“We know how stretched for time SME manufacturers are, so by having their data all in the right place, it can save so much stress later down the line.”

Onur Eren, Chief Engineer, WMGLink opens in a new window

Impression Technologies (ITL)Link opens in a new window is an innovative advanced aluminium light weighting technology business in Coventry. Established in 2012, ITL is renowned for developing Hot Form Quench (HFQ®) technology, which delivers complex aluminium parts and maximises strength whilst reducing weight.

They worked with WMG through the Made Smarter West Midlands scheme, which launched a £1.9 million digital adoption push to drive growth in West Midlands manufacturing and engineering SMEs in June 2021.

They wanted to improve the process data collection at their facilities by automating data collection and implementing a traceability system. This will allow them to record process history data for each part produced in a centralised platform. Automating the way data is collected and analysed will also allow them to push the technology forward for the commercialisation of future products.

Members of our SME group undertook a digital roadmap to review the best technology to automate this process, concluding that installing part marking and barcode readers would be most effective. These solutions, integrated with a new PLC unit, enables data collection from multiple machines.

Read more here about the projects and the results here:Link opens in a new window

For more information about working with WMG's SME Group email wmgsme@warwick.ac.uk