Conference Notes from Anthony Soroka
The SDM-2016 organised by KES International and Cardiff University took place on the 4th – 6th April in Chania, on the island of Crete, Greece. SDM-2016 consisted of keynote talks on theme of sustainable manufacturing from both academic and industrial perspectives, general track session and invited sessions (including a session of re-distributed manufacturing). The conference provided a vibrant platform for researchers and industrialists to present and discuss their work, covering both the theory and practice of sustainable design and manufacturing.
SDM-2016 general tracks were focused on: Sustainable Design, Innovation and Services; Sustainable Manufacturing Processes and Technology; Sustainable Manufacturing Systems and Enterprises; and Decision Support for Sustainability. Whilst the invited sessions covered a diverse range a sustainable manufacturing topics ranging from sustainability and resilience in agri‐food supply chains to the UK-China forum on innovation for green manufacturing.
The Best Paper award went to Dr Rachel Freeman from the University of Bristol for the paper: ‘Design of an Integrated Assessment of Re-distributed Manufacturing for the Sustainable, Resilient City’ Rachel Freeman, Chris McMahon and Patrick Godfrey.
The Best Student Paper Award went to: ‘A Social Sustainability Assessment Model for Manufacturing Systems Based on Ergonomics and Fuzzy Inference System’, Yang Cao, Shilong Wang, Lili Yi and Jie Zhou and ‘An investigation into the quasi-static response of Ti6Al4V lattice structures manufactured using selective laser melting’, Qixiang Feng, Qian Tang, Shwe Soe, Ying Liu and Rossi Setchi
The IET prize went to Rolls Royce plc for their keynote presentation on: ‘Powering a Better World: Integrating sustainability into design’, Andrew Clifton, Sustainability Manager for Engineering & Design
Invited Session: Redistributed manufacturing for resilience and sustainability
The invited session on redistributed manufacturing for resilience and sustainability managed to bring together several of the networks on redistributed manufacturing funded by the EPSRC and other research councils, enabling a highly productive exchange of ideas between researchers involved in the four networks represented to take place.
The following papers were presented:
- RECODE (Consumer Goods, Big Data and Redistributed Manufacturing): ‘Can Re-distributed Manufacturing and Digital Intelligence Enable a Regenerative Economy? An Integrative Literature Review’, Mariale Moreno, Fiona Charnley
- Future Makespaces (Re-Distributed Manufacturing Networks – The Role Of Makespaces):
- ‘Makespaces: From Redistributed Manufacturing to a Circular Economy’, Sharon Prendeville, Grit Hartung, Erica Purvis, Clare Brass, Ashley Hall
- RDM|RSC (Redistributed Manufacturing and the Resilient, Sustainable City): ‘An Exploratory Study of the Resilience of Manufacturing in the Cardiff Capital Region’, Anthony Soroka, Mohamed Naim, Gillian Bristow, Laura Purvis; ‘Design of an Integrated Assessment of Re-distributed Manufacturing for the Sustainable, Resilient City’, Rachel Freeman, Chris McMahon, Patrick Godfrey
- The Local Nexus Network (Building sustainable local nexuses of food, energy and water: from smart engineering to shared prosperity): ‘The Local Nexus Network: Exploring the Future of Localised Food Systems and Associated Energy and Water Supply’, Julian Cottee, Alma López-Avilés, Kourosh Behzadian, David Bradley, David Butler, Clare Downing, Raziyeh Farmani, John Ingram, Matthew Leach, Andy Pike, Lisa De Propris, Laura Purvis, Pamela Robinson, Aidong Yang
Design of an Integrated Assessment of Re-distributed Manufacturing for the Sustainable, Resilient City, Rachel Freeman
Rachel’s presentation was on the design of an integrated assessment of manufacturing for the resilient, sustainable city. It presented work done on the RDM|RSC research question two: What internal and external disturbances might impact on the people and businesses of Bristol and its hinterland in future? The presentation covered the research methods used, definitions of different types of resilience and sustainability, the core conceptual framework for the research, and results of the RDMRSC October workshop. A short discussion at the end of the presentation considered some of these open questions that have come to light during the project, including:
- Definition of sustainability, resilience, smart – innovation, growth, and resilience for whom? Who has agency and interest?
- Suitable frames for thinking about complexity, e.g. panarchy, complex adaptive systems, socio-technical systems, evolution
- Combinations of old and new technologies, high-tech and low-tech, makers and hackers – what can succeed?
- Jobs now and in the future – automation, global competition, jobs for different types of skills, manufacturing locally
- Power, knowledge, and legitimacy for change are growing; do our cities have “transformability”?
Rachel was very honoured to be awarded the prize for the best research paper of the conference during the closing meeting, which was awarded due to the paper’s high quality of writing and development of new ideas. The prize is free admission to next year’s SDM.