Testbeds play key role in advancing industrial sustainability

By Tim Lawrence, Director of the Digital Supply Chain Hub, Digital Catapult 

Automotive spares, food and hydrogen supply chains face challenges that require a fresh approach to maintain competitiveness and meet sustainability goals. The automotive spares industry is struggling with outdated inventory management systems, while the hydrogen sector faces unique barriers in transitioning to greener energy, including gaps in technical knowledge and cost assessment. In the food sector, evolving Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) regulations and consumer demands for transparency have increased pressure to adopt sustainable practices.

The challenges these sectors face necessitate digital transformation and access to testbed facilities to trial new solutions to bolster supply chain resilience across the UK, and advance industrial sustainability using deep tech solutions. At Digital Catapult, we accelerate the practical application of deep tech to unlock new commercial opportunities and to advance industrial sustainability in the UK. We achieve this by welcoming partners to our pioneering programmes, including the Made Smarter Innovation | Digital Supply Chain Hub, which aims to advance UK industrial supply chain resilience.

Driving innovation on the Digital Supply Chain Hub 

The Digital Supply Chain Hub is a part of the £300 million challenge led by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), which aims to make UK supply chains more resilient, efficient and sustainable. It has thus far helped over 40 startups and SMEs to secure more than £3 million in funding. The programme continues to play a critical role in helping technology pioneers to scale faster. With a strong emphasis on data driven insights and measurable outcomes, the Digital Supply Chain Hub ensures that the solutions developed are not only feasible but also deliver impact, driving efficiency and sustainability.

Critical to the success of the Hub, four facilities are located across the country specialising in hydrogen, textiles, automotive spares and food manufacturing. These testbeds have been leveraged in the Digital Supply Chain Hub as well as addressing challenges in cybersecurity, carbon management and data governance, with a view to strengthen UK industry.

Accelerating the practical application of deep tech in industry 

The Digital Supply Chain Hub programme welcomes, Vytech Solutions, Offshorly and Heuris Energy (a returning participant to the hydrogen testbed) to tackle challenges in the automotive spares, food and hydrogen supply chains. Each participant will receive up to £115,000 in funding as they look to transform the landscape of their respective industries through technological innovation and collaboration, advancing the practical application of deep technology in industry and allowing them to scale faster.

Vytech Solutions is looking to address the key challenge of part name standardisation to enable sharing and interoperability across supply chains. Deployed in the automotive spares testbed in collaboration with NBT Group and Northumbria University, their solution aims to provide a powerful, user-friendly platform for businesses ensuring high data quality and operational efficiency.

Offshorly will collaborate with Contained Technology to deploy an ESG compliance system within the food supply chain test bed, with a solution that will simplify the complex regulatory standards and provide actionable insights. This will help UK food businesses to meet sustainability requirements more efficiently, advancing industrial sustainability in the sector more broadly and meeting commercial demand for more sustainable produce.

Thirdly, and in collaboration with Hydrologiq’s hydrogen testbed, Heuris Energy will attempt to break down barriers to the adoption of green hydrogen, particularly for non-road mobile machinery. While hydrogen offers a significant opportunity for companies to reduce emissions and meet sustainability goals, the absence of consolidated information on costs and technical requirements is a major barrier— one that Heuris is working to overcome on the programme.

The long term impact of the Digital Supply Chain Hub 

By working with real data in live environments, the solutions will need to prove feasibility and demonstrate clear value by answering two key questions; “Does it work?” and “How will it benefit my business?”. In answering these questions, the three participants will play a key role in driving growth in the automotive spares, food and hydrogen supply chains through new deep tech applications.

These three companies and the solutions deployed will play a key role in helping to advance industrial sustainability in the UK. The solutions they are deploying will not only tackle immediate supply chain issues but will also demonstrate the long term value of digital innovation and help to establish the UK as a clean energy superpower in line with the UK Government’s priorities.

The Digital Supply Chain Hub aims  to achieve supply chain digital transformation so that businesses will be better equipped to modernise supply chains to drive growth and resilience across the UK.

To foster collaboration between manufacturers and digital solution providers, Digital Catapult launched the Digital Supply Chain Hub platform providing businesses with actionable insights to inform operational decisions, and the ability to connect businesses with the right partners to address specific supply chain challenges.

The platform will meet industry demand to accelerate the digitalisation of supply chain operations, driving resilience and sustainability through the application of deep tech solutions. Any business interested in joining the Digital Supply Chain Hub, can sign up here.