UK NEWS

£7.5m facility

Queen’s University Belfast has opened a £7.5m advanced manufacturing technology facility, supporting its mission to enable more competitive supply chains with increased productivity.

The collaborative investment is one of the biggest in manufacturing by Queen’s, the UK Government and Northern Ireland industry partners. At the new facility there will be an open door to industry partners, currently including RLC Global Point, Moyola Precision Engineering, JW Kane Precision Engineering, Travan Precision Engineering and Retec Engineering Solutions.
For further information www.qub.ac.uk

AM specialist

Matsuura Machinery has appointed Joseph Bellis to the role of additive manufacturing sales and technical specialist.

Bellis joined Matsuura two years ago as an application engineer based primarily at the MTC in Coventry, for Matsuura’s LUMEX hybrid metal additive machine, and more recently, for the HP Multi-Jet Fusion machine. Prior to joining Matsuura, Bellis worked in the manufacturing industry as a CNC programmer/machinist and mechanical design engineer for the aerospace, defence, marine, oil, gas, automotive and medical sectors.
For further information www.matsuura.co.uk

Nearly time for TDI Challenge

The MTA’s competition for schools, the Technology, Design and Innovation (TDI) Challenge, returns to Yamakazi Mazak’s European headquarters in Worcester, on 4 July for finals day.

TDI 2017, Mazak

TDI Challenge is aimed at GCSE and A-Level students; they submit their coursework projects and a panel of industry judges made up of MTA members decides the winners. Two age categories exist within the competition 14-16 and 17-19, with six finalists in each age group. There is also a group category within the 17-19 age group and three teams will be competing for that prize.
For further information www.mta.org.uk/tdi

Speakers named for manufacturing event

Notable industry leaders have been announced as part of an interesting line up for this year’s National Manufacturing and Supply Chain Expo.

The event, which takes place at the Ricoh Arena, Coventry on 26 June, promises a host of informative sessions, networking opportunities and debate from manufacturing leaders and academics. Among the topics set to be discussed include project management, supply chain optimisation, procurement, IT logistics, materials handling and robotics.
Some of the key speakers taking part this year include: Lesley Rudd, chief executive of the Sustainable Energy Association; Christopher Snelling, head of UK policy at the Freight Transport Association; Alan Harrison, group lean manager at IMI Plc, Tim Eaton, head of logistics and supply chain at Flogas; Rob Morton, supply chain operations director at The Quadrant; Ashley Naughton, head of supply chain consulting at ITG – Tata Consultancy Services; and Emma Hancock of Network Rail UK.
For further information
www.manufacturingevent.co.uk/register/

Export performance recognised

Published earlier this month, the ninth annual Sunday Times HSBC International Track 200 league table listed machine tool sales company NCMT in 134th place.

The table ranks 200 mid-market private companies (unquoted and not subsidiaries) in Britain with the fastest growing international sales. NCMT hit export sales of £14m in the last financial year, up from £10.7m the previous year, representing a 30% increase. In a new development, the company is now looking to diversify into manufacturing precision gears in small to medium quantities, for which it has written proprietary software.
For further information www.ncmt.co.uk