Paul Wenham

#ProjectTampa is good news but it must deliver improvements. 3D Printing, Additive Manufacture, has been conceptually evaluated by the MOD for over 10 years, never achieving the scale of benefits for wholesale adoption. I believe that a focus is necessary to exploit this technology and a clear focus is in obsolescence management. Obsolescence management is more than just providing a spares inventory. It must also allow continuing safe operation. In a 2004 a study for the MOD, historical analysis showed the equipment replacement costs for component parts of a system, where there is no equivalent substitute, varyied from £50,000 to £2.8 million. If 3D Printing/Additive Manufacturing focused on mitigating obsolescence the potential savings are in the millions. #AM #Technology #Obsolescence

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Excellent results with this new drilling solution from Iscar

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With thousands of SME suppliers in every sector, how do OEMs and tier ones find the ideal supplier? At the recent JOSCAR event, the subject of supply chains was a big talking point and how this is affecting OEMs. With the increased importance of robust supply chains to final delivery, finding the ideal supplier is more important than ever before. With OEMS such as BAE Systems having around 16,000 suppliers, how do supply chain professionals begin to make the right choice? There will always be a focus on performance and delivery, but in modern supply chains innovation and problem solving are just as valuable. For SMEs bombarding procurement teams is not the answer; witing for the appropriate opportunity, and then bringing a solid proposal is the route to success. Above all else building good relationships is key. This is achieved with trust on both sides. What do you think, how do SMEs and  OEMs navigate this? Let me know in the comments. #engineering #suppliers

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What incredible news for UK manufacturing! Give me a shout to discuss how we at Filtermist Limited can help you protect your employees and local community from contaminants exhausted from your manufacturing processes. #cleanair #filtration #Filtermist

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It was an honour to be asked to speak at the SHEFFIELD METALLURGICAL AND ENGINEERING ASSOCIATION last night by the incredible Colleen Mann. I spoke about FIVe - Foundation Industries Ventures and the regulatory impact on innovation across the Foundation Industries. I was very lucky to have a captive audience with some challenging questions throughout. The main one that caught me off guard was "What about COVID?" It was the global sense of vulnerability and urgency that triggered the actions that enabled COVID vaccines to be rolled out globally at an unprecedented rate. But this also required massive financial investment, clear demand, accelerated clinical development, regulatory reviews, and the many previous innovations that came before https://lnkd.in/erSdqC3v. This got me thinking, at what point with the environmental crisis trigger such interventions to enable material innovation to move quickly enough through the innovation cycle to commercialisation to enable net-zero, be that through carbon reduction, carbon capture (and hopefully utilisation), or resource efficiency? Will it be when the human health risks exceed "acceptable" levels, or when we can no longer use arable land to grow food? Or when the severe storms, droughts, and rising sea levels threaten our way of life? FIVengage is working to reduce some of the barriers to innovation in the UK Foundation Industries, but as was mentioned last night, there is a very tough road ahead.

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The PMI Manufacturing figures last week showed that unfortunately the UK dropped out of the 10 manufacturing nations. I was interviewed by Engineering Industry News on what strategies we can use to get the manufacturing sector back on track, we need to embrace automation and robotics so that we can be competitive on the world stage as a manufacturing nation. Other countries that have higher productivity than the UK all use robotics to increase output and reduce costs , look at South Korea, Japan and Germany. The 4th industrial revolution needs to gather pace using the latest in AI and robotics to maximize our potential to build the latest products at the right cost. You can read the article here; https://lnkd.in/ea6gAv6A #cobots #universalrobots #robots #robotics #automation #industry4 #manufacturing

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