One vision

opening of the National Composites Centre. Composites in Manufacturing examines further.
The recently announced National Composites Hub (NCH) brings together the key national delivery partners of the National Composites Centre (NCC), trade association Composites UK and the new Composites Skills Alliance (CSA) to achieve the goals highlighted by the UK Composites Strategy. The concept means that the three partners will operate using shared industry information to enhance composite capabilities across the whole supply chain. Establishing opportunities The UK Composites Strategy published by BIS (the UK Department for Business, Innovation and Skills) in 2009, established a desire to focus on advanced composites, an area it believes the UK can build a competitive advantage, increase its market share in existing sectors and ensure the use of composites in new industries.

Subsequently, a UKTI (UK Trade & Investment) and BIS market report completed in April 2010 and published in 2011 entitled ‘UK Composites Supply Chain Scoping Study – Key Findings’ estimates that there are currently around 1,500 companies involved in the UK composites industry, of which almost 85% of all activity is undertaken by the 38 largest companies. Outside this top 38, the UK supply chain is made up of smaller firms supplying into a variety of industry sectors and export. SME companies are often innovative and forward thinking but lack the financial resource to fully develop new ideas – and improved collaboration within the sector is seen as critical to their future success. Such collaboration needs to occur across the supply chain as well as between large and small companies alike.

The global composites industry is becoming increasingly competitive and the global industry for composite materials is estimated to grow by 4-6% in the next five years. The two sectors that will drive this growth are anticipated to be aerospace and wind energy. Many competitor countries have recognised the strategic importance of composite materials and support their companies to develop capability by providing them with a global comparative advantage. Thus the UK is only likely to remain competitive by grasping commercial opportunities and building on the expertise and capability we already have to become world class.

In order to do this, the UK Composites Strategy established four key requirements to be delivered through a collaborative approach: leadership and coordination; value/supply chain development; technology development; and skills development. The National Composites Hub has been formed around these principles and hopes to achieve this by bringing together the three key national delivery partners. Based at the National Composites Centre in Bristol, the three partners will operate using shared industry information to ensure that all sizes and types of companies, as well as other organisations working in composites, are offered strong representation and the most effective support solutions for their businesses. Ready to go The NCC, through its tiered membership provides world class technology development facilities and leads the wider national network of regional composite centres of excellence and is the first of seven High Value Manufacturing Technology Innovation Centres planned by the Government. The £25 million centre was officially opened on 24th November by the Rt Hon Dr Vince Cable MP, Secretary of State for the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills. Based at the Bristol & Bath Science Park, the 90,000ft2 facility aims to offer companies across the whole UK supply chain access to cutting edge research through a range of projects and will be home to 200 leading industry researchers and academics. In his speech at the event, Cable acknowledged the importance of innovation in the sector: “Here in the UK we are very good at invention, but we need to do more to innovate and turn our ideas into products and jobs. I don’t want the UK to miss out on any opportunities to create economic growth. “Manufacturing is an enormously important skill and I see no reason why it can’t be recreated in a modern way and be a larger, not a smaller part of our economy. It’s absolutely crucial because it provides the larger part of our exports, it provides our productivity and most of the research and innovation we have in this country comes through the manufacturing sector. There are extremely powerful economic reasons why manufacturing has got to be revitalised.” Membership to the centre is available to all companies and suppliers and is intended to be led by industry, with current tier one members AgustaWestland, Airbus, GKN Aerospace, Rolls-Royce, Umeco and Vestas having committed almost £5.5m of work over three years. It has also signed up its first tier two member in the form of Tods. Despite the seemingly overt aerospace presence, NCC representatives have been keen to emphasise that the centre is open to all industries, with a core programme that will explore aspects of production such as lay-up simulation, in-process lay-up inspection, automated tape laying (ATL) and automated fibre placement (AFP) heating strategies, product development cost modelling, AFP simulation, robots and automation, and tools. NCC chief executive Peter Chivers explains: “Whilst today there is a strong aerospace presence, we are growing and taking on customers and members from other sectors too. It’s a complete mix and there is undoubted value for individual sectors in working with others. “One of the lessons that came out of the i-Composites research programme was that it had a number of multi-sectored elements, i.e. luxury yacht makers working with aerospace working with automotive manufacturers on the same research topics. They’ve discovered - despite some initial scepticism - that the learning they share has huge potential. And of course they are non-competing industries, so it’s an opportunity for them to collaborate and solve the common problems of reducing cost, higher manufacture, less waste, improved performance.” The core aim of the NCC is to provide industry with access to the kinds of state of the art manufacturing facilities they may not be able to justify buying and Chivers considers the centre not as a laboratory, but a ‘design and build’ R&D factory that can take raw technology emerging from university level and mature it through to prototype products. “We have a team of researchers and experienced engineers who throughout their career have worked in this field of maturing technology and understand customer needs,” he continues. “People can access this resource – either on their own, or ideally in a collaborative environment. Because of the strength of our engagement with people like the TSB, this centre provides better access to funding and even opportunities to influence future national strategy on composites and funding programmes. “The NCC also helps improve supply chain integration. We see SMEs as being the innovators with many bright ideas. There are now opportunities for them to visit the NCC and develop those ideas with the potential of real face to face access to their customer base – not only by developing ideas in isolation, but essentially developing them alongside a customer application.” Supporting roles The CSA, established in June 2011, brings together the work of the Sector Skills Councils and the National Skills Academies to make sure that the necessary skills are available to companies through quality assured and widely marketed composite training products. The alliance is currently developing a growing training provider network drawn from academia and industry and recently added four new education establishments in the UK as its founder providers. Oxford and Cherwell Valley College, Yeovil College, Southampton City College and Burnley College were all identified as having proven experience in composites and will offer training across aerospace, automotive, marine and motor sport. They are also being assisted by the alliance to develop further courses in line with employers’ needs.
Composites UK is the main trade association and aims to help its members by building sector information and understanding, providing supply chain and international trade opportunities in collaboration with UKTI and enabling collaborative industry programmes for technology, skills and trade opportunities. Members of Composites UK are also eligible for reduced affiliate member rates for the NCC. As the industry becomes increasingly unified, its membership has doubled from 70 to 140 companies in the last 2.5 years. It has also recently signed an agreement with Axillium Research, which amongst other things will develop workshop events for industry issues and causes. This will allow companies that wouldn’t normally be able to enter into projects to do so by providing capabilities and opportunities for collaboration. The Hub will be coordinated by a management group meeting on a monthly basis and comprised of representatives from the above bodies along with other relevant invited groups. Hub benefits Through the NCH, members and affiliates of the NCC along with members of Composites UK will be provided with ready access to skills and training packages associated with their technology interests. It will also provide the infrastructure necessary to enable collaborative groups to understand and deliver shared technology trade and skills activities. In doing so it will enable easy access to a joined up offer of fully integrated delivery from all partners ensuring cross-company needs are met. Hub activities will be coordinated to avoid duplication across the three parties, producing a joint UK industry newsletter and managing a shared events programme, maximising dissemination impact and efficiency. It also anticipates that through working together, the hub will offer more lobbying power when it comes to addressing particular industry issues. Finally, through the hub and with support from UKTI, a single UK capabilities database will be developed. This will establish conclusively the size of the UK composites industry, who is involved and what their activities are. An enquiries database will also be established to enable the three parties to coordinate their activities are and set priorities for tackling the issues and challenges coming from member companies and the wider industry. The NCH will be launched in early March through a focused event to be announced shortly and held at the NCC in Bristol. www.compositesuk.co.uk
www.nationalcompositescentre.co.uk
www.process.nsacademy.co.uk