Physical Digital wins Gold
Physical Digital, the largest and longest-established GOM service provider, offers high-accuracy, repeatable, traceable 3D scanning services across the UK, Europe and worldwide.
Mr Rapley expressed his delight at receiving the inaugural Digital Innovation Award: “Against the wide range of digitally-active businesses in Surrey, we are thrilled to have been singled out as the most innovative and forward-thinking organisation. Alongside our core business of providing highly-accurate 3d scanning services we also undertake innovative research and development into the physical-digital twin. This is a just reward for the innovative digital practices of all members of our highly-skilled team.”
Established in 2014, the Surrey Digital Awards is one of a series of similar schemes that reward innovation and progressive thinking by businesses, individuals, events, charities or educational establishments. The Digital Innovation Award was created to celebrate the business in Surrey that has proved outstanding in seizing the opportunities of digital technology. To win the award, Physical Digital had to describe its business activities, explain how it has been digitally active over the previous twelve months and how it has benefited from this innovation.
The judges at Surrey Business School were looking for an organisation that had created new products and services or transformed how customers are being engaged, for example through better data analytics.
Physical Digital gave several examples of digital innovation to the panel of judges. Arguably the most significant of these examples was the introduction of the UK’s first UK independent GOM ATOS automated scanning cell – the ScanBox 5120 – which for the first time offers British clients access to world-class metrology services for batches of components. This provides highly-accurate, reliable and traceable data for ten, a hundred or even thousands of components. The automation of the measurement and inspection service provides a step change for manufacturing industries and design technology.
Above: Physical Digital’s ScanBox offers automated measurement services for manufacturing and design industries.
Physical Digital’s extensive research and development into the physical-digital twin through 3D scanning of physical objects was also highlighted in the award, together with many examples of innovative cross-industry design practices.
The University of Surrey’s Business School, which sponsored the Digital Innovation Award, offers a range of high-quality, challenging programmes at undergraduate and postgraduate level as well as executive education across the business and management and accounting and finance spheres. The School is also home to CoDE, the Surrey Centre for the Digital Economy.
Professor Roger Maull, Co-Director of CoDE at Surrey Business School said when introducing the Digital Innovation Award on the Surrey Digital Awards website: “The University of Surrey’s Business School is the home of Centre for the Digital Economy.
“CODE’s aim is to research the social and economic impact of the digital revolution. We have five areas of focus: digital platforms; Internet of Things; crypto-currencies; the processes of agile innovation and developing algorithms for analysing large datasets and have received over £4m of funding from the UK research council and Europe for our research in these areas.
“CODE works closely with both established and emerging businesses that are trying to take advantage of the opportunities that digital provides. We are delighted to be sponsoring the 2016 Surrey Digital Awards.”
When presenting the Gold Digital Innovation Award to Tim Rapley, Professor Maull explained that he was particularly impressed by the practical applications of innovation that Physical Digital demonstrated.
Above: Director Kirsty Rapley with the Digital Innovation Gold Award.
The Surrey Digital Awards’ stated mission is not only to reward those businesses who have already taken significant strides forward, but also to celebrate a huge pool of design and development ability. Most importantly, the Awards aim to showcase what is possible for any business willing to take that step forward. The 2016 award winners spanned several industries and ranged from individuals to national companies, but all had at the core of their entry a desire to use digital means to achieve greater things for their business.
