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How the Institute for Manufacturing is creating low-cost digital solutions for manufacturing SMEs
It’s a very uncertain time for everyone, and the manufacturing industry is no different. At the same time as the industry is jumping to the challenge of manufacturing critical supplies to tackle the COVID-19 crisis, many firms, especially SMEs, are having to think hard about their underlying costs, and may be looking at ways digital technologies can help them.
At the Institute for Manufacturing, our researchers are always looking at ways that manufacturers can improve and build better businesses, and how digital technologies can be used to transform factories and business models. One of our most interesting current projects is ‘Digital Manufacturing on a Shoestring’, which aims to harness low-cost commercially available technologies for mobile computing, sensing and artificial intelligence for use in small-scale manufacturing environments.
Our project lead, Professor Duncan McFarlane, explains: