To Me, To You: Improving Supply Chain Communications with Digital Technologies

在航空航天等高度管制的行业中，传统的物理文书交换会导致延迟，引入错误并降低单个制造商和整个供应链的效率。因此，我们需要工业数字技术（IDT），使供应商能够快速、轻松地与客户共享关键信息和文档，为业务关系中的双方提供可证明的单点真相，并确保产品符合要求和预期的规格。因此，我们提出了一个多学科项目，包括学习、开发和测试三个阶段。这将使我们能够更好地理解所发现的问题，开始开发和测试IDT来解决这些问题，并提出一个后续项目，将学习扩展为工业研究项目。该项目将由四方合作进行：两家互补的技术解决方案提供商，Elements Technology和Pathfindr;谢菲尔德大学先进制造研究中心（AMRC）和主要航空航天供应链中的中小企业制造商Produmax。工业研究最初将由AMRC进行（由Rab Scott教授领导）;有了这些知识，Elements Technology和Pathfindr开发了两种创新的IDT，为供应链中的供应商和客户提供了一种简单的方法，用于传达有关生产、认证、运输和交付。与现有的IDT不同，拟议的技术将使制造商能够在安全的环境中轻松共享信息，特别关注通过利用API和集成（内部和外部）自动化信息分发。这些IDT将在一个活跃的航空航天供应链的一个子部分的工作场景中进行测试，并使用AMRC开发的一个新的可配置工业测试平台作为项目的一部分。该项目的输出最初将针对航空航天供应链的20'000家英国中小企业制造商。如果该目标市场的5%使用已开发的技术，我们预计已开发的IDT可以为制造商节省目前因非生产性活动而损失的劳动力成本2.2亿英镑/年，使他们能够产生额外的22亿英镑/年营业额，为纳税人创造7，957：1的投资回报率（ROI），投资额为276，480英镑。此外，我们预计产品的产出将为项目合作伙伴带来7，360万英镑的营业额（超过五年），投资回报率为880：1，对该项目的总贡献为83'129英镑。

In highly regulated industries such as aerospace, the traditional exchange of physical paperwork causes delays, introduces errors and reduces the efficiency of individual manufacturers and the overall supply chain. There is therefore a need for Industrial Digital Technologies (IDTs) that enable suppliers to quickly and easily share key information and documentation with their customers, providing a demonstrable single point of truth for both parties in the business relationship, and ensuring that products meet required and expected specifications.We therefore propose a multi-disciplined project with three phases of learning, development and testing. This will enable us to increase our understanding of the problems identified, start developing and testing IDTs to address these problems, and propose a follow-on project that would expand the learnings into an industrial research project.The project will be conducted as a collaboration between four parties: two complimentary technology solutions providers, Elements Technology and Pathfindr; the University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC); and an SME manufacturer within a major aerospace supply chain, Produmax.Industrial research will initially be conducted by the AMRC (led by Prof Rab Scott); with the learnings of this then informing the development of two innovative IDTs by Elements Technology and Pathfindr to provide suppliers and customers within a supply chain with a simple method to communicate information about production, certification, transport, and delivery. Unlike existing IDTs, the proposed technologies will enable manufacturers to easily share information in a secure environment, with a particular focus on automating information distribution by utilising APIs and integrations (both internal and external). These IDTs will then be tested in a working scenario within a sub-section of an active aerospace supply chain, and using a novel configurable industrial testbed developed by the AMRC as part of the project.The project outputs will initially be targeted at the 20'000 SME UK-based manufacturers that are part of aerospace supply chains. If 5% of this target market utilise the developed technologies, we project that the developed IDTs could save manufacturers £220m/year in labour costs currently lost to unproductive activity, enabling them to generate an extra £2.2b/year in turnover, creating a Return on Investment (ROI) of 7'957:1 to taxpayers on the £276'480 investment.Furthermore, we project the outputs of the product will generate £73.6m turnover for the project partners combined (over five years), an ROI of 880:1 on the combined £83'129 contribution to this project.