Along with business growth, innovation is very much a buzz word of the moment.  And all of a sudden, the government seems to have realised that the manufacturing sector is a very valuable source of expertise as we see corporate failure after corporate failure, particularly in the financial services arena, on which our economy has been based for so long.  Now whilst it’s tempting for  those of us who have been working in the manufacturing sector for years to think a sly, ‘I told you so’, it’s also a very welcome change that a sector, which in West Yorkshire typically counts for up to 20% of a district’s local economy, is finally getting the recognition it deserves.

Having recently been appointed as a framework supplier to Sheffield University’s advanced manufacturing facility, The Mercury Centre, I’m very encouraged to see that small and medium-sized businesses are being supported by making it easy and cost-effective for them to access cutting edge technologies.  Cutting-edge because of the baffling array of up-to-date facilities the centre provides and cost-effective not only because of its European funding, but also because of the cost and time reductions the centre’s manufacturing facilities can bring to manufacturing firms in the region.

In the next few months, we’ll be talking to our manufacturing clients and partners about the services that The Mercury Centre can offer, but if you’d like to know more in the mean time, please email us or read our news article.