The vision of the proposed EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing (CIM) is to break new ground by creating the concept of the factory on the machine to deliver to UK industry disruptive solutions in advanced manufacturing for the next generation of high added-value products. Embracing and developing the factory on the machine concept will be a critical step in enabling a sustainable manufacturing sector for the next generation of engineered products dependent on precision and micro/nano scale geometrical accuracy and functionally optimised surfaces.Key challenges to achieving the concept of the factory on the machine are: Challenge I: Elevation of machine tool accuracies beyond the present formidable barriers to those currently only achievable by advanced metrology equipment in stable operating environments, through embodiment of our leading research in machine error modelling and reduction. Challenge II: Building sound foundations for the factory on the machine by developing new metrology instrumentation, used within the machine environment and a novel toolkit, for geometrical characterisation (size, geometry and texture) for the next generation of engineering products.In order to answer the challenges and vision of the CIM, the overall research programme is divided into key research themes and platform type activities. The two major thematic areas of research within the CIM are:Theme I - factory on the machine : to create a configurable and scalable platform for implementing advanced manufacturing and measurement technologies on machines ranging from nano, micro to large volume capability. Analogous with the lab on a chip concept, the delivered system will fuse production capability with high-precision metrology to provide an automatic quality control feedback loop for both product quality and machining process sustainability. Theme II - underlying techniques for factory on the machine : The aim here is to create new measurement and specification methodologies and products (smart software and hardware systems) and to deliver an underpinning new technology in measurement science for micro/nano scale surfaces on macro/meso dimensioned objects with Euclidean or non-Euclidean (non-rotational and non-translational symmetry) geometry and deterministic texture all to be applied within the factory on the machine environment. Platform activities will encompass: (i) Retention and recruitment of key identified research and technique staff; (ii) Generation of new knowledge and instrumentation derived from fundamental EPSRC, EU and TSB funded research projects (iii) Support blue sky research and feasibility studies in machine tool/surface technology and (iv) Knowledge exchange to key partners through specific projects, collaboration agreements, licensing, workshops, training, national networks, sand pits and open days. Platform activities will be targeted towards key partners firstly, their supply chains/end users, then secondly wider sectors of UK industry, as well as national and international standardisation bodies. Overall, this CIM research will link measurement and production in a unique way to minimise cost whilst at the same time enabling the manufacturing base to meet the challenge of ever increasing complexity and quality in manufacture. It will provide coherent research solutions to the manufacturing sector to ensure that advanced UK manufacture is at the forefront of emerging technologies. Partnership with UK industry will provide a research focal point, a national network to disseminate the outcomes and a link with other networks, CIMs and IKCs to ensure that the research provides the required outputs to drive industry forward. This would boost the capabilities of the project proposers to an unrivalled and unique position within the field of machine tool accuracy and surface metrology, allowing the research team to command a global leading role in the foreseeable future.

The vision of the Hub is to create ground-breaking embedded metrology and universal metrology informatics systems to be applied across the manufacturing value chain. This encompasses a paradigm shift in measurement technologies, embedded sensors/instrumentation and metrology solutions. A unified approach to creating new, scientifically-validated measurement technologies in manufacturing will lead to critical underpinning solutions to stimulate significant growth in the UK's productivity and facilitate future factories. Global manufacturing is evolving through disruptive technologies towards a goal of autonomous production, with manufacturing value-chains increasingly digitised. Future factories must be faster, more responsive and closer to customers as manufacturing is driven towards mass customisation of lower-cost products on demand. Metrology is crucial in underpinning quality, productivity and efficiency gains under these new manufacturing paradigms. The Advanced Metrology Hub brings together a multi-disciplinary team from Huddersfield with spokes at Loughborough, Bath and Sheffield universities, with fundamental support from NPL. Expertise in Engineering, Mathematics, Physics and Computer Science will address the grand challenges in advanced metrology and the Hub's vision through two key research themes and parallel platform activities: Theme I - Embedded Metrology will build sound technological foundations by bridging four formidable gaps in process- and component-embedded metrology. This covers: physical limits on the depth of field; high dynamic range measurement; real-time dynamic data acquisition in optical sensor/instruments; and robust, adaptive, scalable models for real-time control systems using sensor networks with different physical properties under time-discontinuous conditions. Theme II - Metrology Data analytics will create a smart knowledge system to unify metrology language, understanding, and usage between design, production and verification for geometrical products manufacturing; Establishment of data analytics systems to extract maximal information from measurement data going beyond state-of-the-art for optimisation of the manufacturing process to include system validation and product monitoring. Platform research activities will underpin the Hub's vision and core research programmes, stimulate new areas of research and support the progression of fundamental and early-stage research towards deployment and impact activities over the Hub's lifetime. In the early stage of the Hub, the core research programme will focus on four categories (Next generation of surface metrology; Metrology technologies and applications; In-process metrology and Machine-tool and large volume metrology) to meet UK industry's strategic agenda and facilitate their new products. The resulting pervasive embedding and integration of manufacturing metrology by the Hub will have far reaching implications for UK manufacturing as maximum improvements in product quality, minimization of waste/rework, and minimum lead-times will ultimately deliver direct productivity benefits and improved competitiveness. These benefits will be achieved by significantly reducing (by 50% to 75%) verification cost across a wide swathe of manufacture sectors (e.g. aerospace, automotive, electronics, energy, medical devices, optics, precision engineering) where the current cost of verification is high (up to 20% of total costs) and where product quality and performance is critical.