Whether you’re a global giant or a specialist SME, you can draw on our facilities and expertise through R&D projects to meet your commercial needs.

You can commission research with us to resolve your manufacturing challenges, optimise production, or explore new technologies.

We provide a flexible service to meet your specific requirements. Projects may take anything from a few days to a year or more, but we will keep you updated at every stage. We aim to manage projects to the highest standards, and are a corporate partner of the Association of Project Management (APM).

We operate in full commercial confidentiality. You own any resulting intellectual property. We do not operate for profit, so costs are simply based on staff and equipment time plus material and consumables.

SMEs can access grants to support R&D projects with us through initiatives such as Innovate UK Edge.

Our government funding means that we can’t do any production work, but we can help you develop the capabilities to take your own production to the next level.

Typical projects could include:

  • Optimising your current manufacturing processes.
  • Investigating and proving new and innovative processes.
  • Design for manufacture, assembly or inspection.
  • Selecting the best tools for your task, and optimising their performance.
  • Identifying opportunities for improvement.

To find out more, contact Tom Purnell, Business Development Director.

How it works

We provide a flexible service to meet your business requirements. Every project is different, but a typical company journey is outlined below.

1. Tell us your problem
Contact us for an informal discussion about your manufacturing challenge. If your needs don’t match our capabilities, we can suggest alternative research partners.

2. Requirements capture
In-depth discussion with our engineers and project managers to identify your R&D needs. We’re happy to visit your facility to better understand your challenges and capabilities.

3. Statement of work
We agree scope, cost, schedule and deliverables for the project. You then provide us with a purchase order.

4. Start of project
Our engineers tackle your challenge, with support from your team as appropriate.

5. Regular project updates
We will keep you updated on an agreed schedule. If anything unexpected comes up, we will inform you as soon as possible and manage change control.

6. Project handover
We will provide the project results in an agreed format, along with testpieces, samples or prototypes. We will transfer all knowledge generated during the project to you.

7. Feedback and follow-on
We will ask you to complete a customer satisfaction survey, and review any potential follow-on work. If commercial sensitivity allows, we can help promote your company’s innovation through a case study.