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Made Smarter Innovation Hubs are fully funded test beds, living labs and other development environments. Their purpose is to drive innovation by enabling the testing of digital solutions.

The Digital Supply-Chain Innovation Hub (DSCIH) will establish and nurture an ecosystem that connects expertise from supply-chain experts in many of the UKs most important manufacturing industries with technology providers, research organisations and academics to improve their competitiveness, resilience, productivity, and sustainability. It will combine >£10m in private co-investment with £10m in public funding over 4 years to accelerate commercial integration of industrial digital technologies by a wide range of UK manufacturing supply-chains.

The Hub will be managed by the Digital Catapult, collaborating with HVMC, NPL and TWI. The consortium are already active members of the government's flagship, "Made Smarter" programme of R&D support to the UKs manufacturing sector.

The Hub will rapidly establish a national "network of excellence" in digital supply-chains by cross linking existing networks, seeded by existing relationships and the previous successes of the Made Smarter programme, facilitating collaboration between industries and across supply-chains. Any UK based organisation with supply-chain or digital solution expertise will be able to bid for access to ISCF co-funding, expertise, and testbeds to deliver £8m portfolio of digital innovation projects, helping accelerate digitisation of the UK's critical manufacturing supply-chains.

The Hub will deliver five "flagship" projects which will act as exemplar testbeds:
  • Last Mile Living Lab (LMLL)

    Led by Digital Catapult, the Last Mile Living Lab (LMLL) seeks to explore and develop delivery resource management infrastructure to tackle the challenging and costly "last mile" of delivery.

  • Digital Enabled Manufacturing Sourcing (DEMS)

    Led by TWI, Digital Enabled Manufacturing Sourcing (DEMS) seeks to connect manufacturing capacity with emerging manufacturing needs to increase capacity utilisation and boost production flexibility.

  • Differentiator Hub

    Led by AMRC, the Differentiator Hub will develop new supply-chain models to support clinical trials and help get the right medicine to the right patient at the right dose, on demand.

  • Connected Tempest Hub

    Led by NCC and AMRC, the Connected Tempest hub seeks to supply and accelerate digital skills development and connectivity of the Tempest Supply chain, driving cost and time savings into the design phase of the defence programme.

  • Supply-Chain Lab

    Led by Deloitte, the Supply-Chain Lab will be cross-sectoral and focus on earlier stage ideation to help SMEs identify valuable challenges and develop 120-day roadmaps to solution implementation.

The Hub will monitor, impact assess and disseminate transferable lessons-learned to accelerate technology transfer between supply-chains.

The Hub will be supported by ISCF Made Smarter funding until March 2025. Thereafter, the Hub will become self-sustaining, funded by industry to ensure UK manufacturing supply-chains continue digital transformation, driving improvements in competitiveness, resilience, and sustainability for decades to come.

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