About Us

The Digital Forge Team is a collection of 25 talented individuals that have worked together over the past 5 years to put together some amazing technology for their parent company. In 2022, our parent company elected to shut down this unique experiment and offshore the work. This website documents our public work, our collaborative and caring culture, and our innovative and energized spirit.
It is our hope that you find great people here that would fit in your own organization and help you forge the future.

Our Mission

Digitize an industrial engineering company by infusing products and services with digital technology. This required working in highly regulated industries (such as medical, and energy), and required high quality engineering with meticulous attention to detail, robust and cyber-secure solutions, and an agile approach.

Our Origin

To support our ambitions, we opened our first Digital Forge in the San Francisco Bay area in FY2018, designed to accelerate our digital projects and provide a co-innovation space for us, our customers and other partners. We also held workshops throughout the year to drive innovative thinking, identify and develop solutions for future problems, and collaborate on forward thinking technologies

Source: Smiths annual report 2018

The Forge founders came from Smiths Detection (formerly Morpho Detection). You can learn more about them here.

Our Focus

• Technology Areas

  • Algorithms
  • High performance computing
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Data Security

• Divisional Projects and Focus Areas

  • John Crane
    • Predictive Maintenance
  • Medical
    • Connectivity
    • Operating systems interactions
  • Detection
    • Predictive Maintenance
    • Integrated checkpoints
  • Interconnect
    • Transformational connectivity
  • Flex-Tek
    • Monitoring and smart products

Source: Capital Markets Day Pitch 2017

From the Smiths Annual Report 2021:

Smiths Digital Forge Our Digital Forge centre of excellence opened in 2018 and is accelerating the growth of digitally connected products in our portfolio and driving efficiency and speed through common development and common platforms and tools that can be repurposed across multiple Smiths product lines. The Digital Forge is sponsored by our Chief Executive and the Smiths Digital Advisory Committee (comprising members of the Smiths Executive Committee) determines its strategy and governs our digital activities.

The Forge is predominantly focused on developing interface solutions that digitise products by connecting them to the internet/cloud and enabling the flow of data and relevant analytics with a high degree of cyber security. The Forge is also able to support continuous improvement in processes in our divisions with capabilities in automation, robotics and the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

John Crane SenseTM condition-based seal monitoring technology is connected by a digital interface developed by the Forge. Products being developed under the methane detection programme are also driven by technology developed by the Forge, which will enable methane sensors to be deployed anywhere, without the need for a power source or cellular communication link.

Source: Smiths Annual Report 2021

Our People

Artificial Intelligence Team

A dynamic group of scientists and engineers that applied their skills to the problems of modelling complex data coming from assets in the oil and gas industry. For the details on that team, click here.

• statistical modelling
• state-based designs
• real time visualization
• physics-based models

Hardware Team

Much of the digital technology at the Forge required a physical hardware component. Whether this was packaging and integration of sensors, custom data acquisition systems, PCBs or thermal management for embedded compute devices, this team handled it all, along with testing and customer support. For the details on the hardware team, click here.

• packaging
• thermal management
• ruggedization of sensitive electronics
• design for hazardous locations (hazloc)
• certifications
• testing
• manufacturing design
• schematic capture & pcb design (Altium)
• FPGA-based designs (Xylinx and Lattice ECP5)
• galvanically isolated data acquisition
• modular board design
• testing (functionality, EMI, EMC, etc)
• board bring up
• software and hardware testing, validation

Software Team

The software team covered the full stack, starting at the device level in embedded devices, and provided the software technology to bring the data all the way to the cloud for analysis and review in a standard web browser. They also handled the automated build, regression testing, software process, and general architecture of the products being developed at the Forge. For details on the software team, click here

• embedded
• user interface (web full stack)
• systems architecture
• high performance compute
• cybersecurity
• firmware
• bluetooth

Program Team

The program team oversaw and ran dozens of complex projects, ranging from early stage research to late stage product development and support. They employed an Agile methodology and interfaced to broader waterfall-style programs within the parent company as needed. For more details on the program team, click here

• agile program management
• project planning and execution
• sprint planning and reports
• customer stakeholder communication
• process development

Leadership Team

The Forge leadership team have decades of experience in a wide range of technologies, including explosives detection, RADAR signal processing, medical image reconstruction, enterprise level networking, data analytics, and high performance compute. The leadership team is described here

• system architecture and deisgn
• manufacturing and fabrication of complex digital systems
• high speed processing
• cybersecure data transmission
• cloud infrastructure and design
• data analytics and algorithm

Our Accomplishments

Much of what the Forge worked on remains proprietary to the parent company. However, there are a couple of projects that have a public presence, and we can provide some details on those.

John Crane Sense

John Crane’s long experience in preventing and remediating leaks will enable us to play a leading role in customer decarbonisation through our methane initiative.

Methane is the most potent current contributor to global warming. With the oil & gas sector set to continue playing a key role in the energy supply chain, reducing methane emissions is a critical step towards Net Zero. Pursuing all mitigation measures now could slow the rate of near term global warming by as much as 30%, potentially reducing total warming by a half degree by the end of the century. Systematic measuring, mitigation and monitoring to limit methane emissions will be required by the sector to meet decarbonisation goals.

Working with the Smiths Digital Forge, John Crane is developing technology and services to meet this need, which can be deployed across a range of environments from pipelines and plants to offshore rigs, in order to provide data to customers that will enable them to monitor methane leaks from sources over time and take corrective action. Multiple solutions are being developed to enable affordable technology and the ability to detect methane leaks in remote and hazardous locations.

Source Smiths Annual Report 2021.

Our Digital Forge centre of excellence in the San Francisco Bay area, opened in 2018, is accelerating digital projects and providing a co-innovation space for us, our customers and other partners. John Crane Sense™ is one example of the collaboration between the Digital Forge and John Crane.

Sense is a platform utilising sensors and software that allow customers to optimise performance and improve reliability. Working with John Crane experts, the Digital Forge has developed sophisticated machine learning algorithms that monitor seal performance, diagnose root causes of equipment issues, and predict and prevent potential failures.

John Crane experts build sensors into seals and integrate sensors with the surrounding equipment to capture critical data. The Digital Forge developed the technical infrastructure to move this data to a highly secure cloud-based server where it is processed using the latest algorithms and then stored for visualisation and continuous analysis over the life of the asset. Customers can also access all of their own unique information and gain valuable insights via this secure web browser based solution.

Our innovation framework is enabling increased collaboration such as this across Smiths and extends to external partnerships. In FY2019 we entered into new partnerships with leading universities to help share ideas and create innovations for the future.

Source Smiths annual report 2018

Key Forge developed technology elements

• Hazloc compatible (and certified) IoT gateway
• Hardened, multichannel data acquisition device
• Real time signal processing and data reduction with FPGAs
• Real time embedded processing and data storage
• Fault tolerant data transmission
• Cloud processing
• User interface

More details on John Crane Sense are available here.

Intellifuse Smart Infusion Systems

Intellifuse is designed to be a multi-generational development programme to deliver a, rackable, stackable, interoperable, and extendable platform for both Large Volume Pumps and Syringe Pumps

Souce Smiths Annual Report 2020

Key Forge developed technology elements

• Highly accurate fluid delivery algorithms with determinsitic delivery
• Extremely complex embedded UI
• Cryptographically secure data storage and transmission
• Fault tolerant and rich diagnostics
• Full desktop simulator of the production code
• Automated integration test suite for QA

More details on are available here

Green Lantern

Integrated greenhouse gas monitoring stack

Source: Smiths Capital Markets Event

Key Forge developed technology elements

• Zephyr-based RTOS for power management and battery-based operation
• Sensor communication interface
• Robust haz-loc compatible packaging
• Cloud platform for telemetry receipt and processing

More details on Green Lantern are available here

Our Future