Shoestring at Cambridge Festival 2022

Join us on Saturday 9 April at the Institute for Manufacturing to see live demonstrations of Shoestring solutions.

As part of the Cambridge University festival celebrations of 2022 the Digital Manufacturing on a Shoestring team is showcasing some of the Shoestring solutions where the project started, at the Institute for Manufacturing, part of the University of Cambridge’s Engineering Department.

Doors open at 13:30 and the Shoestring demonstrations will be running all afternoon in the atrium where Shoestring has set up a mock-up factory production line. 

To view the demonstrators on the ‘DMW factory’ production line click here >>

DMW Factory production line

The ‘DMW factory’ shows how a company producing gearboxes benefited from installing a job tracking solution, which gives real-time visibility of the status of all jobs in production. An automated parts completeness checking solution was added to create an automated way to check the right parts are collated before being sent to the assembly line. Whilst an equipment monitoring solution helps monitor the usage of a screwdriver used to assemble the products.

Dr Greg Hawkridge says live demos help companies, particularly small- and medium-sized enterprises, realise that small digital changes can make a big difference:

It is really great to see how many small companies have been inspired to try something different. Thanks to Digital Manufacturing on a Shoestring, we have been able to demonstrate that digitalisation doesn’t need to be that complicated and that there are some simple things that SMEs can do to start the process.

When we showcased Shoestring at Digital Manufacturing Week, we were joined by Craig Mayoh, Operations Director of Kemdent, a Shoestring partner that manufacturers dental products, who described the impact of Shoestring on Kemdent’s processes:

Kemdent piloted a Shoestring temperature monitoring solution on a production line. It was deployed with fantastic support from the IfM. For any company thinking about trying out a digital solution – Shoestring is a good place to start. It has made Kemdent more confident in our approach to digital manufacturing.

The Shoestring demonstrators form one of many other events going on at the IfM for the Cambridge festival, from a talk revealing how we make things to laser-guided robot racing with toy cars.

Join us on Saturday 9 April, 13:30-17:00, Institute for Manufacturing, 17 Charles Babbage Road, Cambridge CB3 0FS

For full details on the Cambridge Festival visit the website: https://www.festival.cam.ac.uk/

If you are interested in finding out how your company or organisation can get involved in the Shoestring programme, or would like to know more, we would love to hear from you!

Please email us at: contact@digitalshoestring.net