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’.

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.

At an event, earlier this week, Professor Irene Ng announced registration for the HAT personal data platform (HATPDP), which allows individuals to collect, use, share and trade their own data amongst themselves and with firms, will be open for people in the UK, giving them the opportunity to become the world's first 1 million HAT beta users.

In 2015, the HAT will first be launched in the Midlands and then later in the year in Singapore. The HATPDP was demonstrated for the first time at the 2nd Mad Hatters' Tea Party in London's Digital Catapult, with the release of the technical specification of the HAT APIs for developers and firms to build applications and devices around the use of personal data. The event also saw the release of the economic model of the HAT ecosystem, and new potential business models for the use of personal data of the future.

Announcing the HAT project's collaboration with Enable iD, to become the first HAT Platform Provider (HPP) in Europe, Professor Irene Ng, Director of the International Institute for Product and Service Innovation at WMG, University of Warwick and the Lead Investigator of the HAT project said:

We are very pleased to be working with Enable iD to scale up the HAT. We believe that the next stage of the Internet is that of data-driven human decisions enabled by the Internet of Things and data intensive services and we are really pleased that it will begin in the Midlands, the birthplace of the industrial revolution. We think the HAT will create an economic system that is more democratic in terms of data exchanges as well as incentivising more innovation, business opportunities and will create a whole new economy with new jobs and skills”.

Developers will be invited to be amongst the first to view technology to help support the next phase of the Internet's evolution when the Hub-of-All-Things (HAT) platform is revealed at a “Mad Hatters' Tea Party” later this month.

Professor Irene Ng, from WMG at the University of Warwick, will announce this forthcoming opportunity while speaking at the Innovate UK event in London on Wednesday 5th November.

The 2nd Mad Hatters' Tea Party on November 24, 2014 will be demonstrating the HAT, a technology and market platform for individuals to collect, use, share and trade their own data amongst themselves and with firms.

The event, hosted by the Connected Digital Economy Catapult at its new Digital Catapult Centre in London, will mark the first round release of the inbound and outbound APIs of the HAT with the aim of helping developers and firms prepare themselves to participate in the next wave of the Internet – an internet of data-driven decisions, empowering individuals to make smarter decisions in their day to day lives.

The HAT enables individuals to reclaim and control their own data for their personal use. Crucially, this digital data repository is owned by the individual and preserves their privacy. This is particularly important in today's increasingly connected world, where much of our lives is being captured digitally as data, giving rise to concerns about security, privacy, confidentiality and trust.

University of Warwick student Dan Beddow is one of 18 talented graduates and students from across the West Midlands region who have just helped local Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) with a variety of industry challenges thanks to a scheme run by the ERDF funded International Institute for Product and Service Innovation (IIPSI) at WMG at the University of Warwick.

SMEs in the West Midlands region benefitted from a funded internship programme to support innovative projects in their businesses. Projects included the development of digital marketing strategies, development of new technical services, implementation of new product lines, materials testing and product design.

One of the SMEs to benefit was Rugby’s Automotive Insulations Ltd (AI Ltd), specialists in the design and manufacture of innovative noise reduction systems and thermal management solutions. They took on two interns, Dan Beddow, an Engineering student from the University of Warwick, who lives in Coventry’s Tile Hill area, and Sarah McDougall a Chemistry student from the University of Central Lancashire. Sarah spent time testing the viability of a number of new materials ready to go into production and Dan worked on an exhibition demonstrator project for the IZB exhibition in Germany resulting in a cut away of a MINI Cooper that showcased all of AI’s products in one vehicle and an innovative touch screen system for visitors at the exhibition to use.

Adit Jaiswal, an intern working with the SME team, was part of the winning team at the Euromoney Hackathon, and was also awarded an idividual prize for his efforts.

The Hackathon, which was held on 4^th and 5^th October, was organised by Euromoney PLC at CCT Venues, London, for which MarkLogic was the main sponsor. Teams had 36 hours to come up with a software tool, for which the winning team would be awarded a cash prize of £4,000..

Every team comprised of four members, each of whom fulfilled the role of either a back-end developer, front-end developer, tester, or a business analyst. Additionally, each team had an employee from Euromoney appointed as the team mentor.

Adit says: "During my discussion with our mentor, I identified two ongoing areas of concern in the company; realising full potential of their API’s, and identifying potential customers. I used both these issues to come up with a web tool which identifies potential customers using social media profiles. Moreover, this enables tremendous opportunities for cross segment and cross market selling.

The application not only won my team the Hackathon competition, but I was also awarded an additional title for the individual displaying “Best Efforts” along with a cash prize of £1000."

Margaret Low, Principal Teaching Fellow at WMG, has been awarded a Warwick Award for Teaching Excellence, granted by the University of Warwick to recognise excellent teaching and support for learning across its faculty.

Margaret was selected from a record number of nominations made in 2013/14 and was presented with her award at the University’s 2014 summer graduation ceremony. The award nominations are made by colleagues or students who wish to recognise and celebrate excellence in teaching throughout the nominee’s career at the University.

A key factor in Margaret’s award was her leadership of and contribution to Outreach and student support activities at the University. Margaret is a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) ambassador and Widening Participation officer at WMG and works with colleagues and students across the University’s Faculty of Science to encourage programmes which promote interest in STEM. She founded the highly successful Warwick Technology Volunteers programme for students across the University and continues to provide the academic leadership and coaching required for the student volunteers and their projects in the community.

The Manufacturing Excellence Awards (MX), run by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE), were held at the University of Warwick on 30th September. Ahead of the ceremony, Professor Lord Bhattacharyya hosted a drinks reception for the nominees and guests in WMG's International Digital Laboratory.

Guests were welcomed by Lord Bhattacharyya and Colin Brown, Engineering Director at the IMechE, and given private tours of WMG's materials research and Energy Innovation Centre.

MX is a business improvement and awards programme that supports and promotes manufacturers in the UK ensuring industry productivity and worldwide competitiveness within SMEs, Mid-Caps and OEMs. WMG has been a partner of the MX Awards for many years and Professor Lord Bhattacharyya said:

The MX awards show the very best of British manufacturing, and I’m delighted to congratulate every company and every innovator who has had a part to play in the success stories being highlighted this evening"

Researchers at WMG, University of Warwick, used 3D scanning and visualisation technology to help Dr Irving Finkel, the world’s foremost expert on ancient Babylonian languages, decipher a 4000-year-old tablet that sheds new light on the iconic biblical tale of Noah's Ark.

‘The Real Noah’s Ark’, shown on Channel 4, Sunday 14th September, documented the astonishing story of this significant find and Dr Finkel’s incredible journey of discovery. The ancient clay tablet, discovered on a mantelpiece in a UK suburban home and handed to the British Museum, is inscribed with the world's oldest language, cuneiform. It tells the story of a Noah-like figure and a great flood, giving detailed instructions on how to build an ark. However, due to its incredible age and some understandable wear and tear, parts of the tablet are difficult to read.

Having spent 20 years translating the tablet Dr Finkel, Assistant Keeper of Ancient Mesopotamian Scripts, Languages and Cultures at the British Museum, set out to show that the biblical narrative originated from stories that had been embedded in Sumerian and Babylonian society and literature for thousands of years. He also cast new light on the shape of the ark, believing that it was round; closer in style to ancient coracles than the traditional long seafaring boat of popular imagination. After all, it didn’t necessarily need to sail anywhere, it just needed to float until the floodwater retreated.

WMG’s Professor Mark Williams assisted Dr Finkel with his detailed interpretation of the tablet by scanning it using cutting edge X-ray Micro-CT and 3D Laser Scanning technology, and projecting the image onto the UK’s highest resolution 3D power wall. The immersive technology allowed Dr Finkel to view the tablet from all angles and in high definition, revealing previously undecipherable characters and confirming his suspicions that the vessel being described was indeed round.

On Wednesday 13 August, Margaret Low (Principal Teaching Fellow at WMG) and Dr Simon Leigh from the University of Warwick, ran a summer school at the Royal Institution in London called Illuminating Engineering. The event showed how modern-day manufacturing links together art, science, engineering and technology in order to create new, exciting and bespoke products.

The one-day workshop demonstrated how these links can be brought together through design, software and hardware engineering skills and how engineers need to have an appreciation of the other areas to get any project off the ground. Students designed and manufactured a bespoke, interactive lamp controlled by a micro-processor, writing the software for the interactive lamp and exploring the design and production of a personalised lamp shade using digital manufacturing tools.