About the Manufacturing Theme
Cranfield Manufacturing is one of the eight themes at Cranfield University, offering world-class and niche postgraduate level research, education, training, and consultancy. We are unique in our multi-disciplinary approach by bringing together design, materials technology and management expertise. We link fundamental materials research with manufacturing to develop novel technologies and improve the science base of manufacturing research. Our capabilities are unique, with a focus on developing Industry 4.0 and 5.0 technologies, modelling, optimisation and sustainability. CDEM mission is to be a unique postgraduate and research platform for students, staff, business, government and academic partners for learning and research in through-life digital engineering capability in multiscale modelling, life cycle simulations including molecular dynamics to factory/process system simulations, digitalisation of through-life manufacturing, digital twins, artificial intelligence and virtual and augmented reality.
About the Role
Achieving sustainability targets is increasingly becoming a prime target for organisations in industries such as defence, aerospace, oil and gas, rail and other high value asset driven sectors. Managing sustainability is highly complex as there are numerous uncertain factors that influence the availability and need for resources over time. This contributes to the challenge of how to plan the use of resources (such as people, spare parts, test equipment) given the ever changing customer demands, and the complex target to meet sustainability targets. This exciting PhD is aiming to answer this question within the context of maintenance.
The ability to develop robust maintenance plans is essential for manufacturers and service providers so that they can create business offerings that are value for money and reduce the environmental and social burden. Several challenges exist to move towards ‘sustainable maintenance offerings’; (i) the highly interactive processes over a product lifecycle cause complications for integrated sustainability assessment; (ii) major assets comprise thousands of components with highly interactive functions that increase the operational risk and uncertainty; and (iii) manufacturers /solutions providers require to provide sustainable and affordable products and services with minimum operational disruptions for customers. In light of these challenges, there is a need for new innovative modelling approaches that can deal with the complex nature of planning maintenance interventions.
Accordingly, this role is an exciting opportunity for a fully-funded PhD studentship in the Centre for Digital Engineering and Manufacturing (CDEM) at Cranfield University. The PhD will explore Machine Learning (ML) and optimisation for sustainable maintenance outcomes.
Businesses aim to continuously improve their maintenance offerings to meet customer satisfaction and to continue their competitive edge.
This PhD investigates advanced machine learning techniques and novel optimisation approaches to achieve optimal sustainability outcomes within the context of maintenance offerings. The modelling will explore ways to trade-off among numerous targets, and to consider the impact of uncertainties that change with time. As part of this the model will be designed to be robust, and computationally efficient. The key objectives are:
1. Develop a novel mathematical model for multi-objective optimisation of sustainable maintenance delivery.
2. Develop a system design architecture of the required digital infrastructure to quantify the sustainability impacts.
3. Integrate machine learning techniques with the optimisation model to quantify early-stage value for money for the maintenance offering.
4. Demonstrate the application of the intelligent optimiser toolset using an industrial case study.
This research is sponsored by EPSRC and Siemens Energy under the Doctoral Training Partnership Funding. The studentship will provide a bursary of up to £20,000 (tax-free) plus tuition fees for three years. There will be additional benefits including national and international travel to support the PhD. There is also substantial funding available for consumables to support the project.
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