In safety critical and precise industries such as aerospace and medical, where marginal gains are often celebrated as breakthroughs, AddQual Ltd is pursuing something far more radical: beyond inspection, real-time structured data that removes the friction from modern manufacturing. Central to this shift is MiDAS, the company’s proprietary Metrology Interface DAShboard platform, which is rapidly becoming one of the most significant digital tools available to manufacturers navigating increasingly complex global supply chains.
Based in Derby and founded in 2016, AddQual has spent nearly a decade sharpening its credentials in high-integrity metrology and inspection services. Yet Managing Director Ben Anderson argues that the company’s future lies beyond inspection, but in transforming how the data from those measurements flows through supply chains. “Manufacturing quality doesn’t fail for lack of data,” he explains. “It fails because that data is trapped in silos, delayed, misinterpreted, or inconsistently applied. MiDAS changes that dynamic completely.”
Already deployed with major OEMs such as Rolls-Royce, MiDAS gives engineers and supply chain teams instantaneous visibility of measurement results, conformity status, delivery performance and process compliance. What once involved days of email exchanges, manually interpreted spreadsheets, and lengthy loops of clarification is now available at a glance, shared in real time between customer and supplier. In sectors such as aerospace and power generation, where components carry high value and tight tolerances, such transparency represents a major shift in operational capability.
MiDAS captures and structures metrology output directly from inspection systems, automatically validates it against engineering rules and provides a fully traceable digital history for every component. The platform effectively removes the grey areas that have historically slowed down qualification and created tension between manufacturers and their customers. Anderson describes the philosophy simply: “MiDAS is built around fairness and clarity. Both sides see the same data at the same time. There’s no lag, no interpretation gap, no opportunity for misalignment. That’s how you accelerate qualification and eliminate disputes.”
For decades, engineers have cited inspection and qualification as among the most persistent bottlenecks in advanced manufacturing. Drawings evolve, tolerances change, and batches of data wait in queues while people try to interpret them or reconcile different measurement sources. MiDAS breaks this cycle by applying consistent logic and automation to processes that previously relied on individual judgement. Suppliers can respond faster, customers gain earlier confidence, and engineering decisions can be made without the costly downtime that traditionally surrounds conformity verification.
The system also complements AddQual’s investment in physical automation—including its JARViS collaborative robot—by serving as the digital infrastructure that unites automated measurement with automated decision-making. While robots accelerate throughput, it is MiDAS that ensures the results are interpreted instantly, correctly and transparently. The combination represents a significant step toward the intelligent inspection workflows that the industry has been anticipating for years.
More broadly, MiDAS is helping manufacturers confront some of the sector’s most pressing challenges: skills shortages, sustainability demands, and the pressure to improve productivity without compromising quality. By reducing the administrative burden around inspection and removing the need for repeated manual checks, engineers are freed to focus on higher-value activity. Scrap and rework fall because quality concerns are identified earlier and more reliably. Supply chains become more resilient because decisions are rooted in shared, real-time evidence rather than delayed or disputed data.
What began as an internal solution is now emerging as one of AddQual’s most important contributions to the future of digital manufacturing. As global OEMs increasingly expect their Tier 2 and Tier 3 suppliers to demonstrate complete traceability and present live data, platforms like MiDAS may become standard practice rather than competitive advantage. Anderson is confident about the trajectory: “The winners in modern manufacturing will be the ones who combine data, automation and people to make better decisions faster. MiDAS puts that capability directly into the hands of our customers—and their customers.”
As automation reshapes the factory floor and data becomes the organising force behind industrial performance, AddQual is positioning itself not just as a metrology specialist but as a pioneer of the digital workflows that will define next-generation manufacturing.
