When a critical component fails on a naval vessel deployed far from home, the supply chain has two options: wait weeks for a part to be shipped, or pay a premium to a local machine shop. Either way, operational readiness suffers and costs escalate. It is exactly this kind of structural vulnerability that Rivelin Robotics, a Sheffield-based start-up, set out to fix.
Founded by Robert Bush in 2018, Rivelin identified a bottleneck that exists across every manufacturing sector but is especially damaging in defence: the hand-finishing of manufactured parts. Every metal, polymer or ceramic component coming off a production line, whether printed, cast or machined, requires manual cleaning of rough edges, excess structures and surface imperfections before it is fit for use. The work is slow, inconsistent, physically demanding, and carries genuine occupational health risks. It also creates a dependency on skilled manual labour that is hard to scale and impossible to replicate in field environments.
Rivelin’s solution was a compact robotic microfactory with human-like dexterity and intelligence, capable of finishing components quickly, consistently, and safely without disrupting existing production workflows.
The route to market ran directly through UK Defence Innovation. Rivelin entered UKDI’s Right On Time competition in 2021, focused on automating military logistics and additive manufacturing in field environments. The funding was valuable, but Bush is clear that the access it provided was worth more: “The Right on Time competition was not only beneficial monetarily, but it gave us access to potential users. That is worth its weight in gold.”
Early engagement with RAF and British Army end users while the technology was still in development shaped Rivelin’s product direction in ways that internal testing could not replicate. The credibility signal from UKDI also proved to have commercial value well beyond UK defence: “When you’re a brand-new company, it’s huge when you get the backing of an organisation like UKDI. It adds credibility, almost like a stamp of approval. When other potential customers and investors are looking into your company, that stamp of approval carries real weight.”
The commercial results are measurable. Working with one advanced manufacturer in the United States, Rivelin achieved a 90% reduction in cost-per-kilogram for completed components compared to traditional hand-finishing. The company has grown from a single founder to a team of 21, sold 11 microfactories across four countries, and secured defence customers in Spain, France, Germany and the United States, with multi-year contracts flowing from relationships initiated through UKDI and Dstl.
For supply chain businesses considering engagement with defence for the first time, Rivelin’s trajectory is instructive. UKDI competitions offer funded access to real end users at early development stages, a credibility signal that travels into commercial and export markets, and a route to scale that does not require an existing defence track record to enter.
UKDI is currently open to companies with technologies that could address real defence and security problems, operating with a ringfenced annual budget of at least £400m and structured to move at pace.
Image: Rivelin
