Glasgow manufacturers are pooling their data scientists with university researchers to build a shared team that small and medium-sized firms could never afford on their own. The problem is stark: even large manufacturers struggle to recruit and keep enough data experts to stay competitive, while SMEs often cannot justify hiring a single full-time data specialist. Without this capability, companies cannot use their own production data to cut energy use, hit net-zero targets, or improve productivity. The Data-Driven Design & Manufacturing Colab (D3M_Colab) embeds university researchers and students directly into companies through placements, secondments, and collaborative projects. It also creates "Manufacturing Sandboxes"—digital replicas of factory floors where firms can test new data tools without risking real production. If this works, Glasgow’s manufacturers—from large plants to small workshops—could gain the data-science muscle to optimise energy use, reduce waste, and speed up product design, all without needing to poach talent from tech giants. The model is open and replicable, meaning other industrial regions could adopt it. This is applied research with a clear practical goal: keep manufacturing competitive by making data expertise a shared resource, not a luxury.
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Manufacturers in the Glasgow region, and across Scotland, increasingly recognise that effective use of data in design and manufacturing will be transformational to productivity, mitigating the energy crisis, and attaining net-zero targets. They are responding to this opportunity by upskilling engineers and recruiting data-scientists. However, even large companies report issues recruiting, retaining, and effectively supporting data-science teams with sufficient critical mass required to maintain world-class capabilities when competing with other sectors. The situation for SMEs, who often cannot justify employing a full-time data expert, is even more difficult. This project will combine the industry-focused data and design teams at the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland (NMIS) with the researchers and students in the Industrial Informatics Cluster (IIC) at the University of Strathclyde to create a Data-Driven Design & Manufacturing Colab (D3M\_Colab), an open approach to industrial engagement, augmenting and upskilling Glasgow manufacturers' in-house data science and design capabilities and de-risking deployment of new technologies. Guided by the philosophy that to be most effective data science and design capabilities need to be directly embedded into industry, the D3M\_Colab will focus on four areas: * Creating internal capability within companies through delivery of a skills and graduate 'hothouse' placement programme, * Enhancing existing capability within companies through collaborative support from NMIS and IIC experts, bi-directional secondments, and close cooperation with innovative technology venders, * Augmenting capabilities through end-user defined advanced design and analytics projects tailored to specific company requirements (large enterprises and SMEs), and * De-risking innovation and data-driven transformation with 'Manufacturing Sandboxes' where companies' physical and digital infrastructure can be replicated, providing an environment where multiple solutions can be developed with zero impact on production.
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