Productive Machines, an AI startup from The University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC), said the funding will help make its optimisation technology available to a wider range of manufacturers worldwide.
UK Innovation & Science Seed Fund (UKI2S) led the round with participation from NPIF – Mercia Equity Finance, which is managed by Mercia and part of the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund, ACT Venture Partners and Fuel Ventures, alongside grant funding from Innovate UK.
Productive Machines will use the funding to deliver its AI technology as a fully-automated Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) product and expand its team of eight to over 20.
Founded by CEO Dr Erdem Ozturk and CTO Dr Huseyin Celikag, Productive Machines is commercialising the results of a six-year AMRC research project on machining dynamics. This research covered process and machine tool interactions, including how cutting forces and resulting vibrations affect machine tool performance.
Productive Machines has developed a computational model to predict and mitigate the influence of these vibrations at every stage in metal and composite milling jobs. It uses a digital twin to determine the best parameters for each machine tool and production run, which eliminates configuration experiments. To date, the technology has been deployed by 10 manufacturers, including Renault and MASA Aerospace.
Machines configured by Productive Machines can reportedly produce parts in half the time it took originally and deliver surface quality improvements due to the mitigation of chatter vibrations created by instability in machining processes. Users report that cutting tools last up to 30 per cent longer on optimised machines.
In a statement, Dr Ozturk said: “Manufacturers want to reduce costs, improve quality and cut carbon emissions. But most don’t want to buy complex software products or hire PhD-level engineers to make them work. We are meeting all of their goals. The results of our research and innovation are proven with major manufacturers, and this investment enables us to make the significant benefits more accessible to manufacturers of all sizes, anywhere in the world.
“There are three million machines in the world that would be more accurate, productive and sustainable with our AI, and we are removing the cost and skill barriers to its adoption.”
Productive Machines is developing a network of partners to take its technology to market. These include measurement technology specialist Kistler, metal cutting solutions company Seco, and other machine tool and cutting tool manufacturers.
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