It was great to see this week’s announcement from Vince Cable that the High Value Manufacturing Technology and Innovation Centre is now open for business. This is the culmination of much hard work since it was first announced back in January but the ongoing discussions have reinforced to me just how much passion exists to make high value manufacturing successful here in the UK.
I am convinced that the opportunities that will come through having this world leading centre, located in 7 facilities across the UK, will have a huge benefit to business and to future economic growth.
We are already seeing the benefit of bringing product and process together – creating new cross sector opportunities. For example, the marine industries sector benefitting from ‘lightweighting’ technologies developed in the automotive and aerospace sectors, or for the identification of new, printed electronics applications to be used in the automotive industry that came from introducing the material chemists of the Centre for Process Innovation to the development engineers of the automotive sector.
There is barely a day goes by that I don’t come across some new manufacturing company or technology innovation that has the potential to be game changing – from Novacem and its ‘negative carbon’ green cement to the snake-arm robotics applications of OC Robotics.
Consider the development of additive layer manufacturing technologies - this technology gives companies the opportunity to completely re-examine its existing product solutions; it allows designers to develop solutions unconstrained by previous manufacturing thinking, to ‘print’ complex 3d shapes direct from the design terminal; it will allow companies to develop new supply chain models and re-examine their whole manufacturing and logistics supply chain – it allows products to be manufactured directly at a location of usage, rather than having to transport parts at high cost around the world.
We have an excellent research base in 3D printing across our universities, like the Centre for Additive Layer Manufacturing at Exeter University, or the Additive Manufacturing Research Group at Loughborough University - we have some excellent industrial development applications – from the nylon powder applications being developed by EADS to the high strength Nickel superalloy additive applications from Materials Solutions.
Additive Manufacturing is just one of the exciting technologies the High Value Manufacturing Technology and Innovation Centre will address in supporting small and large companies bring new innovative products and processes closer to market.
There are some great innovation examples from High Value Manufacturing businesses here in the UK. However we all need to get much better at how we tell the stories of just how the UK can lead the next manufacturing revolution if we are to realise this full potential.
