by Sam Davies, Laura Griffiths
3 October 2022
09:00
In 2017, AMUK launched its Additive Manufacturing UK National Strategy to ‘drive the UK to the forefront of commercialised AM.’ The 46-page document made several recommendations, including the clarification of digital manufacturing related licensing, payment methods, design, and collaboration, as well as the development of an expert user group and the establishment of a national contact point organisation.
At the time, Innovate UK’s Robin Wilson said: “We are convinced that additive manufacturing and 3D printing will transform the way UK companies, particularly those in high value manufacturing, are able to gain competitive advantage in the coming 3-5 years. But we also realise that very few companies can make this disruptive journey on their own.”
It was a welcome development following in the footsteps of the likes of China who launched its ‘Made-in-China 2025’ plan in 2015. But just a couple of months later, the UK Government’s Industrial Strategy plan to ‘boost the productivity and earning power of people throughout the UK’ made just a single mention of AM across 255 pages. To say the UK additive manufacturing community was disappointed would be an understatement.
Fast forward five years and the Biden Administration over in the US announced the AM Forward programme, whereby some of the nation’s largest manufacturers would pledge to support the adoption and application of additive manufacturing in small and medium businesses. That move by the US Government was met with much excitement. But it also emphasised the lack of such an initiative in the UK. So, TCT asked a range of UK-based AM professionals, consultants and commentators: should the UK Government being do more to support the adoption of additive manufacturing in the UK?
“The UK Additive Manufacturing Strategy outlined a clear pathway for government to help industry adopt the technology. Unfortunately, this was not adopted and so the UK is now slipping behind its competitors. The fundamental problem is that that governments of all colours have not had a proper strategy for manufacturing and so new technologies such as additive manufacturing do not really fit into a vision. The government does have the Help to Grow programme but this provides either MBA type management training or advice on digital software. The elimination of the Manufacturing Advisory Service means there is now no real route for companies to get simple, down to earth advice.
“Essentially, we need a national vision for manufacturing and clear mechanisms for it to be implemented.”
“In my experience of working in and with small and medium businesses, it is a real challenge to find out about the latest technology or the latest advances. Find out about them, find the funding for them, the investment for them, and the time [to understand] what it means for their business. So I do think there is a role for government and local authorities and local enterprise partnerships very definitely. And obviously this is something that Make UK is doing in not only advertising or promoting the benefits of advanced technologies and also in piloting them through catapults and other centres but in supporting their adoption. I think we have the Made Smarter pilot which was in the north west [of England] helping businesses to take up these advanced manufacturing technologies – unfortunately that wasn’t rolled out across the country with any supporting funding. I think tax incentives can help investment and also direct to local business support. That’s some of what I’d like to see, in particular for supporting startups and new adopters of this technology.”
“I think it’s definitely needed. The catapult centres in the UK are under-utilised. They’re not buying new technology. Exploring the technology has been left to commercial entities to explore this and that costs money. If we look in Europe and look in the USA, EWI, they’re investing in the technology because it’s new and it has possibilities that they want to explore. If you look in Germany and Austria, there’s universities and the Fraunhofer Institute wanting to explore. And I just don’t see the same impetus in the UK, which is a real shame. And there’s huge potential in the UK.
“Now, Wayland as a company, the government has invested in a very small way, so, we feel that we have got some backing from the British government, which is really welcome, and they seem to want to invest further in us as a technology. So I think they have seen that the technology is different enough to invest in, but we would much rather see them investing in the catapult centres to invest in using technologies in innovative ways. But it seems to me that there’s no one driving the agenda. So the catapults almost don’t know where to go or what to do or don’t have the funding. I’m not sure which. The catapults should be open to every small business who wants to explore the technology, whether it be plastics, metals, doesn’t really matter. Where do we go for some independent advice? Who’s got the equipment? How can we access it? And prove it out for our application. And I just don’t see that. It just doesn’t happen. I don’t know why, they’re there, maybe I’m a bit blind, but I’m not seeing what their value is.”
“The AM Forward initiative launched in the US is aiding to drive the industry forward in the US and in my opinion, could be a motivator for other regions to take the same sort of initiative. In terms of governmental support, the UK is among the leading countries for manufacturing and additional support for additive manufacturing will open doors for the further advancement of the country’s manufacturing productivity.”
“I don’t even know where to begin answering because it’s not AM that’s the problem. It’s the whole British economy’s attitude to manufacturing and making things which is the problem. In America, they have an attitude around, ‘let’s get on, let’s make it, let’s do things, let’s just make this happen.’ That attitude simply doesn’t exist here in the UK. It’s very, very challenging to run an engineering company in the UK. Sure, they could do more with additive manufacturing – and we’ve taken advantage of Innovate UK grants in the past, and been very successful in helping us develop technology, and that technology has actually formed part of products that we have developed, so thank you to the Government for that support and for kickstarting that, it’s really valuable. But what happens to British companies is they build up and they develop this technology, and they reach a certain scale, and then they just get bought by American firms. It just happens over and over and over again. And I think that’s because there’s not support for… it’s the bigger picture that’s the problem. It’s not additive manufacturing. The British economy is not geared towards manufacturing, engineering and innovation anymore. And I think that is a massive issue.”
“We have had a UK strategy definition at some point but then what happened with it? Nothing or they actually put some money in and although it’s big money, when you look at what the rest of the world is putting into it, it’s a little drop in the ocean. I think that was my frustration. We do have a UK strategy, it exists, but I don’t see what what came out of it, it’s a document. The document itself is no use is it? Something’s got to happen from it. So I think in a very British way, we’re good at doing the talk and saying what we should do, but without implementing anything to do that. I think it’s really gone off the radar as far as I’m concerned.
“How it looks is a far trickier question, but in my view, it’s worse doing nothing, it’s better to do something and be 80% right. That’s probably what the Americans do well, it’s ‘we are going to do something.’ We need a bit more of that. The UK, in my view, has been leading forever. We’ve got such a mature AM supply chain, mainly because Formula One – five years ago it was like a commodity item for F1. They’re just like, ‘we don’t care it’s made by AM any more, go out and find who’s the cheapest.’ And that’s great. It’s just an acceptance of this technology is there and I think the rest of the countries are lagging behind mainly with that. So we have such a resource, whether it’s academia or industry, to do that. It’s a real shame we’re not leveraging it to make more capability.”
The Industrial Strategy light on industry
The 3D printing industry responds to Biden Administration’s AM Forward initiative
“There are lots of schemes around the world which are promoting adoption of additive. In Europe, if you’re a service bureau, for instance, you can get large subsidies on professional 3D printing equipment and I do think that sort of thing would be really useful in the UK. Of course, it’s better to make it easier to adopt an industry. And certainly, additive is becoming very important in industries such as defence, and so on and so forth, and I think we’re making very good strides in those areas. What I’d like to see is assistance for smaller private industry, individuals, startups, things like that, those who can really drive innovation because I think that bleeding edge is where we are today. We’ve been able to source lots of funding from government schemes and we’ve been able to turn that into a real source of value for the industry but of course, it’s always better to have more available funds for companies like ourselves, and other companies pushing the needle forward.”
“What Make UK’s latest research tells us is in the past 12 months we’ve seen a huge jump in the number of companies now in the revolution stage of the 4IR (Fourth Industrial Revolution), from 13% in 2020 to 23% in 2021. By revolution, we mean manufacturers are changing the way they derive value and interact with customers and suppliers through digital adoption. When we look at the 2018 figure of just 4% we can see how in just a few years we have seen a digital transformation within manufacturing.
“Take up of Industrial Digital Technologies (IDT) differs, with robotics and additive manufacturing most commonly used. The awareness of all industrial digital technologies such as robotics, AM, AI, IoTs, VR & AR is relatively high, but the rate of successful introduction differs considerably. Nearly a quarter of manufacturers report having successfully introduced robotics, and 28% have introduced additive manufacturing.
“Our Industry 4.0 paper shows the regional disparity. Companies in the north west [of England] are above average compared to other regions – this is where the Made Smarter adoption pilot programme started. It fits great for the SMEs. We need a full national roll out so the manufacturers across all regions have access to it. It provides dedicated support to manufacturing SMEs around, finance, leadership and expert advice. The Made Smarter pilot saw 200 businesses drive growth and decarbonise through digitalisation. SME manufacturers have secured £4.6M matched funding for 241 projects, worth £16M after private sector investment. Technologies that integrate systems, capture and analyse data, and even create simulations of their plants and processes, are being used to drive efficiencies and reduce waste. These investments are forecasting the creation of 1,177 new jobs and 2,205 up-skilled roles and are forecast to deliver an additional £192.9M in gross value added (GVA) for the Northwest economy over the next three years. We would like to see the expansion of Help to Grow Digital to other software, designed with manufacturers and current economic needs in mind. The nature of manufacturing means that firms in the sector are unique and thus require bespoke solutions. Help to Grow Digital should be run in coordination with Made Smarter to ensure that Made Smarter’s cutting edge insights and insider understanding of how British manufacturers operate can be best applied to help digital adoption in the sector.
“One of the main drivers for digitalisation is the need to retain the international competitiveness of the UK manufacturing sector. Other countries – such as Germany and Japan – have extensive support systems in place to help their manufacturing SMEs modernise, and it is important that their UK counterparts are not left behind. But only 9% of respondents agreed that the UK was in a leadership position compared to other countries when it comes to the adoption of IDTs. Perhaps reflecting this, only 15% of manufacturers agreed that it would be possible to realise the full potential of IDTs without government support.”
“For the last 15-years European, National and Local government has invested proportionally in AM, alongside other manufacturing technologies. Hardware companies such as Renishaw, WAAM and Wayland have benefited greatly along with software and materials companies such as Simpleware, Gen3D, Delcam (now AutoDesk) and Photocentric amongst many others. Organisations such as the MTC and Materials Solutions (now Siemens) have supported hundreds of companies with AM adoption and there are numerous world class research centres such as CFAM in Nottingham driving low TRL (technology readiness level) innovation.
“The problem is that the level of funding has not grown proportionally with the growth in the sector. AM/3DP is now seen by government as a mature technology that is too high on the Technology Readiness Level scale to require government support.
“But, we are now entering a new era of applications, that require innovative material and design solutions. This is where it becomes tricky. Government funding is focused on high risk – high reward opportunities. The stuff that banks and VC’s won’t touch. That is great, but it is the bit that comes next that is the real problem.
“The problem is the UK is lacking a strong VC/equity investment community that understands the potential of AM/3DP, or manufacturing in general. In the UK, VC’s want to see sales revenue before they will invest at Series A, which in AM is pretty unlikely, as manufacturing is expensive and time consuming. However, I know US start-ups that are 3-years away from any revenue that have raised $15M of seed investment, as the US investment community sees real value in long term manufacturing solutions.
“In summary, I think government investment has actually been proportional, but sadly the vast majority has been wasted or at best failed to lever significant ROI (return on investment), because the UK lacks the private sector investment appetite to turn AM/3DP start-ups and spin-outs into world class companies. Perhaps what we need is a government backed equity investment scheme focused on AM/3DP processes, materials and applications.”
“The Made Smarter programme has supported many SME businesses adopt the latest technology, including those taking their first steps into AM. This has allowed those businesses to learn how AM can fit within their business and improve their bottom line.
“One of the main barriers that businesses are reporting to the adoption of AM and other Made Smarter technologies is access to suitable funding and whilst the Made Smarter programme has helped businesses make their first machine purchase, these are generally at the lower end of the industrial scale in both size and price. Scaling up the Made Smarter adoption programme would allow businesses to adopt more complex industrial AM equipment so they can further establish AM within their business.
“Another barrier for SMEs is access to skills and knowledge, which is available to SMEs within the UK but this needs to be retained within the businesses adopting the technology, rather than outsourcing it to third parties. Further expanding access to AM knowledge transfer would allow businesses to be equipped with the necessary skills to be self-sustaining when adopting AM.
“Having a programme that is dedicated to the adoption AM within the UK would be beneficial to the UK economy as well as help strengthen the supply chain challenges that industries are facing. It is only part of the solution – not the complete answer.”
“In other industrialised countries, such as the United States, governments have been quicker to realise the opportunities offered by AM. In the US, AM Forward is a strategy that recognises the potential for Additive technology to play a critical role in resolving reshoring and protecting supply chains. The sooner the UK government realises this, and fully appreciates what AM is capable of doing for UK industry, then the faster we will see a more conducive environment in which AM in the UK can flourish. This is something for which AMUK will be campaigning.”
*Speaking on HP’s ‘How digital manufacturing is vital for the UK’s ‘levelling-up’ transformation’ roundtable in March 2022.
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by Sam Davies, Laura Griffiths
3 October 2022
09:00