Digital Manufacturing Accelerator (DMA)
The UK's leading hub for the commercial acceleration of digital manufacturing technologies.
The Digital Manufacturing Accelerator (DMA) is an £18m advanced testbed, designed to elevate UK manufacturing competitiveness. Enabling businesses to adopt cutting-edge digital and automation technologies, DMA boosts productivity and accelerates digital adoption within virtual and physical real-world environments.
Manufacturers across the UK explore and validate new technologies with reduced risk, while solution providers gain an open-access platform to test and showcase their innovations on adaptable manufacturing systems.
Through innovation, industrialisation, and workforce training, DMA is empowering manufacturers to become more agile, efficient, and sustainable, advancing progress across the UK manufacturing sector.
The DMA unlocks UK manufacturers potential to explore innovative production methods, boosting productivity and unlocking new market opportunities. It also strengthens the UK supply chain by supporting technology providers to deliver cutting-edge solutions.
Charlie Whitford, Director of North West and Regions - MTC
The Environment
Digital Manufacturing Accelerator is made up of two environments: DFE – Digital Factory Environment and RRFE – Rapidly-Reconfigurable Factory Environment
DFE
The Digital Factory Environment is a sandbox offering ready-made tools and solutions that help you develop and test new manufacturing technologies. With preconfigured setups – including digital twins, you don’t need to start from scratch, saving time and resources while increasing your chances of early success.
- On-demand data and computing power
- Control and data acquisition modules
- Safe, no-risk environment to experiment
- Library of manufacturing ICT systems and simulations
RRFE
The Rapidly Reconfigurable Factory Environment is a modular space where you can build flexible production lines and bring your digital twin to life. It helps optimise your processes and cut costs before rolling them out in your business.
- Flexible reconfigurable controls architecture
- Modular mutli-vendor Automation hardware support
- Flexible modular software
- Multi Automation network protocol support
The DMA team have brought high quality and innovative thinking to our advanced manufacturing programme. I’m excited about the facility and capabilities being developed.
Steve Wire, R&D Director, Global Hair - Unilever
Applications
Logistics & Packaging
A smart production solution to tackle the growing demand for packaging customised multi-drug blister medications while boosting productivity in small batch production.
FMCG
A streamlined production solution to keep up with the rising demand for personalised products and order quantities of one, in the fast-moving consumer goods sector.
Electrification
A virtual production solution to streamline and optimise the making of additively manufactured parts for electrification applications.
Programme partners
FAQs
How closely can this replicate a company's factory environment?
We can replicate it extensively. Here’s how:
Enterprise Systems: We can create instances of enterprise systems from our catalogue or emulate their interfaces. If a system isn’t listed, adding it is simpler than starting from scratch, and it allows for future duplication or reuse.
Data Infrastructure: We offer quick setups for databases, analytics, and dashboards, either from our catalogue or as fresh installations.
Machine Emulation: We can emulate PLCs from a range of vendors, and we are continually developing and improving machine emulation capability by building new templates, which are being integrated back into the DMA catalogue.
Networks and Security: We can create representative, isolated environments that mirror corporate IT setups, ensuring secure operations.
