Innovative and imaginative product design to solve £4 billion problem
Maddison are partnering with Sellafield Ltd to help the nuclear industry devise new and better ways of containing nuclear waste. The product design specialists will be an important part of a waste container challenge event hosted by the Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (Nuclear AMRC) in South Yorkshire on Tuesday 17 January 2017.
“Halving the costs of waste container manufacturing is a massive challenge, and companies working in other sectors may already have part of the solution,” says Jack Hardy, decommissioning account manager at the Nuclear AMRC. “This event will be a great opportunity for manufacturers and technology developers to find out more about what’s needed, share their ideas, and find out how they can access funding and support to help them develop their solutions for this billion-pound market.”
Maddison managing director Vincent Ellis explained Maddison’s involvement: “Maddison are proud to be supporting this event helping to encourage new design thinking to tackle this £4 billion problem. We will be there to help manufacturers shake off old ideas and assumptions and explore new approaches to the design of nuclear waste containment products. The potential benefits to the industry, to the taxpayer and to society are huge.”
Using current designs and manufacturing processes, waste containers will cost up to £4 billion over the life of the Sellafield decommissioning programme. Each container typically costs several tens of thousands of pounds to manufacture to current designs, with costs driven by the specific requirements for interim storage at Sellafield and for long-term management in RWM’s proposed geological disposal facility.
The Waste Container Integrated Innovation Team is led by the Nuclear AMRC with Sellafield Ltd, Radioactive Waste Management Ltd (RWM), and the National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL). The team are currently reviewing the current range of waste containers to identify scope for standardising design or reducing costs, and investigating a range of advanced manufacturing techniques, materials and design concepts which could help reduce cost.
Maddison Limited is a product design consultancy with a passion for creating products for the medical, scientific, industrial and consumer goods markets that truly meet and exceed user expectations. We have been in the business of satisfying our clients and their target users for over 30 years with many design awards and ‘world’s firsts’ to our name.
Waste container challenge event
Date: 17 January 2017
Venue: AMRC Knowledge Transfer Centre, Advanced Manufacturing Park, Rotherham S60 5TZ.
This event will help companies understand the challenges of waste container design and manufacturing, discuss with experts how their technologies or innovations could be developed and deployed, and learn more about the funding and support available. Participation is free to relevant companies, but limited to two delegates per company.
For more information and to register: http://wastecontainer.eventbrite.co.uk