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Visitors on a tour of the MTC facility in July 2017.
The 27th November 2017 was a good day for some of British Manufacturing - from our offices in Chester, you could almost smell the kilns being fired ready to churn out commemorative crockery by the bucket load after the announcement of another Royal Wedding.
Emma Bridgewater's buoyancy, however, was countered by the sinking feeling those in the UK's additive manufacturing (AM) community had at precisely the same time.
This isn't because the AM crowd are revolutionaries wanting to overthrow the monarchy and replace it with generatively designed figureheads, but because of the big news of 8am that was buried by the royal engagement just an hour and a half later, The Industrial Strategy.
The Industrial Strategy was the UK Government's plan to "boost the productivity and earning power of people throughout the UK". On the drive to work the Industrial Strategy was being discussed on a radio broadcast by BBC Five Live from outside of the MTC (Manufacturing Technology Centre). That excited me; the plan was to get to work, whack up the document, hit Ctrl + F and bask in the glory of our additively manufactured future.
When I did search the pdf, I genuinely presumed there was something wrong with my machine. I wasn't the only one.
"Myself, Phill Dickens [Added Scientific], Rob Scudamore [TWI] and Tim Minshall [University of Cambridge] pulled up the document together and we just kind of thought 'why do we bother?'" explained an exasperated James Logan, UK Collaborative R&D Funding Manager at the MTC.
Across 255 pages of how this Government plans on steering this country's industry in a post-Brexit world, there is precisely one mention of additive manufacturing and that's way back on page 206 (in the interest of fairness and not to come across resentful there is also a picture of a 3D printed joint replacement on page 65).
A Bad Taste
For AM UK this was a bitter pill to swallow. Just two months prior, AM UK developed and released an entirely costed Additive Manufacturing UK National Strategy 2018-25 with full industry support from the likes of Dyson, GlaxoSmithKline, Bentley, GE, Unilever, BAE Systems, etc. Their white paper backed by the quasi-governmental, Innovate UK, conservatively estimated that by 2025 AM could account for £3,500M Gross Value Added to the UK economy and upwards of 60,000 jobs. If that's not a clear and concise boost to the "productivity and earning power of people throughout the UK", I'm not sure what is.
In a letter to TCT one of the leading steers behind AM UK, Professor Phill Dickens said:
"The motivation for the AM Strategy came out of an Evidence Paper I did for the Foresight Report back in 2013. Having reviewed a number of manufacturing technologies, it became clear that although the UK was very good at Rapid Prototyping in the 1990’s, without a clear strategy the benefits of AM would largely pass us by as a nation just like a number of other technologies.
"You might think that a national industrial strategy would build on previous more specific strategies such as The Composites Strategy, The AM Strategy and more recently the Made Smarter report by Jurgen Maier. The first two seem to have been completely ignored, and the last gets a brief mention. This is despite the fact that we also made an AM response into the Industrial Strategy consultation process."
The letter continues in a tone that, to anybody who knows Phill, is unfamiliar such is the pessimism seeping through a note sent while wounds were still weeping. AM UK wasn't asking for the moon on a stick either, the challenge fund bid that went in from Digital Manufacturing was to the tune of £170m of which £15-20m would have been to address the specific AM needs including, technology, skills and training plus business support and supply chain development. It is believed that even a third of that amount would have been enough to move the dial.
Missing the point
Phill's not the only one in pain; in a host of phone calls to industry folk afterwards there was anger, there was dismay, and there was a general downheartedness.
A lot of those feelings can be attributed not just to the lack of mention and support for AM, but the areas the Industrial Support did focus on, in particular, Artificial Intelligence (AI). While AI is seen as a significant part of global Industry 4.0 strategies, it never stands on its own. Case studies like the following mentioned in the white paper only pour fuel onto the fire:
"SecondHands is a research project led by Ocado Technology that aims to design a collaborative robot that can offer help to maintenance technicians working in Ocado’s highly automated grocery warehouses."
Consider the airy-fairyness and niche that is compared to Volkswagen using £3,000 plastic extruding machines on the assembly floor to save 91% in tool development costs and reduce development time by 95%. It's ludicrous. Whereas AI is conceivable future technology, AM is now.
The issue the government has with AM, so I'm told, is that it doesn't solve one particular challenge and they're right, there isn't one killer application. But that's because additive manufacturing is a tool, or set of tools, that could benefit every single manufacturing facility throughout the country be they giants like Rolls Royce or a lone jeweller.
"I think the big guys are going to do it (AM) regardless of if there is an Industrial Strategy behind them," said Dr Louise Jones, Knowledge Transfer Manager for Additive Manufacturing at KTN Ltd. "For me, the most significant impact could be if SMEs choose not get on board, we're going to lose manufacturing in the UK.”
Small Enterprise, Big Impact
The SME theme was repeated throughout the calls, Jonathan Rowley of Digits2Widgets who sat on a number of the AM-UK strategy steering committees, is all too aware of the perils SMEs go through when turning to additive for the first time.
"Very often manufacturing clients come to us with an object that they've identified would be good to apply some AM to. Very often they're perfectly printable but the cost is prohibitive," Explains D2W's Design Manager, Rowley. "Imagine how damaging to your opinion of AM it is if you take the time to select an object, nominate it, go and get a quote, discover it costs five times the amount it currently costs to produce, you just think 'forget it'."
The problem there comes down to education, which is what the Additive Manufacturing UK National Strategy was crying out for; funding for programmes to teach people how to apply AM best. Rowley's Digits2Widgets also have a client who is a prime example of how far a little Skills, Education and Training goes.
The company is a lighting company based minutes down the road from the service bureau in London; it was paying a German company €13 a pop for some expanding louvre components. The company owner's nephew, who was studying industrial design and had some knowledge of AM, did some work for the company during the summer. He identified that these louvre components might be a suitable candidate for AM and did some experimenting using Nylon SLS. They're now paying 22 pence per part - a 98% saving.
"When you see examples of the LEAP fuel nozzle, it's great, it is sexy, but GE's a massive business, the little guy up the road is totally disconnected from that," said Louise Jones. "But with the lighting example of a tiny little product where AM has had such a huge impact, businesses might start to think 'oh you know what, actually maybe there is an element of what I'm doing already where I can apply AM'."
Getting to that point is where the barrier lies and is where the industry needs Government support and funding. It didn't come this time around but James Logan of the MTC doesn't necessarily think all is lost:
"In some ways, [the lack of AM in the White Paper] could be beneficial because it could force the AM community to think hard and do things that do deliver benefits. Fundamentally the money isn't there to do what is exciting and entertaining, the financiers are now going to want to fund what is going to deliver returns, which might not be a bad thing."
When writing this we at TCT have asked ourselves what we can do to accelerate this industry? Our shows and conferences will continue to highlight the potential benefits of AM and I'm dedicated, as editor of the magazine, to promote the work of more SMEs. So please if you're an SME reading this who is applying AM effectively, write to me (daniel.oconnor@rapidnews.com). Perhaps we can pay your advice forward and ignite an Industrial Strategy of our own.
