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industrY neWs
Business support programme urges local authorities to ensure assistance is still in place
A business support programme that has created and safeguarded over 10,000 manufacturing jobs is urging local authorities to ensure assistance is still in place under the new funding landscape. Bosses at the Manufacturing Growth Programme (MGP), which provides grants and dedicated consultancy to SME manufacturers in 18 LEP regions, are warning that the potential gap between European Regional Development Funding and the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) could see businesses left without the assistance they need. Regional director, Dean Barnes, believes the
fragmented nature of UKSPF – where each local district will receive its own pot of money – means it will be difficult to deliver good quality support to management teams that have guided their firms through Brexit and, more recently, Covid-19. The rallying call comes as MGP reveals its
latest performance data, with more than £13.5million in grants delivered to 4300 companies over the last three years. Barnes commented: “We’re about to enter one of the most exciting, but challenging, times in
business support where the focus will fall away from ERDF and into a new landscape where each place (it could be as small as a District Council) will be given control of what they want to invest in and how they want to shape their local investment plan. “It is key that neighbouring councils work
together to pool funding to deliver support at a regional level to ensure they get the most out of their budgets and reduce the amount of ‘business support’ noise in the marketplace.” Barnes added: “The UK Shared Prosperity Fund
is intended to help the Government’s desire to ‘level up’, but businesses must have a voice on what they want. They don’t just need grant funding, they also want advice, best practice implementation and help with long-term improvements.” Funded by the European Regional Development
Fund (ERDF) and delivered by Oxford Innovation Advice, MGP was launched in 2016 to create a targeted service to support manufacturing SMEs. Nearly a third of firms so far have chosen to tap into marketing and market knowledge support, followed by a quarter choosing help to improve
creation of new national skills hub will support the uk’s electric revolution
After winning £1million in funding, Coventry University is looking to play a pivotal role in driving UK electrification by developing a national skills hub aimed at supporting specialist training. The hub, aimed at supporting the Power Electronics, Machines and Drives (PEMD) community,
will be a digital platform bringing together providers of an extensive range of training and development opportunities to upskill the UK’s workforce and deliver clean solutions such as the next generation of electric transport and energy delivery innovation. It will connect training and education course providers with employers and learners, as well as professionals already working in PEMD who want to develop expertise in specialist areas. The project is being supported by funding from the ‘Driving the Electric Revolution’ challenge
at UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), and could provide a significant boost to goals for a net- zero carbon economy by 2050. It also builds on the city’s growing reputation for electrification solutions, such as the National Battery Industrialisation Centre near Coventry Airport, and the West Midlands Gigafactory which is planned for the airport site.
www.coventry.ac.uk
metal 3d printing Becomes more affordaBle Andrea Gasperini, product manager at
Ultimaker has extended its Ultimaker Platform with a Metal Expansion Kit, making metal 3D printing more accessible and affordable. Engineers using this will be empowered to produce applications capable of high mechanical stress and thermal resistance, an impossible task even with high-performance thermoplastics. The Kit comes with
materials that are automatically recognised by the
printer and enables
switching between printing plastics and metal. The technology is powered by Ultimaker Cura, Ultimaker’s slicing software, and is compatible with the Ultimaker S5 Platform.
6 DesiGn solutions June 2022
Ultimaker, said: “The Ultimaker Metal Expansion Kit is especially suitable for printing non-of- the-shelf parts such as tools, jigs and fixtures, replacement parts, functional prototypes and auxiliary components. The Kit provides access to a complete and validated 3D printing workflow on an open platform that offers competitive quality and lead times normally only accessible with full in-house metal fused filament fabrication (MFFF) solutions at a much higher total cost of ownership. Thanks to the low total cost of ownership and savings up to 90% over small series of not-standard auxiliary components and tools, our early adopters are already realising return-on-investment (ROI) in less than a year.”
www.ultimaker.com/metal
productivity and 14% wanting assistance with continuous improvement. Jane Galsworthy, managing director of Oxford
Innovation Advice, commented: “We are already helping with the ‘levelling up agenda’ by supporting small businesses in less developed areas to grow and have adapted our support model to meet evolving business needs. “These include continuing to boost productivity,
helping firms work towards Net Zero, job creation, internationalisation and, increasingly, embracing digitalisation and Industry 4.0.”
www.manufacturinggrowthprogramme.co.uk NEWS IN BRIEF
Southco has acquired Darshana Industries Pvt, a proven leader in the design and manufacture of access hardware and mechanical components for the India market. The acquisition of Darshana positions
Southco as a leading access hardware manufacturer and supplier in this vital region, which is poised for strong business growth. Most importantly, the two businesses have common cultures of strong people-focused values and a desire for continuous improvement.
https://southco.com
Neilson Hydraulics & Engineering, the designer and manufacturer of hydraulic systems and power packs, and supplier of hydraulic components, has been announced as a new Bosch Rexroth Certified Excellence Partner. The Certified Excellence Program is a
global sales partner qualification program to offer high quality services and values to Rexroth customers. Neilson Hydraulics successfully completed all stages of the certification process and will now specialise as an Industrial Hydraulics (IH) Distribution Partner of Bosch Rexroth in the UK.
www.neilson-hydraulics.co.uk
Arrow Electronics has opened a state-of- the-art primary distribution centre (PDC) in Venlo, the Netherlands. The PDC is the key hub serving all customers of Arrow’s electronics components business in Europe. It is one of the company’s largest warehouses worldwide and replaces its existing facilities in the region, providing increased capacity for future growth.
https://venlo.arrow.com
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