Pace of change in technology

“We can monitor the performance of an entire fleet, manage the maintenance schedule much better, predict how damaging each flight is and know the status of an aircraft without having to inspect it manually. This means we can manage its performance much better,” says Andrew Munday, Head of Advanced Engineering at Atkins’ Aerospace, Defence, Security & Technology division. “Ultimately, it enables you to make much quicker and better decisions about the management of assets.”

The pace of change has been so rapid in part because “the advance in processing power is happening at almost breakneck speed,” says Marsh. This opens up new possibilities; for example, the use of artificial intelligence to rapidly make precise judgements that previously would have taken much longer, or would have required a certain amount of guesswork.

Other technologies and techniques allow engineers to approach product design in a completely different way. Topology optimisation, for example, inputs the parameters and constraints of a product into a programme that then comes up with the most efficient design, rather than the previous method of looking at what the product needed to do and coming up with a best guess of what it should look like.

This method has been enhanced by new design freedoms created by the advent of 3D printing or additive manufacturing. Because the process starts with nothing and prints products layer-by-layer, it is possible to create shapes that are not possible when using the traditional technique of taking a lump of metal (or plastic or other material) and taking bits away. For example, components can be made that are mostly hollow, and therefore much lighter but still as strong as their solid predecessors.

The development of new advanced composite materials is reducing the weight and increasing the life of components. Further, because composites are created layer-by-layer, sensors can be embedded within them for through-life monitoring. In the future, substances such as graphene, which is conductive, could in some cases remove the need for separate sensors altogether. Then there are the changes in the energy sector, which is moving from a fossil fuel-powered world towards greater use of electrical power and renewable energy, as well as a shift to greater autonomy in vehicles. These trends are complementary – it is much easier to make an autonomous electric vehicle than one powered by internal combustion. “Electric propulsion is much more suited to the digital age,” says Munday. And even when vehicles are not being propelled by electricity, it is still playing a greater role – in aircraft, for example, where electric systems are replacing many hydraulic, mechanical and air systems.

All these technological developments have changed what is possible more quickly than regulators, designers, engineers, individual companies and in some cases entire industries can keep up with. “We operate in industries that are quite heavily regulated,” explains Munday. “It is regulations and people’s mindsets that are holding up the pace of change, not the technology.”

Sometimes there is a lack of confidence about adopting new technology, and designers steeped in a particular way of thinking struggle to adapt to the new possibilities. Using additive manufacturing as an example, Munday adds “It can be difficult when you have spent your entire working life designing from the outside in to suddenly change to designing from the inside out.

Then there is the risk for companies, particularly large corporations, that are so invested in a particular technology that they cannot move on. A wide range of sectors, face the danger that they end up competing with the wrong people – car makers may focus on their rivalry with other vehicle manufacturers, while their new rivals could actually be Google, Uber and Apple.

The same risks apply to knowledge-based companies such as Atkins, whose main asset is their expertise.

Here, there is a risk that progress will be held back by a skills gap, which we explore in the next chapter of the report, but equally this is an opportunity for Atkins to leverage the fact that it can offer both engineering and IT expertise in a way that is closely aligned. And while many lower-skilled tasks may become redundant, the need for high-end skills and analysis will only grow.

The advent of digitalisation has created an extremely powerful set of tools that engineers can access, but they are still trying to achieve the same things, Munday says: “It’s all about the outcome, about solving problems. Digital just allows us to do it better, and more quickly.”

Concepts such as the digital twin have even created a new asset class for investors, says Marsh: “Conventional infrastructure is a very established and pretty secure asset class. Digital infrastructure, particularly digital twins of transport infrastructure, is a new asset class, and as yet unproven and unrated at scale. Whilst they have completely different risk profiles, both have a value to users and investors. Thinking ahead, I think they are different sides of the same (bit)coin.”