The launch of Isembard’s innovative approach to manufacturing
At Resilience Media, we are looking at how manufacturing can support innovation, but also how innovation can improve manufacturing. This is essential to support our defence and security, creating resilience in our industrial base and an ability to scale production when and where needed. So, we were excited to attend the launch party of Isembard, a great new innovator in this space.
On an industrial estate in London we joined other lost-looking venture capital investors, representatives from defence primes, friends of the team, and supporters of this new startup as we found our way to a door nestled in amongst the usual edge-of-London machine shops and storage units. Inside was a large, clean room with a futuristic metal and glass tooling machine. This is the new home of Isembard, the first of what they plan to be many such small manufacturing factories.
Rory Rose, one of the Isembard team, explained how around Europe there are lots of these small factories. They often struggle with infrequent order cycles, and many of the large customers face inconsistent manufacturing quality when they produce components across different factories.
Isembard are setting out to solve this by scaling their innovative factory so that smaller local industrial businesses can become part of a connected manufacturing ecosystem. With consistent hardware linked by Isembard’s software, large orders can be distributed across networks of small factories to keep industrial SMEs in business, also creating a more resilient industrial base. A focus on dual-use and defence means that critical orders can be sent to networks of factories to build components quickly when needed. Having these factories scattered around Europe also means manufacturing of security-critical components can be surged, or targeted in a geography.
The company has developed Mason, their proprietary software, to manage any single factory, and the whole network. The high-precision five-axis tooling machine attendees saw hum into action is expensive, but Mason helps ensure the machines have less downtime to increase their output. This changes the economics of these small factories so they can be more productive and profitable.
The team state that they are ‘founding Europe’s software-first manufacturing super prime for critical industries. Our mission is to forge industrial acceleration.’
In a speech at the launch, Isembard Founder and CEO Alexander Fitzgerald told the crowd:
"Software and intelligence will upend the very fabric of traditional white collar work. Nations that lack the productive base to buttress this revolution will fail. And the supply chains of the West are crumbling. For too long, manufacturing has been seen as something done by others, somewhere far off, for our benefit. That mindset must change, for if we do not find a way, no one will.”
We look forward to seeing Isembard grow, here in the UK and out into Europe, creating the resilient industrial base we need both to grow our economies and to support our defence and security.