'We can go global': Pioneering manufacturing software company DigitalCNC launches in Yorkshire

The firm says it is offering a new way of delivering CNC – or computer numerical control – processes in which computer software dictates the movement of factory machinery and tools.

Its software uses machine learning, a branch of artificial intelligence, and offers companies the ability to accurately map out how new machines would work or deliver potential improvements to existing equipment without having to do costly physical trials.

Dr Ward, who is originally from Boroughbridge, North Yorkshire, joined the university in 2017 after working as an engineering officer in the Armed Forces. He says the company’s technology has a proven ability to provide considerable time and cost savings.

"This is a global market. Nobody else is doing this at all,” he told The Yorkshire Post. “The beauty of our software is we don’t actually need to connect to the machine unlike other data-driven solutions. We are pure software solutions so we could scale very quickly."

CEO Dr Ward has established the company with postgraduate student David Wilkinson, who is the new firm’s chief technology officer, while early-stage investment business Yorkshire AI Labs (YAIL), run by well-known Sheffield entrepreneur David Richards, has taken a stake in the company to help scale its ambitious plans.

Dr Ward said years of research, refinement and validation work has gone into the technology following a successful trial with a Rolls-Royce project around four years ago.

The company’s solutions have already drawn strong interest from other leading aerospace manufacturers like Boeing and Dr Ward is to step back the bulk of his university work to focus on running the business.

"It is incredibly nerve-wracking. But within five or ten years, I think we will be a global brand without a doubt."

He said the software has considerable potential in many different fields.

"We are able to use our software to do things in the digital space, so it is fewer trials, saving money and a faster time to market. You can iterate in the digital space before going onto a machine.

"The one we were making down at Rolls-Royce was the fan casing of a jet engine. It is literally the size of your living room. These components are ginormous. If you make a mistake, that part could be upwards of £500,000 and you are in trouble. You need to be making it right first time.

“We’re talking about the aerospace industry as our prime industry. But then on the medical side, they make phenomenal five-axis knee joints and the machines that they need to do it are phenomenally complicated. Anywhere where there is complex geometry, that is our niche."

Dr Ward said he and Mr Wilkinson had initially thought of licensing the technology rather than establishing a university spinout company. But he said after they attended a mentor event last year in which academics meet with potential investors, they decided on a change in strategy.

"It is like speed dating where you get to spend 20 minutes each with all these people who have been there and done it in industry. By the time we got to the third or fourth we were looking at each other thinking, ‘We’ve got something here’. Everyone else had ideas whereas what we had was a product.

"We were so far down the commercialisation journey, we didn’t realise ourselves what we had and where we were. We had traction with customers and a working product. People starting asking us, ‘Why aren’t you doing a spinout?’”

It was at that event they met Mr Richards, who subsequently decided to invest in the business.

Mr Richards said: “Our investment criteria means most university spinouts won’t qualify. We look for three very specific things; the first is deep domain expertise and a deep understanding of the industry you are in. The second is lots and lots of data and thirdly, which is where almost everybody else is going to fail, is you have to have customers.

"What blew us away was the customer list which is a Who’s Who of aerospace. These are really unusually talented guys. The bit they don’t know is how to build a software company. But we are really confident about accelerating this very quickly.”

Mr Richards said the aim is to sign up 10 customers within a year and for DigitalCNC to eventually go on to become a listed company.

“When I bought investors here from London they were absolutely blown away. I think this is going to be the most successful spinout ever from the AMRC.

"They’ve built an analytical model based on mathematics but the machine learning piece at the end really transforms this. The AI piece allows us to do even more and it becomes really interesting. Future product direction will probably not just be ‘this is how the machine is going to behave’ with a high degree of accuracy, but then ‘this is what you need to do... to make it more effective’."

Professor Ashutosh Tiwari, Deputy Vice-President for Innovation at The University of Sheffield, said: “Sheffield’s position as a global centre for manufacturing innovation, along with the strength of our support for commercialisation of research, continues with DigitalCNC.

"As a University of Sheffield spin-out, it demonstrates our commitment to turning world-class research into real-world impact. DigitalCNC is poised to transform advanced manufacturing worldwide by applying cutting-edge AI to drive greater productivity, operational efficiency, and global competitiveness at scale.”