Delcam to lead additive manufacturing project for the UK jewellery
industry
The UK’s jewellery sector is set to benefit from a major 471,000 UKP
research and development project called PRECIOUS that began earlier
this month with a kick-off meeting at Delcam’s Birmingham
headquarters. The project, to be managed by Delcam, will make a
definitive step change to the current use of additive manufacture for
precious metal jewellery through an empirical set of trials,
benchmarks and demonstrators, making it easier for the whole UK
supply chain of design, manufacture and retail to adopt the
technology.
The PRECIOUS project is being undertaken by a consortium of five
organisations that, in addition to Delcam, includes Cookson Precious
Metals, Lionel T Dean/Future Factories, the Jewellery Industry
Innovation Centre and Finishing Techniques.
The project is receiving 212,000 UKP of support from the UK’s
innovation agency, the Technology Strategy Board. It is aimed at
rapidly bringing to full commercial maturity the process of additive
manufacturing of precious metal jewellery items that is currently at
varying stages of partial readiness at a small number of UK
companies.
Project Manager, Jan Willem Gunnink from Delcam, stated, “The UK is
an internationally recognised and important supplier of quality
jewellery to the world’s markets but is constantly threatened by
cheap imports from low labour cost economies. The PRECIOUS project
is intended to offer a viable alternative manufacturing option to
those who supply jewellery at the middle to higher end of the
bespoke and personalised jewellery market. New online business
models that exploit additive manufacturing are expected to be
created and should add innovative design driven impetuous to the
more traditional high street retailing sectors”.
To achieve this goal, a number of important research and development
elements will be required:
-
An assessment of the current “State-of-the-Art” of both
AM-related hardware and software tools -
Identifying the supply chain requirements for the introduction
of additive manufacturing -
Developing business models for jewellery companies wishing to
use additive manufacturing -
Improving the efficiency of pre-processing and post-processing
activities within jewellery additive manufacturing. -
Creation of demonstrator projects to promote the technology to
jewellery companies
Acknowledgements
This project is co-funded by The Technology Strategy Board, the UK’s
innovation agency. Its goal is to accelerate economic growth by
stimulating and supporting business-led innovation. Sponsored by the
Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), the Technology
Strategy Board brings together business, research and the public
sector, supporting and accelerating the development of innovative
products and services to meet market needs, tackle major societal
challenges and help build the future economy. For more information
please visit http://www.ganoksin.com/gnkurl/ep810b
Information
For more please contact:
Petra Lugtenburg pcl@delcam.com