COREF

What is COREF?

An acronym for Connected Reconfigurable Factory, COREF is a Thales in the UK-led project to develop digitally connected, scalable labs, at the Thales Crawley & Belfast Industrial facilities. The purpose of these labs is to provide an environment for companies and individuals to develop and test technology in a low-risk, real-world setting. COREF offers a clear vision of the factory of the future, functioning as an industrial development and co-working environment – where Thales is making its facilities, technology and expertise available to support the development of the UK supply chain.

The technology solutions within COREF have been developed with a focus on high complexity, low volume industrial environments such as the Aerospace, Space and Defence sectors. Open to anyone within Thales in the UK and its supply chain, the only real barrier to entry is having an idea to test.

Future Factory

Focussed on developing the connected hardware and tools to enable the factory of the future. Including areas such as cobotics (robots designed to work alongside humans), smart tooling, intelligent asset tracking and machine connectivity to develop connected flexible manufacturing cells.

Digital Platform

From COREF’s visualisation suite in Crawley, concepts can be tested in virtual (VR) and augmented reality (AR). These technologies can connect and integrate data from varied sources (e.g. CAD, laser scanning, photogrammetry, discrete event simulation) and present information in a way that delivers maximum value. The Crawley lab also hosts the capability to deploy advanced analytics and Machine Learning tools to deliver further data insights.

Data-driven decision making

High-rate data streaming and digital twins provide data driven insights into industry, through quality monitoring, remote diagnostics, simulation and cost modelling. COREF enables users to run and test industrial software solutions in a sandbox environment whilst also being able to connect to live industrial assets – to further develop effective data management and support automated & semi-automated decision-making.

Thales is working with a number of partners to develop the COREF concept and bring the innovation labs to life. COREF has brought together specialist SMEs in technology and engineering from across the UK to build an agile and collaborative consortium. The breadth of the partnership includes research organisations from the UK’s Catapult network and industrial partners who bring added expertise that complement Thales’s strength in the Aerospace, Defence & Space sectors.

COREF provides a low-risk, collaborative environment to investigate, demonstrate and prove digital technology use cases. Enabling Thales to accelerate technology deployment in high complexity, low volume production scenarios.

^{Roy Woods, UK Industrial Director}