Entries by craig.8ball

Update on Digital Readiness Level (DRL)

Image: © Arild / Adobe Stock   HSSMI and its partners have developed a new version of DRL – version three. Version three is a refined development of the tool. It maintains the key characteristics of be a balance of technical, value and leadership functions. We have adopted the term value as we feel it […]

Research into a Virtual Tool to Perform Risk Assessment for Collaborative Applications

Image: © Pugun & Photo Studio / Adobe Stock   The Risk Assessment for Collaborative Environments (RACE) project aims to develop a virtual tool to perform risk assessments for collaborative applications. From inputs such as the robot’s program, the operator’s program and a CAD model of the production part and the environment, a simulation is […]

Digital Readiness Level – Developing an Accessible Model

Image: © everythingpossible / Adobe Stock   Digital Readiness Level – developing an accessible model In our work developing DRL we have observed a range of different entry points; some models offer an opportunity for in depth analysis, others an entry level approach for overview assessment. We discussed this issue recently at a meeting of […]

Software Development – A Learning Approach

Image: © monsitj / Adobe Stock   In this post, I’ll be describing my current approach to implementing a major feature into an existing web application. In the software development world, everyone knows that there are many different techniques to implement the same set of features. We describe these methods as ‘design patterns’, and the […]

Digital Readiness Level (DRL)

Image: © ZintetroN / Adobe Stock   Over the last 18 months we at HSSMI have been talking to a lot of our customers and academic partners about digital manufacturing, or industry 4.0 or Factory of the Future; the names vary but the intent is the same; how can we increase productivity, quality, flexibility and […]

The Lovelace Test or Can Machines Take Us By Surprise?

Image: © BAIVECTOR / Adobe Stock Ever heard of the Lovelace Test? As part of my work in the Data Analytics for Resource Efficiency team and my interest in Machine Learning, I’m interested to know when machines can be considered intelligent. Over the years, the Turing Test has been regarded by many (definitely not by […]

HSSMI’s Adoption of Cloud Technologies

Image: © Gorodenkoff / Adobe Stock   We’re constantly hearing about ‘the cloud’ in one form or another – Dropbox, Apple’s iCloud, Microsoft’s OneDrive – but what exactly is it?  Although these storage solutions are a key component, the cloud is much more than just simple distributed storage. In this blog post, I’ll present my […]

Inspiring the Generation of Tomorrow

Image: © stokkete / Adobe Stock   According to some interesting statistics from the year 2015, 64% of engineering employers in the UK state that the current shortfall of 55,000 engineers with the appropriate skill set threatens their business. Additionally, 32% of companies across multiple sectors currently find it difficult to recruit experienced staff in […]