The MTC integrates ground-breaking Sit Ski technology to mitigate need for large equipment investment by Rolls-Royce
The digital measurement technology used in Sit Ski proved vital to help validate an improved supply chain. This mitigated a large equipment spend for us, with the ability to go five percent higher on customer delivery, creating supply chain duality.
Gary Capewell, Supply Chain Designer, Rolls-Royce
The challenge
The MTC, working with the HVM Catapult used ground-breaking manufacturing technologies to improve the design of a Paralympic Sit Ski.
The MTC helped to measure the performance of the athletes on existing equipment, before supporting with the design and manufacture of a bespoke, lightweight prototype.
The technologies applied by the MTC on the Sit Ski project are also being used with other leading commercial customers to solve their manufacturing challenges.
MTC’s solution
For the Sit Ski project, the MTC used low-cost mobile phone technology to develop an instrumentation harness which could measure accelerations, lean angles and suspension deflection. This data was wirelessly streamed to a laptop during an indoor testing session.
Working with the National Composites Centre and Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre, the MTC helped to design a new Sit Ski - leveraging the benefits of additive manufacturing technology and topology optimisation to save weight whilst providing improved performance
The outcome
A lightweight Sit Ski was manufactured saving 30 per cent of the weight over existing designs.
The new Sit Ski received very positive feedback from the athletes who tested it.
Using the same technologies as Sit Ski, spin-off projects were developed with a number of UK manufacturing companies. They used the low-cost instrumentation to measure manufacturing and logistics processes, where current instrumentation would have been too fragile or expensive.
Benefits to the client
Using technology and skills developed on the sit-ski project, the MTC were able to deliver a solution for Rolls-Royce to simplify their supply chain, mitigating the need for a large multi-million pound equipment investment.
Product and process knowledge was captured for use in future MTC programs.
Proven new technology performance in a harsh environment, with components being pushed to the limits.
Further cost-saving projects ongoing with UK manufacturing companies in other sectors, using the technology benefits proven by Sit Ski.
This project has developed a great Sit Ski, whilst showcasing British manufacturing technology, with potential savings and improvements in products and processes all over the UK.
Sean Rose, Paralympian, X-Games Athlete and Broadcaster
