Manufacturing

The manufacturing team play an important role within the project team in terms of moving the design concepts from the paper and into the real world. Our manufacturing knowledge comes from two fourth year MEng, and one third year BEng student, studying Manufacturing Engineering and Management. The team’s principle focus is the materials that will be used, and the methods used to produce the products.
Adopting a concurrent engineering approach the manufacturing team is working as an integrated part of the group offering support with design concepts and feasibility of manufacture of the designs. This ensures the optimal design is produced before moving in to the process of manufacture.
The nature of the project throws up several interesting manufacturing problems:

• Production size is very small, how can complex forms be produced at low cost for low volume?
• Control systems must be manufactured in to the product and these require special consideration in design and manufacture.
• Precision manufacture is important to ensure the foil works as designed. How can the foil be produced accurately, at a low cost?
• Materials must be chosen that can resist the hostile marine environment.
  Materials must be stiff enough to retain form, but be light enough not to affect boat performance.

These challenges lead to an exciting part for the team to play within the group. By overcoming these obstacles the Manufacturing team is confident that the product will be of the highest quality and perform as designed.