ATKINS – Rapid Manufacturing a Low Carbon Footprint

ATKINS is a £2.9-million collaborative research and development projects funded by the UK governmental and a consortium of leading industrial partners. The aim of ATKINS is to fundamentally migrate the design, manufacturing and distribution of goods and components away from the high energy-intensive methodologies that we use today to a more sustainable method of production, service and distribution to the consumer. This low-carbon design, manufacturing and service philosophy will be enabled by the unique characteristics of Rapid Manufacturing (RM).

Between May 2008 and April 2011, the ATKINS partnership will investigate:

• Waste minimisation during production: ensuring optimised and repeatable RM production systems can substantially reduce or eliminate waste materials;
• Process efficiency gains: using RM processes to replace inefficient and wasteful conventional manufacturing processes
• Reducing transportation: Using digital supply chains and RM technologies to significantly reduce logistical requirements by shortening the supply chain and minimising the need for waste material disposal or recycling;
• Product design for whole life cycle impact: Exploiting RM design freedoms to minimise weight for significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions over the whole product life cycle
• Product design for optimised performance: manufacturing truly optimised products that are more efficient in their application compared to traditional parts constrained by Design for Manufacture.