A single manufacturing platform will combine multiple process technologies—such as 3D printing, machining, and functional material deposition—to build complex products in one digitally controlled, template-free step. This matters because today’s manufacturing typically requires separate machines and multiple steps for different processes, which limits the shapes, materials, and functions a product can have. By merging technologies into one platform, researchers aim to break those limits and create components with “multi-faceted complexity”—for example, parts that combine structural strength with embedded electronics or self-healing surfaces. If the research succeeds, it could transform how high-value products are made: lighter aircraft components, medical implants with integrated sensors, or energy devices that combine structure and function. The impact would be felt in aerospace, healthcare, and energy systems—sectors where manufacturing complexity currently constrains performance. This is applied, platform-building research. It does not target a specific product today, but aims to give the UK the experimental tools and interdisciplinary research leaders needed to stay ahead in advanced manufacturing. The work is about creating the capability to make things that cannot be made now.
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Hybrid Manufacturing concerns digitally-driven and template-less manufacturing processes which are founded on cross-technology process platforms. Our group focuses on how truly transformative capability may be realised by the next generations of this ideology. Our Hybrid Manufacturing Process research is founded on the premise that future generations of products, with multi-faceted complexity and transformative capability may be realised through the combination of multiple process technologies within a singular platform, while incorporating emerging research from the physical sciences (such as functional materials). This aims to provide an exponential increase in the capability for complex manufacturing and the magnitude of resultant value. Our pioneering research has been recognised by a number of eminent parties and international peers. Our research group possess unique research capability, which is significantly due to the recruitment and development of a cohort of outstanding researchers and our suite of globally unique experimental manufacturing apparatus. The growth and momentum of our current activity, along with our pipeline of future research and innovation, now warrants a supporting platform in order to secure and maintain our world-leading position. It will enable us to stengthen our strategic approach to leading research, allow us to continue to shape and capitalise on emerging opportunities, and further develop the next generation of truly interdisciplinary research leaders. This will ensure that the UK remains at the forefront of this exciting and valuable field of manufacturing process research.
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