The Coventry-based Manufacturing Technology Centre is playing a key role in a £22 million initiative to bring state-of-the-art green technology to the UK automotive industry.
The project aims to help the UK car industry supply base develop low-carbon vehicle technologies and test their viability in production, while driving down research and prototype costs.
Called The Proving Factory©, and launched by business secretary Vince Cable, the project will create two facilities: component manufacturing at the Tata Steel site at Brinsworth, Rotherham, and an assembly factory in the West Midlands.
As well as providing employment – some 250 jobs in all – the two facilities will benefit small and medium-sized companies in the automotive supply chain, in addition to university research departments. It will allow them to bridge the gap between innovation and full-scale production by testing technologies in a real production environment.
Manufacturing Technology Centre chief executive Clive Hickman said, “This project addresses a market failure in that automotive suppliers in the UK struggle to invest in the low volume new technologies that vehicle manufacturers need to meet emissions and environmental legislation. The Proving Factory will offer a new service which will allow novel solutions to be tested in a low risk environment. Traditionally this would have involved high cost prototype routes. The Proving Factory reduces these costs by developing and producing low volume advanced technologies, with a target of 1,000 to 20,000 units per product per year across 10 to 20 products.”
The Manufacturing Technology Centre, as part of the UK’s Government-backed High Value Manufacturing Catapult, is a delivery partner of The Proving Factory and will be involved in developing and testing assembly processes, evaluating assembly system designs, simulating processes and identifying common assembly platforms for different products.
The MTC recently revealed that it is involved in a separate ground-breaking project – the EV Lite project – to dramatically reduce the cost and weight of electric vehicle batteries.
The Proving Factory is a collaborative industry project led by Productiv (assembly) and Tata Steel (component manufacture). The MTC is a core partner along with MIRA and supporting partners including Jaguar Land Rover, Schaeffler, Unipart and the Midlands Assembly Network. There are also six technology developers including Flybrid, Drive System Design, Libralato, Bladon Jets. Torotrak and Magnomatics.
Clive Hickman said, “The Proving Factory will be a commercially driven catalyst for growth, generating demand for technologies, more efficient vehicles for OEMs and new demand for UK materials and component supply chains. As part of the High Value Manufacturing Catapult we are delighted to take such a key role.”
As partners in the Proving Factory, the MTC were major exhibitors at last week’s high-level Low Carbon Vehicle show at Millbrook Proving Ground.
The Manufacturing Technology Centre, based on Ansty Park, Coventry, opened in 2011 following a £40 million public investment. It is a partnership between some of the UK’s major global manufacturers and three forward-thinking universities: Birmingham, Nottingham and Loughborough as well as TWI Ltd, the operating division of The Welding Institute.
The MTC aims to provide a competitive environment to bridge the gap between university-based research and the development of innovative manufacturing solutions, in line with the Government’s manufacturing strategy.
The Centre is one of a consortium of seven centres across the UK which form the High Value Manufacturing Catapult, established by Government in 2011 to provide a stimulus for British manufacturing and bridge the gap between academia and industry.
