and are influenced by the adoption of digital technologies.

Discussing the success of this story Professor Michael Wilson, Head of the Loughborough University Storytelling Academy, said: “This has been a unique adventure in using storytelling, particularly digital storytelling, in collaboration with the manufacturing industry to tell impactful stories relating to the onset of technological development. It’s not something that I, or others at the festival had encountered before, and I think it lends credence to the idea that storytelling is a valuable tool to apply across contexts to generate meaningful insights.”

Professor Michael Wilson, Pip Hardy and Tony Sumner collect the ‘Science and Research Award’ on behalf of Susan Lattanzio.

Speaking afterwards, Susan added: “I’m delighted to have won this award. I want to thank InterAct for providing funding for this programme and the Storytelling Academy at Loughborough University for running such great teaching sessions. Their support and guidance inspired so much creativity and a range of different approaches among our cohort of fellows.

“I think sometimes it can be too easy to focus just on KPIs when considering manufacturing challenges and miss the bigger picture. This was a very exciting opportunity to take a new approach to communicating that we wouldn’t normally use in engineering and offer up insights in a compelling, narrative format.”

“The concept of ‘Digital Dinosaurs’ came from my personal experience, but it was a subject that I found almost everyone I spoke to could relate to with someone in their life. I think it aligns really well with our aims at the Centre for People-Led Digitalisation, where we’re committed to putting considerations of the impact of change and new technology on people at the heart of our research.”

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Productivity Resilience Resources Sustainability

Remanufacturing in the aerospace industry: Perceptions and practices of circular economy business models in aerospace small to medium-sized enterprises

Research overview

Global aviation currently contributes approximately 2% of greenhouse gas emissions; the projected growth in global aviation will create annual CO2 emissions of 1.8 billion tons by 2050. Consequently, the sector has made a commitment to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Government policy strategies such as the Aerospace Sector Deal, Jet Zero and Destination Zero focus on sustainable aviation fuel and aircraft efficiency for the transition to zero emission flight. Although, attention to the whole aircraft life cycle including design, manufacture and recovery has been relatively lacking.

This project sought to support SMEs in the aerospace manufacturing industry by exploring remanufacturing business models, a form of Circular Economy Business Model (CEBM), to help them move towards a sustainable future.

Embracing the ‘Circular Economy’ can minimise the consumption of finite resources as well as the production of waste and emissions. CEBMs, which are often represented as R-imperatives or R-models, can not only contribute to sustainability but also to business model innovation by extending the value proposition to value recreation, redelivery, and recapture.

This project conducted case studies of five SMEs in the UK aerospace industry to explore:

  1. The extent of their current practice of, and plans for, remanufacturing
  2. Barriers they face in their current or potential remanufacturing business models
  3. Drivers for them to engage with a more sustainable business model

Find out more and download the full report below.

This research was conducted by Dr Rachael Lamb (University of Bristol), Dr Eun Sun Goodwin (University of Wolverhampton), Dr Michael Rogerson (University of Sussex) and Dr Alisha Tuladhar (University of Surrey). This work was supported by the UKRI Made Smarter Innovation Challenge and the Economic and Social Research Council via InterAct [Grant Reference ES/W007231/1].

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News

InterAct Co-director named in The Manufacturer Top 100 Awards

InterAct Co-director, Professor Janet Godsell, has been named as a winner for the ‘Sector Activist’ category in 2024 edition of The Manufacturer Top 100.

Now in its 12th year, The Manufacturer Top 100 scours the length and breadth of the nation to find the 100 most dynamic leaders and innovators in manufacturing, nominated by The Manufacturer’s audience, the industrial community and judged by a panel of industry leaders, academics and manufacturing associations.

The Manufacturer Top 100 celebrates the heroes of UK manufacturing and recognises their contribution to Net Zero, Digital Transformation, Innovation and Leadership. 

With an extensive background in industry and academic roles across both manufacturing and supply chains, Professor Godsell has long championed the importance of manufacturing to the economy, society and people’s everyday lives. An outspoken advocate of the integral role of humans within our supply chains and manufacturing businesses, she established the InterAct Network as a co-director in 2021 to develop new research in this area.

Professor Godsell has been deeply involved in sustainability focused research through projects such as CircularMetal and CarbonVue, which aim to reduce the environmental impact of the sector. She has also played an important role in the development of the new UK SCALE Centre, a collaboration between Loughborough University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), focusing on the future of supply chain innovation.

Discussing the recognition of her work in the Top 100, Professor Godsell said: “I’ve wanted to work in manufacturing since I was 15, so being part of The Manufacturer Top 100 is amazing. It really shows that the work I’ve done has been recognised by the community.

“Whilst I’m now working in an academic capacity, I think people can see I’m making use of the skills and expertise I’ve gained over the years to make a difference for the manufacturing sector.”

Hear more about Jan’s career journey and her view on the biggest challenges facing the sector
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InterAct Blog

The Circular Electricals and Electronics Project 

Miha Creative / Adobe Stock
Dr Lucia Corsini (University of Oxford)

Enabling a low-carbon and Circular Economy for electrical and electronic equipment is a critical element of reducing carbon emissions from the extraction and processing of minerals.

Electrical and electronic equipment is the fastest growing waste stream in the UK and the world. Less than 35% of waste electrical and electronic equipment is recovered in the UK.  

Our ability to effectively reuse, repair, remanufacture and recycle electrical and electronic equipment is locked in by decisions made at the design and manufacturing stage.  

So, how do we design more circular products, services and systems to enable the effective maintenance, reuse, remanufacture and recycling of electrical and electronic equipment?  

How can we help industry to do the same, within the socio-economic, technical and regulatory constraints they face?  

The Circular Electrical and Electronics Project aims to tackle these challenges and has been carefully co-created with more than twenty-four partners from across the electrical and electronic equipment value chain.  

This project is supported by UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship funding of £1.56m awarded to Dr Lucia Corsini to explore “Tackling Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment”. The initiative develops systems and engineering design solutions to enable a Circular Economy for electrical and electronic equipment, in which product lifetimes are maximised and products are effectively reused, remanufactured, repaired and recycled. 

Forming part of a systems approach, this research project develops design and engineering solutions to:  

  • Model flows of waste electrical and electronic equipment and related carbon emissions  
  • Identify waste and carbon reduction scenarios and strategies  
  • Develop circular product design and business model solutions that leverage emerging technologies and behavioural insights  
  • Help industry to embed novel circular economy solutions 
  • Support entrepreneurship and incubation of circular economy solutions 
  • Raise awareness and improve consumer access to circular economy solutions 

Please contact Dr Lucia Corsini at lucia.corsini@eng.ox.ac.uk if you would like to: 

  • Participate in the Circular Electrical and Electronics Project to get early access to research findings and publications 
  • Attend the annual Circular Electricals and Electronics Project Knowledge Exchange event 
  • Co-create future pathways for a Circular Economy for electrical and electronic equipment by participating in policy and industry stakeholder workshops (January– April 2025) 
  • Invite the Circular Electricals and Electronics Project team to speak to your organisation or provide guidance on the Circular Economy, waste electrical and electronic equipment, or critical minerals 

Dr Lucia Corsini is a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow and is an incoming Senior Research Fellow and Head of the Circular Economy and Sustainability Lab at the Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford. Previously she was a Reader in Product Design Engineering at Brunel University London. 

Categories
Productivity Resilience Resources Sustainability

Transforming supply chains: UK Supply Chain Survey 2024

phaisarnwong2517 / Adobe Stock

Research overview

A new survey of manufacturers and technology companies has revealed the key challenges facing companies when it comes to digitalisation of supply chains. The Digital Supply Chain Hub programme has conducted its own research uncovering organisations’ attitudes towards the digital transformation of supply chains. Interviews were held with supply chain professionals in large manufacturing businesses and SMEs, as well as technology and innovation professionals developing solutions for supply chains.

It has revealed that insufficient resources are one of the most common barriers to digital transformation when it comes to supply chains. There is a growing need to upskill workforces in using new digital technologies and deep tech such as the internet of things and artificial intelligence. Enhancing efficiency and automation, building resilience against disruptions, and developing a more sustainable supply chain are key priorities for large manufacturing businesses while SMEs surveyed are slightly less likely to be prioritising supply chain digital transformation, with 14% saying they don’t currently have any supply chain top priorities.

Overall, the research shows that there is considerable appetite for digital supply chain solutions and that large businesses in particular are prioritising this crucial development.

However, talent shortages, market competition, and access to funding are most likely to be preventing technology and innovation professionals from developing and providing innovative digital supply chain solutions to UK manufacturers, with a need for further investment and robust policies to drive transformation.

The data can be explored using the interactive graphs, examining differences in views from large manufacturers when compared to SMEs. Regional variations in supply chain challenges can also be examined.

explore the UK Supply Chain Survey 2024

Take the next step and connect to a community of supply chain experts, tools, and resources with the Digital Supply Chain Hub.

Building on the research and business engagement of the programme, the Digital Supply Chain Hub platform has been designed to facilitate strategic collaboration between manufacturers and digital solution providers. The platform will meet industry demand to accelerate the digitalisation of supply chain operations, driving resilience and sustainability through the application of deep tech solutions.

The hub is accessible to businesses of all sizes and can help tackle problems often encountered during the search for a suitable supply chain partner. The platform provides matching capabilities to connect companies with the right partners for their specific needs. The hub also offers educational courses to address key skills gaps and provides tools for companies to assess their current supply chain resilience and data readiness.

join the Digital Supply Chain Hub
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News

Digital Supply Chain Hub publishes findings of UK Supply Chain Survey 2024

phaisarnwong2517 / Adobe Stock

A new survey of manufacturers and technology companies from the Digital Supply Chain Hub has revealed the key challenges facing companies when it comes to digitalisation of supply chains. The Digital Supply Chain Hub programme has conducted its own research uncovering organisations’ attitudes towards the digital transformation of supply chains. Interviews were held with supply chain professionals in large manufacturing businesses and SMEs, as well as technology and innovation professionals developing solutions for supply chains.

The report found that insufficient resources are one of the most common barriers to digital transformation when it comes to supply chains. There is a growing need to upskill workforces in using new digital technologies and deep tech such as the internet of things and artificial intelligence. Enhancing efficiency and automation, building resilience against disruptions, and developing a more sustainable supply chain are key priorities for large manufacturing businesses while SMEs surveyed are slightly less likely to be prioritising supply chain digital transformation, with 14% saying they don’t currently have any supply chain top priorities.

Overall, the research shows that there is considerable appetite for digital supply chain solutions and that large businesses in particular are prioritising this crucial development.

However, talent shortages, market competition, and access to funding are most likely to be preventing technology and innovation professionals from developing and providing innovative digital supply chain solutions to UK manufacturers, with a need for further investment and robust policies to drive transformation.

Find out more and access the full findings