WMG News - Latest news from WMG

On 28 January 2015, the Institute of Digital Healthcare (IDH) at WMG hosted Fostering Digital Healthcare Collaborations, an event organised by the West Midlands Health Informatics Network (WIN). WIN is a West Midlands Academic Health Science Network-supported project, hosted by IDH.

The aim of this event was to encourage networking and partnerships across stakeholder groups from around the West Midlands and beyond, the ultimate aim of which is to improve outcomes for patients and carers.

The programme included scheduled talks from exhibitors, with show-and-tell sessions, to showcase research, products and services.

Mr Ratan Tata GBE, Chairman of Tata Trusts and Chairman Emeritus of Tata Sons today officially opened the WMG Academy for Young Engineers in Coventry.

Hosted by Professor Lord Bhattacharyya, Chairman of WMG, and Mr John Leighfield CBE, Chairman of the WMG Academy Trust, Mr Tata officially opened the Academy in front of an audience of over 300. Guests included companies working closely with the Academy such as Jaguar Land Rover, Tata Motors, Bosch and National Grid, civic leaders and the partners from the University of Warwick.

The WMG Academy, which opened its doors to over 230 students in September 2014, is already a huge success. Within a month of opening, a team of students triumphed at the Coventry City Council Debating Competition and won a trip to the House of Lords.

The WMG Academy has promised, from its inception, to blend business and education, to prepare students for the world of work and offers a unique curriculum which teaches engineering and business skills alongside standard qualifications.

Professor Jan Godsell, Professor of Operations and Supply Chain Strategy at WMG, has contributed to a term paper produced by the All-Party Parliamentary Manufacturing Group (APMG). The paper has been launched today at an APMG event, led by the APMG’s Co-Chair, Chris White MP.

The APMG’s latest term paper, ‘New World Supply Chains: Britain at the Heart of Global Manufacturing’, seeks to address certain issues experienced by manufacturers and investigates the UK’s efforts to reshore manufacturing. The APMG has identified growing evidence that production is increasingly being ‘reshored’ back to the UK and, as the government attempts to encourage this positive trend through ‘Reshore UK’ and other mechanisms, the importance of well-functioning supply chains is becoming ever-more apparent.

Professor Godsell attended the paper’s launch today to contribution to the discussion on the topic. Her contribution to the term paper focused on ‘Putting the UK back at the heart of the Global Supply Chain Network’.

Yesterday, WMG was pleased to host a visit from George Bastin, Senior Warden and Master-designate of The Ironmongers' Company and former Master Mr Sam Apsley.

The visitors met with members of WMG’s Advanced Steels Processing Research Centre including Professor Sridhar Seetharaman (RAEng/Tata Steel Research Chair in Low Carbon Technologies) and Professor Barbara Shollock (Tata Steel Research Chair in Advanced Characterisation and Coatings) and were interested to understand the innovative research being undertaken in the area of iron and steel manufacturing.

Professor Lord Bhattacharyya met with the visitors for a discussion on the challenges and opportunities in the area of steels and in engineering and manufacturing more broadly.

The visitors also undertook a tour of WMG’s research facilities including lightweighting research across multiple materials areas as well as research in the areas of metrology and product evaluation technologies and how these are applied to the characterisation and understanding of materials including steels.

Today WMG was pleased to welcome Mr Fikri Işık, Turkish Minister for Science, Industry and Technology, and a delegation including the Head of the Turkish Research Council (TUBITAK), the director of the ICT Industrial Zone in Turkey and the president of Turkish employers' organisation (TIM), Mehmet Buyukekşi.

Meeting with Professor Lord Bhattacharyya, Mr Işık and the delegation were interested to understand the breadth of WMG’s collaborative industrial education programmes and technology transfer activities, and the economic benefits produced by such partnerships.

During their meeting, Mr Işık and Professor Lord Bhattacharyya signed a memorandum of understanding which covered agreement on joint industrial training in innovation, technology and the development of research programmes. They also discussed a possible collaboration to develop an Innovation and Technology transfer centre in Turkey in affiliation with WMG to provide similar services for Turkish industry.

The delegation also took a tour of WMG’s impressive facilities including the new Energy Innovation Centre, as well as viewing materials and manufacturing research in the International Manufacturing Centre and the Metrology and Product Evaluation Technologies research centre. The delegation also met with Professor Sujit Banerji, Executive Director of WMG Education, to find out more about WMG’s industrially-focused professional and executive education provision.

Today, WMG was pleased to host a visit from Dr Susan Close MP, Minister in the Government of South Australia. Dr Close is Minister for Manufacturing and Innovation as well as the newly created portfolio of Automotive Transformation.

Dr Close visited WMG as part of a research trip to key facilities in Europe, along with a delegation of government and business leaders from South Australia who hold an interest in advanced manufacturing and innovation.

Meeting with Professor Lord Bhattacharyya, Dr Close and the visitors were interested to understand the breadth of research undertaken by WMG, how the Group develops partnerships with industry and the significant economic benefits of such partnerships.

The visitors also undertook a tour of WMG’s impressive research facilities including the Energy Innovation Centre, the International Institute for Nanocomposites Manufacturing and research within the International Manufacturing Centre such as Product Evaluation Technologies and Lightweighting and systems engineering research in the International Digital Laboratory.

Battery experts at WMG, University of Warwick have helped The One Show test AA batteries to determine which last the longest.

More used to testing batteries for transport, including cars, trains and motorsport as it’s Christmas experts were more than happy to help reporter, Anita Rani with a scientific test to understand how a range of different AA batteries available on the high street might perform. The tests were carried out in WMG’s Energy Innovation Centre using the battery characterisation laboratory and part of the £13m Battery Materials Scale-Up Pilot Line.

Mark Amor-Segan, Principal Engineer and Shane Beattie, Technical Manager, for the Battery Scale-up FacilityLink opens in a new window, conducted blind scientific tests on 16 different AA batteries. The batteries came from three different battery chemistry families: i) zinc-chloride, ii) alkaline and iii) lithium. All 16 batteries were tested at a constant current of 500 mA down to 1.1 V. The voltage profile was recorded using a highly accurate battery cycler. All batteries were kept at 20 degrees using a thermal chamber to provide a controlled test environment. For The One Show viewers Anita came armed with 16 toy puppies and fitted each with the 16 different types of batteries. Keeping the puppies in a 20 degree room, the same temperature used to test the batteries, and watched over by a researcher, they were set off to see which would last the longest.

The EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Sustainable Materials and Manufacturing was officially launched yesterday (17 December) at a reception, hosted by Professor Lord Kumar Bhattacharyya, at the House of Lords.

An exciting collaboration between the Universities of Warwick, Exeter and Cranfield, the new Centre will offer an International Engineering Doctorate (EngD (Int)) in Sustainable Materials and Manufacturing, awarded jointly by the three institutions. It is supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and industry partners.

Invited guests from both industry and the education sector heard how the Centre will address industry-driven research challenges around sustainability; including establishing natural or recovered materials as feed-stocks, reducing process inputs and outputs without compromising performance or economic viability, extracting high value materials from waste streams, and ultimately establishing economic and environmental sustainability.

Leading West Midlands SMEs were at WMG, University of Warwick, for an awards night which recognised Impact and Innovation.

The Innovation Feast took place over two days on the 10th and 11th December with a number of practical workshops and speeches delivered by leading industry figures including the chairman of the Midlands Assembly Network and managing director of PP Electrical Systems Ltd Tony Hague, manufacturing expert Will Stirling, managing director of Coventry based Sprue Safety Products Ltd Nick Rutter, innovation specialist at WMG Dr David Bott and customer engagement pioneers Rant & Rave Ltd. In total 14 companies and six interns were also celebrated for their contribution to economic growth in the West Midlands.

Birmingham based Barkley Plastics won the Impact award having increased turnover by over £1 million through their collaboration with WMG. The company’s former technical director Maurice Cassidy also won a special recognition award for his contribution to innovation in the West Midlands.

On Wednesday 10th December Coventry company Premier Group are to present a gift of an Olympic torch to Professor Lord Bhattacharyya Chairman of WMG at the University of Warwick revealing the secret story of how leading edge UK car manufacturing technology was used to create the torch.

Automotive companies are constantly looking for new high tech alloys and metals to make vehicles greener by reducing weight while retaining strength. Companies such as Premier Group who supply metal vehicle components need to quickly find new ways of working with shaping, welding and bonding these new materials if they are new to meet their customers evolving needs and in Premier Group’s case it turns to WMG for the manufacturing technology it needs.

When Premier Group received the contract to supply the 2012 Olympic torch it immediately faced a very familiar problem - an ambitious design using lightweight materials that would aid the runner carrying the torch but challenge the manufacturer creating it. As ever it was WMG who solved this problem, and they did so without charge as WMG’s contribution to a successful Olympics.