The Institute of Digital Engineering (IDE) has published a plan to modernise the UK’s manufacturing sector.

This comes as industry leaders warned the country risked becoming a “digital dinosaur” compared with the US, China and Germany.

Industry has been using digital tools, such as CAD, for decades. However, recent advances in processing, sensing and connectivity are poised to revolutionise the way we develop and make things.

Today, vast amounts of data can be captured and used to shape every stage of a product’s lifecycle; design and validation are increasingly done in virtual environments, with software doing much of the heavy lifting autonomously, giving engineers more time to innovate. Organisations and suppliers can work as one thanks to better connectivity and security.  And, with less need for expensive physical prototypes (which can account for up to 40% of the development cost of a new car), better products can be developed and made more quickly, with less waste and at lower cost.

Key points are:

No Net Zero advantage without digitalisation

Industry needs to break free of outdated architectures which do not have sustainability at their centre.

UK manufacturers need to get smarter

Industry needs to accelerate its adoption of AI and machine learning, ramping up skills training in these areas. Countries such as the US, Germany and China are investing more in these areas.

The customer is right, now

Rapidly evolving markets, accelerating demand and fast-evolving customer expectations will challenge business’s ability to stay relevant. Successful firms will understand customer needs and be agile enough to incorporate them into the earliest stages of product design.

Data-blind companies will become extinct

Companies will only stay competitive, and be valued members of supply chains, if they recognise how data and new, digital technologies are combining to fundamentally re-write the rules for how we design, test, and make products.

Bradley Yorke Biggs, IDE chief executive said: “Digitalisation doesn’t just allow us to deliver better quality products faster and cheaper, it will unlock new business models & markets. By using technology in a smarter way, we will also free our engineers to think more creatively. We know the challenges ahead are tough; it is only by harnessing the power of digital, and creating a step change in productivity, that we stand a chance of meeting them. Net Zero, for example: in the near-term we need better electric vehicles and more efficient renewables. Longer-term, we may be looking at a whole new hydrogen economy. The UK can lead the delivery of these futures – the Digitalisation Roadmap shows us how.”

The Roadmap, as well as being a document available for download, can be accessed via an interactive microsite. The site has been designed with users in mind, allowing seamless navigation of the roadmap report’s content.

www.ideuk.org

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