Sustainable Smart Factory Competition

Manufacturing represents approximately a third of the UK’s carbon footprint. This should be seen as an opportunity – for progressive manufacturers to get ahead of the curve, and develop better processes and products that will create a better future. Several opportunities are open now and in the run-up to COP26 that help in this aim, not least the government’s £1bn Net Zero Innovation Portfolio. The spectrum of activities and approaches covered is broad, including fuel switching, redesign of products, and the deployment of technology.

The £147m Made Smarter Innovation Challenge is the dedicated strand of activity focused on digitisation of manufacturing across sectors – highlighted in the government’s industrial decarbonisation strategy as one key opportunity. The Made Smarter review suggested that broadly 4.5% of the UK’s target can be met by digital technology or “digitisation”. As part of our work on the Made Smarter Innovation Network, building communities of manufacturers and technology providers, we’re starting to see various examples. Several of these points to the importance of data, and we’re seeing how Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, for instance, can help identify savings across a range of sectors.

We are working with UKRI to help scope a £20m competition on this theme of digitisation for energy and resource savings. It’s to be called “Made Smarter Innovation: Sustainable Smart Factory” and you can hear more about it at our event on 19th October.

The scope is expected to cover all sectors of manufacturing and all sizes of business. Here at KTN, we will be helping build the kind of collaborations between manufacturers and technology providers that the competition will encourage – drawing from our network, and activities such as our Robotics and AI landscape map.

Made Smarter Innovation: Sustainable Smart Factory Competition Briefing

The full briefing event will be on 9th November, and we’ll also have a strong presence at Smart Factory Expo at digital manufacturing week in Liverpool later that week, and providing a platform for the next wave of tech developers in the form of Innovation Alley.

Sustainable Smart Manufacturing Technology Showcase 

Are you a technology developer that can help improve manufacturing processes? UKRI is planning a new “Sustainable Smart Factory” funding competition to help manufacturers and digital technology providers deliver energy and resource savings within their factory. KTN is co-ordinating a Technology Showcase that will give you as a technology developer a platform where manufacturers can find you.

We’ve set up a platform for tech developers to upload video pitches. We, therefore, invite you to record and share a short video pitch. The submission deadline for these videos is the 8th November 2021 at 5:00 PM.