Supporting manufacturing SMEs through data-driven technologies

From meringue confectionary to dog muzzles, label printing or even dysphagia drinks, manufacturing industries need to manage the interplay between a multitude of factors for production. By integrating data-driven technologies, manufacturing businesses can benefit from enhanced productivity and decision-making, giving them a competitive edge. This is the impetus behind the Smart Manufacturing Data Hub (SMDH) programme, which is part of Made Smarter and funded by Innovate UK. As we approach the end of the SMDH programme, our Research Software Engineering (RSE) Group Leader, Dave Meredith, shares some highlights on how his team has been supporting manufacturing SMEs on their digital innovation journey.

How have we supported SMEs through the SMDH programme?

We are supporting small businesses to make their factories smarter, with over 145 organisations and more than 1000 individual users already onboarded to our Manufacturing Data Exchange Platform (MDEP). The MDEP is a platform that our Research Software Engineering (RSE) team has been working on to provide a means for SMEs in the UK manufacturing space to gain insights from their data. Use-cases of the platform include streaming data from industrial Internet of Things (IoT) sensors to monitor machine downtimes, benchmarking machines to compare performance and efficiency, monitoring power consumption and CO₂ emissions. MDEP provides several data analysis pipelines for both static batch data and for live streaming data scenarios.  To date, more than 40 datasets have been publicly shared on the platform with many more (>260) shared using protected and private visibility.  Alongside our RSE team’s work on the platform, our Data Science team has also been developing bespoke analysis pipelines and custom dashboards through SMDH ‘lighthouse projects’. These have facilitated decision-making and increased productivity for manufacturing SMEs.

How can manufacturing SMEs benefit from our work done through SMDH?

By offering pre-packaged solutions that are either free or low-cost, SMDH makes it so much easier for manufacturing SMEs to take their first step towards digitalisation. These pre-packaged solutions offer IoT devices, access to MDEP and its corresponding monitoring dashboards. With these solutions, companies are equipped to monitor variables such as power consumption, CO₂ emissions, air quality, machine downtime, environmental or processing temperatures, or even the movement and location of products. The monitoring of such variables provide companies with insights on their manufacturing process, which will enable them to enhance productivity and environmental sustainability.

Aren’t there commercially off-the-shelf software solutions similar to the Manufacturing Data Exchange Platform (MDEP)? 

Yes, but MDEP is specifically customised to deliver a user experience tailored to the needs of manufacturing SMEs. The RSE team’s work on MDEP extends beyond simply building on Amazon Web Services (AWS) components like S3 object storage and Redshift Data Warehouse. The team has also applied their engineering expertise to develop several bespoke systems and user interfaces to ensure that MDEP fully meets the needs of SMDH and offers good overall user experience.  Think of MDEP like Netflix – both are built entirely on AWS and consists of many complex, interconnected components. However, without a smooth and intuitive user experience, navigating Netflix’s services would be difficult and far less enjoyable. Given the importance of user experience, the custom systems and interfaces built by the team make MDEP far more effective and user-friendly for SMDH than any standard off-the-shelf solution.

What does the professional community think about our MDEP? 

AWS Solutions Architects James Grant and Priyanka Bettaswamygowda, along with Cheryl Beddall, the Hartree Centre’s AWS account manager, conducted a ‘Well-Architected Review’ of the MDEP at the Hartree Centre. During the review, the AWS team interviewed our RSE team about their work on the MDEP, exploring topics such as architectural design choices, security best practices, and strategies to enhance the platform’s resilience. The AWS reviewers recognised and commended the modern scalable architecture that we have implemented into MDEP using several best practices, and provided us with valuable feedback. Since then, our team has documented key lessons learnt and implemented several follow-up actions to improve future projects. 

How can MDEP continue to serve UK industry beyond the SMDH programme?

Although MDEP was created for SMDH, the benefits of the platform extend far beyond our current SMDH users. Not only can new manufacturing SME member organisations be added to the existing SMDH deployment, the platform can also be reused either by customisation or redeployment to target other sectors. In fact, there are already plans to use MDEP outside of the SMDH programme. An example is the new Innovate UK Daresbury Laboratory 5G Ecosystem project, which will deploy 5G-enabled IoT sensors into the CTH to showcase the potential of 5G. All insights and datasets from this project will be shared on the platform. With the development of MDEP, we aim to extend our support beyond SME manufacturing which has been the focus of SMDH, to reach businesses of all sizes in other sectors across UK industry.