Re-Distributed Manufacturing and the Resilient, Sustainable City (ReDReSC)

Lead Research Organisation: University of Bristol
Department Name: Mechanical Engineering

Abstract

The world's manufacturing economy has been transformed by the phenomenon of globalisation, with benefits for economies of scale, operational flexibility, risk sharing and access to new markets. It has been at the cost of a loss of manufacturing and other jobs in western economies, loss of core capabilities and increased risks of disruption in the highly interconnected and interdependent global systems. The resource demands and environmental impacts of globalisation have also led to a loss of sustainability. New highly adaptable manufacturing processes and techniques capable of operating at small scales may allow a rebalancing of the manufacturing economy. They offer the possibility of a new understanding of where and how design, manufacture and services should be carried out to achieve the most appropriate mix of capability and employment possibilities in our economies but also to minimise environmental costs, to improve product specialisation to markets and to ensure resilience of provision under natural and socio-political disruption. This proposal brings together an interdisciplinary academic team to work with industry and local communities to explore the impact of this re-distribution of manufacturing (RDM) at the scale of the city and its hinterland, using Bristol as an example in its European Green Capital year, and concentrating on the issues of resilience and sustainability. The aim of this exploration will be to develop a vision, roadmap and research agenda for the implications of RDM for the city, and at the same time develop a methodology for networked collaboration between the many stakeholders that will allow deep understanding of the issues to be achieved and new approaches to their resolution explored.

The network will study the issues from a number of disciplinary perspectives, bringing together experts in manufacturing, design, logistics, operations management, infrastructure, resilience, sustainability, engineering systems, geographical sciences, mathematical modelling and beyond. They will consider how RDM may contribute to the resilience and sustainability of a city in a number of ways: firstly, how can we characterise the economic, social and environmental challenges that we face in the city for which RDM may contribute to a solution? Secondly, what are the technical developments, for example in manufacturing equipment and digital technologies, that are enablers for RDM, and what are their implications for a range of manufacturing applications and for the design of products and systems? Thirdly, what are the social and political developments, for example in public policy, in regulation, in the rise of social enterprise or environmentalism that impact on RDM and what are their implications? Fourthly, what are the business implications, on supply networks and logistics arrangements, of the re-distribution? Finally, what are the implications for the physical and digital infrastructure of the city?

In addition, the network will, through the way in which it carries out embedded focused studies, explore mechanisms by which interdisciplinary teams may come together to address societal grand challenges and develop research agendas for their solution. These will be based on working together using a combination of a Collaboratory - a centre without walls - and a Living Lab - a gathering of public-private partnerships in which businesses, researchers, authorities, and citizens work together for the creation of new services, business ideas, markets, and technologies.

Planned Impact

This proposal has strong potential for impact on academic communities and more widely on a wide variety of stakeholders including businesses, manufacturers, policy makers, the non-profit and voluntary sector and the general public, at local and national level.

For academic communities, the network will develop and influence the re-distributed manufacturing research agenda, identify research challenges, and help form research teams to articulate and address the challenges. Two aspects are particularly important:

- The bringing of manufacturing issues, and especially the potential of small-scale highly adaptable processes, to the forefront in research communities addressing the future development of cities, infrastructure, logistics, operations management and the economic geography and politics of regions and production networks, especially in the context of resilience and sustainability.
- To bring regional, business, application, socio-technical and infrastructure issues to the fore in the design and manufacturing communities that are developing the technical aspects of re-distributed manufacturing.
The network will take a number of steps to achieve this influence. Network meetings will be held to address particular themes, and members of the respective communities will be invited to those events; the network will actively link to other influential groups at national level - the Catapult network, EPSRC programmes such as the International Centre on Infrastructure Futures and the EPSRC Centres for Innovative Manufacturing and ESRC programmes under the Sustainable Prosperity Nexus Network. The network will also engage strongly with individuals, research programmes and academic communities on an international scale.
The network will also make the role of new manufacturing approaches more visible to the wider community, and will provide a mechanism for exploration and development of new ideas in this respect. This will be achieved in a number of ways - through social media and active blogs and discussion forums, through open access to meetings, through industry/academic sandpit events, through participation in experiments and innovation and access to equipment and skilled staff for experiment, and also through interaction with the extensive existing networks with which the network partners are involved.

Particular beneficiaries of the project will be manufacturers who will benefit by being less exposed to global supply chain risks, by being introduced to new business opportunities and access to new business models, and who can gain a better understanding of the socio-technical context of their activities. The benefits may accrue especially to SMEs who want to respond quickly to changing customer needs or demand but will also include design studios, individuals and companies in the creative sector, systems integrators and inward-investing companies.

Bristol's role as European Green Capital will allow the network to have a strong impact across Europe and beyond, as will its membership of the 100 Resilient Cities network. In addition to the impact on the region's manufacturers and businesses, this will allow the network to influence decision-makers at local and national level, involved for example in land use development, infrastructure planning and business support strategies, as well as opinion-forming channels in the non-profit and employee representative sectors.
 
Description The Redistributed Manufacturing for the Resilient, Sustainable City network developed new understanding across a range of issues, including: the inadequacy of existing data collections and methods (e.g. company data) in understanding the manufacturing activities in a local region; the many faces of redistributed manufacturing, from automation and new processes to localisation of supply chains and development of maker and circular economies; and new business models that may allow a genuine reduction in environmental impact from manufacturing. The new understandings have supported ongoing networking with city, regional and national stakeholders in the exploration of how redestributed manufacturing might influence the long term delivery of sustainability, resilience and decarbonisation (Net-Zero).
Exploitation Route We are injecting the findings in the influence of civic policy, manufacturers and third sector, for example through participation in the formulation of the One City Plan of Bristol City Council and through the South West Infrastructure Partnership, which is facilitated through the Institution of Civil Engineers.
Sectors Aerospace

Defence and Marine

Agriculture

Food and Drink

Construction

Creative Economy

Education

Energy

Environment

Government

Democracy and Justice

Manufacturing

including Industrial Biotechology

Transport

Other

URL http://www.rdmrsc.org.uk/
 
Description The RDM-RSC project was concerned with the future of manufacturing, especially in a local or regional context, and in the need to effect a societal transition to a more resilient and environmentally sustainable economy. The project was particularly concerned with the potential impact of new manufacturing technologies that can improve small-scale production and expected future socio-economic developments. These were studied through the lens of the city of Bristol and the surrounding region. As a network grant the project brought together the academic research community with stakeholders from industry, civic bodies and the third sector to identify key developments, to articulate research challenges and to develop a research community. The impact of the project developed in three key respects: Firstly, through workshops and visits, the project engaged with a wide variety of stakeholders in local government, the third sector and industry, developing knowledge about the factors that are changing manufacturing - who does what manufacturing, with what materials and technologies, and where - and stimulating wide ranging discussion on the future development of manufacturing in the region including its sustainability and resilience; secondly, the project brought together researchers from the universities of the south-west UK in carrying out case studies and joint research endeavours, and through this we identified a research programme in sustainable, resilient and redistributed manufacturing futures; thirdly, the project has influenced decision-makers at city and regional level by bringing objective, evidenced-based arguments to deliberations on a community-based, sustainable and resilient manufacturing economy as a means of underpinning decarbonisation.
First Year Of Impact 2019
Sector Communities and Social Services/Policy,Construction,Energy,Environment,Government, Democracy and Justice,Manufacturing, including Industrial Biotechology,Transport
Impact Types Societal

Economic

Policy & public services

 
Description Cardiff Capital Region State of the City Report
Geographic Reach Local/Municipal/Regional 
Policy Influence Type Implementation circular/rapid advice/letter to e.g. Ministry of Health
 
Description RECODE Feasibility study
Amount £35,000 (GBP)
Organisation RECODE Network, Cranfield University 
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 05/2016 
End 06/2017
 
Description Systems Change - Towards a Circular Economy
Amount £411,989 (GBP)
Funding ID EP/P008925/1 
Organisation Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 01/2017 
End 12/2018
 
Description Urban Living Consortium Pilot Phase
Amount £399,521 (GBP)
Funding ID EP/P002137/1 
Organisation Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 05/2016 
End 10/2017
 
Title Maker Walks for Ground Truth Testing of Industrial Activity in Urban Spaces 
Description We are identifying this as an improvement in the research infrastructure because of the use of technology and process. It comprises a physical exploration of urban manufacturing which we applied in the BS3 and BS4 post code areas in Bristol to find out who is making what, where and how. The method was developed because of the disparities we perceived between the aggregate and out of date data in official statistics which was unable to provide an accurate or detailed characterization of manufacturing activity within this area of Bristol. The novel approach was inspired by the Open Source Mapping movement, and was delivred under the Redistributed Manufacturing in a Resilient, Sustainable City (RDM | RSC) project. See also https://www.bristolmuseums.org.uk/blog/bristol-maker-walk/ 
Type Of Material Improvements to research infrastructure 
Year Produced 2016 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact The impact of this tool was to develop a clear and dependable understanding of the manufacturing base present in the BS3 and BS4 areas, and to identify the current state of manufacturing technologies being used by industry. It provided the baseline understanding that is allowing the RDM|RSC project to asses the potential for the take up of modern additive layer manufacturing and digital fabrication technologies in this representative, but generally poorly understood and seldom researched area of the city's maker community. 
URL https://www.thersa.org/discover/publications-and-articles/rsa-blogs/2016/03/maker-walk-mapping-urban...
 
Title Rail freight data for Cardiff Capital Region, 2015 to 2021, selected weeks 
Description The dataset contains information on freight trains operating within the Cardiff Capital Region for 2015, 2019, 2020 and 2021. The data is collected for a single week during July of each year. The information has been taken from https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/ and http://charlwoodhouse.co.uk/rail/liverail and is derived from Network Rail data feeds. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/. For each service, information on the origin and destination is provided, the ITL1 region for these locations, the planned trailing load (in tonnes), product type and whether the train is loaded or empty. Where an online record of the train has been identified, a hyperlink to this is also provided. ID information from the data feeds are also provided to help create unique identifiers for each train. 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2022 
Provided To Others? Yes  
URL https://research.cardiff.ac.uk/converis/portal/detail/Dataset/217445300?auxfun=&lang=en_GB
 
Description Cardiff School of Engineering Staff Research Conference 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact Work on "An exploratory study of the resilience of manufacturing in the Cardiff Capital Region" was given to the Cardiff School of Engineering Staff conference. Presenting work conducted by Cardiff Business School to an Engineering audience. It created a great deal of interest amongst those attending as it presented a new perspective on some of the companies they make collaborate with on engineering related activities.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
 
Description Event sponsored/organised and chaired by University of Exeter and Victrex Manufacturing Plc- "European Strategy for High Temperature Additive Manufacturing" - An industrial event at University of Exeter 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact The discussions are summarised in the article published in Aerospace Manufacturing magazine
https://www.aero-mag.com/performance-polymers-performance-parts/
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
URL https://www.aero-mag.com/performance-polymers-performance-parts/
 
Description Maker walks 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact Over the month of April, the RDM|RSC project will undertake a series of maker walks visiting local manufactures. These walks will focus on manufactures in the BS3 postal code area of Bristol and will be conducted over a series of four walks spanning eight days.

Walking, meeting and recording local makers will provide a unique picture of urban manufacturing that moves beyond unreliable statistics and incomplete company directories. The results of this walk will be communicated through a combination video diaries, photographs and geospatial mapping.
RDM|RSC is partnering with local museums and artist to ensure that insight gained from the Makers Walk reaches a wider audience than a traditional academic publication.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2011,2016
 
Description Participation in Citizen-led Housing Manufacturing 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Soroka and Rosenberg supported the development of, and attended and contributed to a Knowle West Media Centre workshop exploring the potential localised planning, design, manufacturing and installation of citizen-led housing in Knowle West, Bristol. The workshop investigated the potential for, and barriers to, the planning, design, local manufacturing and supply of housing and house extensions. The workshop assessed the viability of smart factories, digital technologies, new materials and local logistics to radically re-shape who makes what, where and how as applied to housing.

This session explored the potential for (and barriers to) re-localising the housing supply-chain- from materials and labour to manufacturing and construction. Key questions addressed were:
• How can we best design for local manufacture and assembly?
• How can the citizen & community-led housing make the most of new opportunities and tools?
• What precedents, tools, support could help?
The workshop comprised:
• Provocations from industry experts,
• Roundtable discussion
• Exploration of prototype designs for "Made in Bristol" micro-homes in Knowle West
The work has received the attention of local planners and policy-makers in Bristol, and the project has gone on to install a demonstrator, prototype house. The unique contributions from the RDM|RSC research team related to knowledge of advanced manufacturing technologies, consideration of sustainability issues, in the areas of logistics and supply chains, and in facilitating a systemic diagnosis of the challenges and barriers to such a citizen-led approach.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
URL http://kwmc.org.uk/projects/wecanmake/
 
Description Participation in ICE SW workshop on ICE national response to Grenfell Tower disaster (06/10/2017) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Injection of UKCRIC and UrbanID project ideas into formative discussions around SW ICE input to ICE national response to Grenfell Tower disaster.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
 
Description Participation in South West Infrastructure Panel of SW ICE (07/02/2018) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Membership of newly formed SW Infrastructure Panel of the Institution of Civil Engineers. Opportunity to feed in ideas and techniques from UrbanID, ReDReSC and UKCRIC into policy coordination for infrastructure across the SW of England.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
 
Description Participation in meeting with Mayor of Bristol and local business regarding One City Plan (12/10/2017) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact Injection of policy and practice ideas from UKCRIC, ReDReSC and UrbanID projects into formative discussions about the One City plan, chaired by the Mayor of Bristol (Marvin Rees) and local business leaders.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
 
Description Partnership building workshop with Bristol City Council City Control Room Leaders 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Small workshop meeting with Bristol City Council City Control Room Leaders to explore industry needs for the UKCRIC facilties, UrbanID and ReDReSC projects. Contributed to raising awareness of the proposed facility, eliciting performance requirements, prioritisation of use cases, and input to research route mapping.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
 
Description Presentations at Cardiff Business School, Logistics and Operations Management Section annual conferences. 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact Presentation of the following work to an audience of researchers, postgraduate students and academics within Cardiff Business School of the following work:
- Logistics options for manufacturers in the resilient sustainable city
- An exploratory study of the resilience of manufacturing in the Cardiff Capital Region
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016,2017
 
Description RDM|RSC Drivers of Resilience 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Study participants or study members
Results and Impact UK manufacturing has been transformed by globalisation, but this has been at the cost of a loss of manufacturing jobs and core capabilities, increased risks of disruption in the highly interconnected and interdependent global systems, and higher resource demands and environmental impacts.
New highly adaptable manufacturing processes capable of operating at small scales, such as additive layer manufacturing, offer the possibility of changing where and how manufacture is carried out. This change could help to minimise environmental impacts, improve product specialisation to markets, and improve the resilience of cities and regions under natural and socio-political disruptions.

This workshop will include wide-ranging presentations on resilience, sustainability and manufacturing futures. We will use an innovative participatory systems modelling method to explore the following issues for Bristol:

The causal relationships between different types of sustainability and resilience and the region's manufacturing sectors.
The resilience of the city's manufacturing sectors in the face of long-term and short-term disturbances.
The role re-distributed manufacturing could play in improving local sustainability and resilience.
We are delighted to have guest speakers and workshop facilitators from academia, local industry and the third sector, including a keynote introduction from Sarah Toy, Bristol City Council's Strategic Resilience Officer. Lunch will be provided.

Attended by 55 plus people.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
URL http://www.rdmrsc.org.uk/resources/publications-and-meeting-reports/
 
Description RDM|RSC Future Directions in Manufacturing 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Study participants or study members
Results and Impact This event will include talks from several invited speakers who will provide a framework for discussion between industrial manufacturers and academics on the potential benefits of using emerging technologies such as Additive Manufacturing and other novel approaches to manufacturing - especially at a smaller and more local scale. The main focus of the event will target the use of such approaches for Maintenance, Repair and Replacement of components, Resource Efficiency, and Circular Economy strategies.
What will you gain?

Find out about new developments in Additive Manufacturing and new areas for its application, including its use for maintenance and replacement. Exchange knowledge and ideas, and discuss mechanisms for implementing re-distributed manufacturing in your business. Learn about potential R&D funding opportunities.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
URL http://www.rdmrsc.org.uk/files/2016/02/Exeter-Meeting-of-the-RDM-for-distribution.pdf
 
Description RDM|RSC Launch event 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact The Network held a launch event on 22nd April 2015, at The Systems Centre, University of Bristol. This event introduced the RDM|RSC network, initiated discussion on the key issues for the research agenda and provided the groundwork for building a community of people with a shared interest in redistributed manufacturing and the region. 45 plus delegates attended.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
URL http://www.rdmrsc.org.uk/resources/rdmrsc-media/
 
Description RDM|RSC Making In The City Region 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Study participants or study members
Results and Impact The event brought together different perspectives on the networks that support manufacturing activity in the Bristol City Region. A range of speakers gave brief talks to explore:

- how direct (e.g. parts, assemblies, raw materials) and indirect (e.g. knowledge/advisory, design, education, finance, logistics) supply networks interact.
- the impact of the socio-economic (technology clusters, taxation/incentives, employment and skills, infrastructure, etc.) and historical context.

From this workshop, the intent is to build up several layers in a preliminary manufacturing map of the city region - identifying the areas for researchers to explore in more detail - and then begin to address the extent to which these networks drive/inhibit (i) resilience and (ii) sustainability.

http://www.rdmrsc.org.uk/resources/rdmrsc-media/
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
URL http://www.rdmrsc.org.uk/resources/publications-and-meeting-reports/
 
Description RDM|RSC Workshop - Enabling new business streams in community based manufacturing 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact This meeting was hosted by Cardiff Business School under the aegis of the Redistributed Manufacturing for the Resilient, Sustainable City (RDM|RSC) network and was attended by some 30 delegates, representing business, government, the third sector and academia. The workshop was organised around two main themes related to community-based and regional manufacturing as detailed below:

Theme 1: What is the size and shape of manufacturing in City Regions?
Presentations:
The Cardiff City Region, Ann Beynon, Cardiff City Region Board
Manufacturing in Cities, John Bradford, High Tech Bristol and Bath CIC
Examining the Cardiff City Region Manufacturing Sector, Anthony Soroka, Cardiff Business School
Workshop discussion themes:
- What value does community-based manufacturing provide and to whom?
- What value is created by being part of a community of makers/manufacturers?
- Do policy makers capture enough data from the maker community?
- How could we capture and measure value streams in community-based manufacturing?

Theme 2: Transition pathways: How can re-distributed manufacturing be enabled and enhance the resilience and sustainability of city regions?
The Welsh Food and Drink manufacturing sector, David Morris, Welsh Government
Bristol Makerwalk - Jude Sherry, University of Bath
e-platforms for community-based manufacturing, Yingli Wang, Cardiff Business School
Workshop discussion themes:
What is the role of government in supporting community based manufacturing?
What is the role of all stakeholders?
What are the logistics and public transport requirements for community based manufacturing?
What e-infrastructure is required?

The workshop activities stimulated active debate amongst the participants, who due to the wide variety of backgrounds could provide their own individual perspectives on the discussion topics.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
URL http://www.rdmrsc.org.uk/2016/04/13/19th-may-2016-enabling-new-value-streams-in-community-based-manu...
 
Description Rail freight in South Wales: How Resilient is it? 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact A presentation given to a meeting of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport, 3rd December 2015.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
 
Description Redistributed manufacturing for resilience and sustainability 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact An cross-network invited session on Re-distributed Manufacturing at the 2015 Sustainable Design and Manufacturing conference in Chania, Greece. The networks directly involved in organising this event were:

EPSRC/AHRC "Re-Distributed Manufacturing and the Resilient, Sustainable City" - Bristol, Cardiff, Bath, Exeter, UWE
EPSRC "Local Nexus Network for Redistributed Manufacturing" - Oxford, Cardiff, Birmingham, Exeter, Newcastle
EPSRC "RECODE Consumer Goods, Big Data and Re-Distributed Manufacturing" - Cranfield, Cambridge, Brunel, Manchester, Teesside

In addition to presentations from the above networks, there was also a presentation from the Re-Distributed Manufacturing Networks - The Role Of Makespaces (Future Makespaces) RdM Network led by Royal College of Art.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
 
Description Resilience development during financial crises: A dynamic capability approach 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact A presentation was given to the 19th International Working Seminar on Production Economics on the 23rd February 2016, Innsbruck, Austria. This presentation helped highlight the work being conducted on resilience of supply chains and manufacturing. The overall event was attended by some 200 delegates (who will have access to a paper describing this work) with the audience for the presentation being around 20-30 people.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
 
Description UKCRIC Urban Observatories/National Infrastructure Commission workshop, held as part of Festival of the Future Cities week (17/10/2017) 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact A day long workshop focused on the UKCRIC Urban Observatories developments and links to the National Infrastructure Commission's policy development around digital twins.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
 
Description Urban Living Partnership workshop session at Festival of the Future City, Bristol (19/10/2017) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact An afternoon workshop session featuring presentations from all 5 Urban Living Partnership Pilot projects. Progress update on Bristol UrbanID project, with further reference to UKCRIC and ReDReSC.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
 
Description WE CAN MAKE re-imagining manufacturing in Bristol 22nd September 2016 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Policymakers/politicians
Results and Impact We recognised that smart factories, digital fabrication technologies, new materials and changes in distribution networks are among the changes that have the potential to radically re-shaping who makes what, where and how. This event brought together thinkers, decision-makers, manufacturers, artists and makers to share and debate new research and ideas in manufacturing, and in particular, the potential positive and negative impacts this could have on disadvantaged communities in Bristol. The questions the speakers covered included:

Who and what will be the impacts from these technological and social changes?
Will new technologies open up the opportunity of a more participative and localised approach to manufacturing?
How will novel technologies and social change translate into new business ideas and is there an appetite to finance these?
Will there be environmental benefits through repair, re-use and recycling of products and materials in a circular economy?
How should a city region, its citizens and institutions, respond to the manufacturing possibilities in a changing world?

Contributors at the event included Bristol makers and manufacturers and

James Durie, Business West, Chair of Event.

Karin Smyth MP on supporting skills and jobs through re-localised manufacturing to create opportunities for all.

Chris McMahon, University of Bristol: sharing new research that tries to understand the reality of re-distributed manufacturing in Bristol and the South-West.

James Tooze, Royal College of Arts on makerspaces and rethinking the products and services we want and need.

Carolyn Hassan, Knowle West Media Centre: on creating pro-manufacturing communities than can make their own future.

The impact of this event was the dissemination of the Redistributed Manufacturing research among local decision makers, and as a result of the discussions the Knowle West Media Centre have pursued the "We Can Make" theme, taking it into a citizen-led housing project that includes research into localised manufacturing of bespoke housing, with the aim of using digital fabrication techniques to create local employment and meet housing needs defined by local residents.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
URL http://www.rdmrsc.org.uk/2016/08/09/22nd-september-2016-we-can-make-re-imagining-manufacturing-in-br...