I used to work for a small car parts manurfacture on there design team, they used to design and make all there production machinery. This I how they kept there costs down, now I don't know what additional costs would be envolved with the Pyro element. But if this went ahead I would be happy to lend my skills, I'm no expert but I'm sure we could design suitable machinery if we can find a good Programmer and fabricator. It might take. While to recoup initial cost, but with machine workers rather than pyrotechnictions and only a few of them, costs would be alot lower.
What do you use? I use Autodesk Inventor and CATIA. The pyro bit will be expensive. I just do not know how you could make a machine for making cakes. Yes it could be done. But there are so many unit operations that it would be a big expensive beasty. Just break down it down into each operation
plugging the shot tubes (multiple sizes to consider)
punching fuse holes in the shot tubes.
threading the fuse (think of all the different configurations possible)
assembling the tubes into a cake (again multiple configurations)
Plugging the insert tubes with a fuse.
Weighing out various components and filling the inserts.
plugging the inserts.
Weighing out lift charge into the cake.
putting the inserts into the cake.
labeling the cake.
boxing them.
(I will have missed a fair few steps out too)
I know you would not automate all of the operations as it is not practicable. However I would guess you would be looking at a very long design phase for a machine to do this (esp. if done by one person). The experimental work that would need to be done would be immense, just think of all of those critical steps where there are live compositions and the possibility of friction. What if the machine misses a slot and hammers an insert?. A big HAZOP study.
I would guess you would be looking at the thick end of 500K for a machine upto code (ATEX, DESEAR, don't forget DSEAR now covers mechanical as we as electrical now).
A nice thought, but unless undertaken by an existing profitable manufacturer with a decent R&D budget I just don't see how it could be done.
I think the way to think about manufacture in this country is to concentrate on high value, low volume, custom products. This is where labour cost is not so important as you are paying for craftsmanship and not just banging out 10's of thousands of the same item. As I say that is possible, but I just don't see how the money could be raised easily for such a project (most of the big money stuff I do pays back in about 2 years).
Phew that was close.