Professor Sam Turner
Professor Sam Turner is the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of the High Value Manufacturing (HVM) Catapult. Sam works across the HVM Catapult centres and stakeholders, including government, to develop manufacturing strategy for the UK. He is part of the Made Smarter Strategy Implementation Group led by Juergen Maier and was part of the review team. In this role Sam has chaired the D4I Digital Industry Group, the Through Life Engineering Services (TES) Council and the IMechE Manufacturing Industries Division. He joined the HVM Catapult team in 2017 from his role as CTO of the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) with Boeing, where he worked on a range of projects and capabilities including the Flagship Digital Facility Factory 2050, machining, casting and composites technology. As a founding member of the AMRC, Sam led the growth of the AMRC’s Machining Group, with successes in delivering impact to UK industry, before moving into the CTO role. Sam has over 20 years’ experience in manufacturing working across the aerospace, steel, defence, automotive sectors.
Keynote title: TES and the roadmap to Net Zero
Abstract:
The UK government's commitment to Net Zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 presents a great challenge and opportunity for the engineering community. There is not yet a clear strategy for provision of clean energy supply, decarbonisation of transport and infrastructure or addressing industrial emissions. Clean energy sources are a natural focus area but the embodied carbon in our vehicles, transport and energy infrastructure and manufactured goods is a significant contributor. Estimates suggest that for a standard internal combustion engine car, 40% of emissions per mile are related to the embodied carbon through the design and manufacture process. This percentage impact is greatly reduced with life extension.
To deliver the spirit as well as the letter of the national net zero commitment, there is a role for through life engineering to address the in-service performance, affordability and life cycle emissions of engineered products. It may be that legislation forces businesses to account for the life cycle emissions of their products. Many of the engineering solutions required to deliver the net zero economy will be high value engineered assets that are ripe for the TES methodology.
It is likely that we will have a wider number of companies and sectors turning to TES with the PAS280 offering a 'handbook' for OEMs and supply chains alike to adopt a TES framework. Government procurement for large infrastructural programmes would provide a great opportunity to stimulate and accelerate TES practices. The TES ecosystem in the UK must be expanded through; skills; leadership; business models and contracting; finance; supply chain capability and technology. There is a great opportunity to grow a vibrant TES ecosystem in the UK.
Alongside the legal, contractual and financial frameworks there must be parallel developments in technology and skills. The community can build on the recent Level 7 Trailblazer apprenticeships to expand the skill base from the boardroom to engineers at all levels. Further innovation in technologies such as health monitoring, IoT and analytics, design for through life, Maintenance 4.0, manufacturing for in service upgrade will be required to equip businesses for effective and competitive TES offerings. Innovation programmes are needed to bring together OEMs with their manufacturing and technology supply chains. There is a need for industry to come together with the research and innovation community to develop a technology roadmap. This will help to prioritise the innovation that will build the industrial capability needed by TES supply chains to mature and grow to meet the domestic and global need.