Manufacturing Technology Centre welcomes more members

The MTC provides an R&D environment to bridge the gap between university-based research and the development of innovative manufacturing solutions. Bosch Rexroth sales vice president Paul Bowden says: "There are clear synergies between many of our own areas of manufacturing expertise – automotive, aerospace, food, packaging and general automation – and the MTC's areas of focus. We believe this common ground will enable us to provide the highest levels of engineering expertise to support the MTC and its work." Each of the companies has joined MTC with a particular project in mind. Bosch Rexroth: provide expertise and potential solutions for MTC live projects; network with the Centre's existing members. Edgecam: Work with MTC machine tool and cutting experts developing complete shopfloor solutions for manufacturers. Strategic partnership manager at Edgecam Wesley Tonks says: "The MTC already has 10 examples of Edgecam software to drive its machines, and as they specialise in a range of manufacturing processes that are particularly useful to the high value manufacturing sector, Edgecam is a natural choice for intelligent tool-path generation, supporting our groundbreaking advanced manufacturing and engineering research." Stemmer Imaging: Supply vision technology. "We had already supplied equipment to MTC", says Mark Williamson, corporate market development director at Stemmer. "However, by becoming a member we are now in a position to not only supply even more vision-related hardware and software, but also to contribute our specialist vision expertise to any project that requires it. We are currently the only member who specialises in vision technology." MTC chief executive Dr Clive Hickman says: "We now have well over 70 industrial member companies across a wide range of sectors. We are now working with the world's elite engineers and manufacturers and growing at a rate that couldn't have been envisaged when we were established in 2011. " The MTC was founded by the University of Birmingham, Loughborough University, the University of Nottingham and TWI Ltd. It is part the High Value Manufacturing Catapult, supported by Innovate UK (formerly the Technology Strategy Board.)