Manufacturers invited to register interest in new innovation service
Manufacturing companies will soon be able to benefit from a new facility in Moray designed to drive innovation and support job creation. The Manufacturing Innovation
The Manufacturing Innovation Centre for Moray (MICM) aims to achieve a grassroots cultural shift in how Moray businesses gain insight into the latest available process and production efficiencies, and how they can use them for product and process innovation.
The centre will provide services that are customised to the needs of rural manufacturing business and will also act as a vital access point for local businesses to engage with the National Manufacturing Institute for Scotland and other national innovation support services.
Once completed, MICM will provide diagnostics, advice, information, signposting, and brokerage services to manufacturing companies across the North of Scotland. There will be space for business start-up incubation and for existing business to undertake innovation projects, as well as demonstration facilities showcasing advanced technology and equipment.
The centre is based at the Enterprise Park in Forres in a building owned by Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) and is expected to support up to 300 jobs in the next 10 years.
HIE work with manufacturing businesses across the region to support their development and they see a clear and growing need for local support to access the best practice required and make the leap to the next level.
A manufacturer developing lighter components is looking for support in development and testing of components from NMIS and the national Lightweight Manufacturing Centre. This will require at least two week’s travel to the central belt for key personnel who are currently in the middle of a demanding scale-up project. As such, the company is currently weighing the benefits of continuing with the project.
With MICM in place they could access a local venue for both equipment and project support, reducing costs and disruption and bringing the test equipment closer to them.
A Caithness based engineering company has been affected by a shortage of skilled labour. Having analysed their manufacturing processes, they believe that automation of their production line might help.
With support from HIE, the company attended a demonstration event to explore the use of cobots (collaborative robots) to improve their welding processes. During the event the company met with an equipment vendor and have gone on to develop a project to install and evaluate a small cobot at their Caithness site. The potential prize for the company is an expansion of working hours, reduced order fulfilment times and securing further orders.
MICM could assist with this project by using a centralised hub to provide links and opportunities to access best practice in manufacturing and supporting them to evaluate how it could benefit their business.
Manufacturing companies will soon be able to benefit from a new facility in Moray designed to drive innovation and support job creation. The Manufacturing Innovation
Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) has appointed a specialist operating company to run a new multi-million-pound innovation centre to support manufacturing in Moray. The Manufacturing
