Inside the shape-shifting VR factory of manufacturing's future

31 March 2016

Factory 2050, the AMRC's latest development and the first on the University of Sheffield's new Advanced Manufacturing Campus, has been featured by New Scientist magazine.

The AMRC with Boeing's new Factory 2050 facility. Credit: Bond Bryan.

The article, by Jacob Aron, headline "Wait, I'll reconfigure" quotes AMRC chief technical officer Prof Sam Turner and Integrated Manufacturing Group control engineer Steve Bowles.

Aron writes: "Factory 2050 feels like a toy shop, but the researchers aren't just tinkering. The goal is to get the ideas straight into industrial use, rather than letting them languish in the lab.

"The place is sparkling clean, and smells like a newly furnished IKEA, but it's gearing up to change the way whole industries work. The brains behind the project are rethinking the manufacturing process itself, aiming to change how we make everything from airplanes to nuclear power plants.

"By linking together all the cameras, lasers and other sensors the team can create a digital twin of the building that will monitor every manufacturing process and perhaps individual components."

Related News

Manufacturers' organisation praises AMRC as "an excellent example."
02/03/2015
Sheffield University's Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre has been hailed as "an …
The next phase of the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre
01/05/2015
The University of Sheffield has submitted a masterplan for the next phase of its Adva …
MetLase joins the AMRC to develop the fixtures of the future
31/07/2017
MetLase, a joint venture between Rolls-Royce and Unipart Group, has become the latest …
Building back better with UK construction
12/11/2020
National framework provider Pagabo has joined forces with the University of Sheffield …