IN ASSOCIATION WITH
The University of Sheffield AMRC
MAKING THE
Future
World-class research centre celebrates 20 years at the top
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THE STAR
IN ASSOCIATION WITH
www.thestar.co.uk Thursday, June 10, 2021
The University of Sheffield AMRC
Proudly delivering on a promise to make a better tomorrow By Steve Foxley Chief executive AMRC
Anniversaries, particularly the big ones, are a moment to enjoy. As the University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre hits its 20th year, it is a moment to think about all that has been achieved in Sheffield, in Rotherham and nationally, by our team. I have had the pleasure of running the AMRC for more than a year, building on many years in industry, knowing it for its brilliant reputation. This is a moment of immense pride and is why we worked with the Sheffield Star to create this supplement. It is a collection of stories about people, the place and technology. I hope you will enjoy it. You may not know about the role the AMRC and the University of Sheffield is playing at Waverley and around the former Sheffield Airport. You may have heard about Boeing or McLaren establishing factories here, but perhaps not the link with us. On the land around the Parkway in Rotherham and Sheffield, we’ve moved on from clawing coal out of the ground to power blast furnaces for steel; we’re now leading the charge to deliver Jet Zero and low carbon energy. We are the UK’s leading digital manufacturing research base, helping companies build better products and to be more competitive. Our region’s reputation for manufacturing excellence is stronger than ever. The founders of the AMRC, Prof Keith Ridgway, Adrian Allen of Technicut and John
Steve Foxley, AMRC chief executive.
Baragwanath, among others, conceived of and drove it forward over many years, building on the strong foundations of the University of Sheffield and industrial collaboration, notably with Boeing and Technicut. For 20 years we have applied academic research to support industry to be better. It is not the leaders alone that make the difference, but the host of people from the shop floor to the project managers, to collaborators in industry and the University that deliver the results. Where there was scorched
The AMRC is the heart of advanced manufacturing in South Yorkshire.
earth, we now have nine world-class AMRC research facilities in Rotherham and Sheffield. Business partnerships sit at the core of every-
thing we do. Today we have 123 with the world’s leading manufacturing, engineering and tooling companies, many of whom have set up
facilities close by. The wider industrial park hosts titans of innovation and manufacturing such as Boeing, McLaren, Nikken, Metlase, Sandvik Coromant, UK AEA and Metalysis - between them employing 2,500 highly-skilled people. The AMRC Training Centre is working with businesses to develop the next generation of leaders, having trained more than 1,500 young people from the area over recent years. Our city is defined by its past but writing its future. Manufacturing has always been a strong hallmark of this
area and we are proud to be part of a community of brilliant companies including Gripple, Forgemasters, Aesseal, AML, Footprint Tools and Tinsley Bridge. Collectively, we are a vital part of a positive future for Sheffield City Region. We sit alongside the musicians, data scientists, theatre producers, film creators and art innovators, and a pool of brilliant people who bring our place to life. We at the AMRC and wider University work hard to create opportunities and be part of a powerful promise for tomorrow.
Kwarteng: AMRC is jewel in Sheffield's crown From the steam engines of the Industrial Revolution to the latest robotics technology, the UK has been at the forefront of manufacturing for over two centuries, with cities like Sheffield its beating heart. So, it is with great pride that we celebrate the continuation of that legacy as we welcome the twentieth anni-
versary of the AMRC. I am particularly proud that my department continues to back the AMRC through our funding for the High Value Manufacturing Catapult, to which we gave £128m in core funding just in the last year. This hub of academic and industry collaboration develops cutting-edge manu-
facturing techniques and technologies to take new products to market which we can all benefit from. This incredible facility is not just about supporting innovative businesses - I have seen the real-world impacts on people’s lives, helping to generate thousands of local jobs and level up economic growth across South York-
shire and beyond. The centre has trained more than 1,500 apprentices, helped Boeing build their first factory in Europe in Sheffield, and worked with McLaren to open a new facility near the centre building supercar chassis. The latter alone is expected to bring a £100m boost to the economy. Yet, like myself and my de-
partment, the AMRC looks to the future to ensure the continued success of Britain’s fantastic manufacturing industry, with its Factory 2050 imagining how it will evolve with increased digitalisation. So let’s celebrate 20 proud years of this jewel in Sheffield’s crown and look ahead to the huge opportunities the next 20 will bring.
By Kwasi Kwarteng, Secretary of State for Business.
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In the cockpit of a Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird in the Museum of Flight, Seattle. During the America trip for the Siddall Achievement Award.
Siddall Achievement winners Mary Stickland and Craig Horton with the University of Washington’s EcoCar.
Mary Stickland at Pryor Marking Technology in Sheffield. Picture: Chris Etchells
Why engineer Mary’s life began at the AMRC Training Centre David Walsh
david.walsh@jpimedia.co.uk DavidWalsh_M
Mary Stickland is a newlyqualified engineering thoroughbred - but it nearly didn’t happen. Her great-grandfather worked on steam trains, her 91-year-old grandfather at Templeborough rolling mills in Rotherham and her Dad started at British Steel before becoming a control
systems engineer, working in several industries. Mary was always fixing things and and had the urge to understand why they were broken rather than throw them away. But due to a lack of opportunities and support she took ‘A’ levels which left her unfulfilled. And then she found the AMRC Training Centre. She said: “That’s when I say my life begins.” That was three years ago. Today, she is a qualified me-
chanical maintenance engineer at Pryor Marking Technology in Sheffield, following an apprenticeship delivered by the AMRC Training Centre. Along the way, she won the centre’s first Siddall Achievement Award and a trip of a lifetime touring Boeing factories in Portland and Seattle. Now she hopes to take a degree. If her career was a machine it would be ticking over nicely. But more important is
how she feels. Mary, aged 24, from Rotherham, said: “With hindsight I wanted to be an engineer from when I was four years old. This is why I’m so happy with my AMRC apprenticeship. “I’m proud to be the fourth generation and follow in my family’s footsteps. My dad and grandfather are ecstatic. I grew up with woodwork and motorbikes, which not every woman has. But any woman interested in en-
gineering today has a lot more choice of what to do.” The AMRC was a ‘massive advocate’ of women in engineering and there was ‘no sexism’ at Pryor, she added. “It’s still a man’s world. A lot of women are worried about going into engineering but the more women who do, the more normal it becomes. “It’s hard to make that change and people are shocked by my choice. I have had some women come up to me and ask how I got into it. I’d like to think
it would be 50-50 one day. But I also look at my grandfather’s generation and see how much progress has been made.” Of course, breeding doesn’t guarantee ability - and gender not at all. Mary’s older brother Joe, aged 27, is studying law and is a decent sportsman. But engineering just isn’t his thing. Mary added: “We all have a bit of a laugh about it. Give him some IKEA furniture to put together and he wouldn’t have a clue.”
How skills are vital to connect up the circuit Think of the AMRC as a circuit - it needs the Training Centre to light up. Engineering research can create stunning potential but to have impact in advanced manufacturing it requires equally advanced skills. Nikki Jones, director of the AMRC Training Centre, said she could not see how the offer worked without it.
She added: “Research is phenomenal but it has to inform and drive a skilled workforce.” T h e Tra i n i n g C e ntre is plugged into industry to keep its curriculum up to date. It is connected to 300 employers who want the best workers and it is a powerbank of learning for 675 apprentices.
It also boasts industryleading investment in teachers, many of whom have PhDs and all have industry experience. But it is also alive to the challenges, Nikki said. The sector needs more female representation which they are addressing, starting with primary schools. She is focussed on bring-
ing women into engineering, trebling the number of female apprentices in five years. Efforts include femaleonly events and ‘AMRC Tribe’, which offers a new circle of friends for those who are alone in their peer group in choosing manufacturing and engineering. Upskilling the existing workforce is being met with
new courses, including degree apprenticeships. And the centre was ‘levelling up’ long before the phrase was coined - some 82 per cent of learners are from disadvantaged postcodes. Nikki added: “The training centre has opportunities for everyone. "If you have the aspiration you will be supported.”
Nikki Jones, University of Sheffield AMRC Training Centre director.
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The University of Sheffield AMRC
From industrial confrontation to collaboration Katia Harston
k.harston@amrc.co.uk @TheAMRC
The dilapidated slag heaps of the old Orgreave colliery which once dominated the landscape around the Sheffield Parkway are unrecognisable today. The sprawling mass of coke ovens and smoking chimneys are long gone, replaced by a hub of engineering excellence and futuristic factories surrounded by new homes, a supermarket and shops. This remarkable transformation is no less impressive now than it was 20 years ago when the scars of de-industrialisation and decline first began to show signs of healing through regeneration of the site. It became the hugely successful Advanced Manufacturing Park we have today, with the University of Sheffield AMRC’s world-class research facilities sitting proudly at its centre. It has moved Orgreave from a place of industrial confrontation, where miners and police clashed in one of the most bitter disputes in modern history, to a place of industrial collaboration, home to more than 100 companies magnetised by the presence and pull of the AMRC. From global names like Boeing, Rolls-Royce and McLaren through to smaller supply chain manufacturers - this hub of engineering excellence leads the way in cutting-edge innovation, skills and advanced manufacturing, employing 2,000 highly skilled workers across the manufacturing park. And with the expanding Waverley residential development next door, it is not only landscapes being transformed, technologies and talent being developed - new communities are being born too.
2001
In 2010, the Queen donned virtual reality glasses to remotely activate a digger, officially launching building work on the Nuclear AMRC.
University’s AMRC a manufacturing model Today, the University of Sheffield AMRC is the model for collaborative research involving universities, academics and industry worldwide. It has grown from a single building with 10 staff into a network of worldleading research and innovation centres dotted across the Sheffield-Rotherham border, employing some 450 people who work with manufacturing companies from around the globe. The wider AMRC famBut the AMRC is about more than buildings and clever technologies - it is the culture of innovation that lives within its brilliant people that makes it special. It is the opportunities it creates through its training centre for young people to kickstart successful careers in engineering. It is the bright minds developing manufacturing solutions to some of
ily now includes sister centre Nuclear AMRC, which helps UK companies win work across the nuclear sector, and the AMRC Training Centre where 1,500 apprentices have been equipped with the skills and knowledge needed to become talented engineers. The AMRC footprint has expanded beyond the Sheffield City Region too, helping other manufacturing communities access advanced technologies that will drive improvements in our greatest challenges. This is what keeps the AMRC’s 120-plus industrial partners coming back for more - knowing they can tap into the AMRC’s knowledge, skills and expertise to become smarter, sustainable and more productive. The vision and eye for opportunity shared by the AMRC’s founding fathers Prof Keith Ridgway and busi-
productivity, performance and quality. The AMRC model for collaborative research is now in North Wales, with AMRC Cymru, which played a crucial role in producing lifesaving ventilators to fight the pandemic, and in Lancashire, with AMRC North West, which moves into a purpose-built £20m facility later this year and is keeping the region at the forefront of advanced manufacturing through its 5G Factory of the Future programme. nessman Adrian Allen - with crucial backing from the University of Sheffield and Boeing - helped make all of this possible and there is no doubt its future is built on a great legacy. But the story doesn’t end there. The next ambitious chapter is now being written to cement the AMRC’s place in our proud manufacturing history.
1984 Aerial shot of the Orgreave site in 1984.
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Prof Keith Ridgway, left, and Richard Caborn (then Sheffield MP and sports minister) surveying the proposed site of the AMRC in Rotherham.
Above: The AMRC’s flagship and futuristic Factory 2050.
2020
2003 Just one building - the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre in 2003.
The Advanced Manufacturing Park and the Waverley housing site in 2020.
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The University of Sheffield AMRC
2019 - Project engineer, Rob Stacey, demonstrates how smart tools and CGI technology combine in the AMRC’s Industry 4.0 Digital Operating Theatre demonstrator.
2019 – Composite researchers worked on a £20 million project to develop lightweight propeller blades that will help the UK aviation sector reduce its carbon footprint and noise emissions at airports.
The AMRC’s ‘greatest hits’ James Crossling amrc.co.uk @TheAMRC
It is almost two decades since the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre burst on to the scene with a radical new approach to working with industry. Since then it has achieved countless innovations and ad-
vances for some of the biggest - and smallest - names in business. As it celebrates its 20th birthday, here are some of its ‘greatest hits’. 2004 - The AMRC worked with Messier-Bugatti-Dowty on titanium landing gear parts for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Machining time was reduced by a factor of 18 and tooling costs by 30 per cent.
2005 - Machining time on titanium landing gear bolts on the Airbus A380 cut from 145 hours to 19 hours. 2008-2012 - Expansion saw the opening of the Factory of the Future (2008), building work on the Nuclear AMRC in 2010, the AMRC Knowledge Transfer Centre opened in 2011 and a year later the Composite Centre was built.
Boeing’s first factory in Europe is close to the AMRC’s Factory 2050 on Sheffield Business Park. Boeing chose Sheffield because of its long-standing relationship with the AMRC, the region’s capabilities, talent pool and strong manufacturing supply chains.
2012 - The AMRC helped Rolls-Royce cut aero-engine disk production time. It led to Rolls invest £100m in a fan disc plant in the North East, securing 300 jobs. 2014 - Engineers developed a large drone prototype which made extensive use of rapid manufacturing techniques. 2015 - The AMRC carried out the UK's first full airworthiness test on an aerobatic stunt plane for 30 years. Engineers designed a bespoke test rig simulating forces in high speed manoeuvres. 2020 - Abdul Haque, technical lead in metal additive manufacturing at the AMRC, inspects a lightweight fuel tank for small scale satelilites, designed and developed at the AMRC as part of the MiniTANKS project
2015 - The AMRC used digital measuring techniques to create 3D models to help archaeologists preserve sites from the Middle Ages. 2015 – Rolls-Royce Advanced Blade Casting Facility opens. RollsRoyce
opened a £110m factory on the Advanced Manufacturing Park in Rotherham, employing 150 people and with the capacity to manufacture more than 100,000 single crystal turbine blades a year. 2016 - The AMRC saved BAE Systems millions by developing a robotic countersinking prototype cell at Factory 2050. 2018 - Engineers at Yorkshire Water used virtual reality technology developed by the AMRC to design new treatment works which saved the company £1m over two years. 2018 - Sheffield knife maker, Stuart Mitche l l , jo i n e d forces with th e A M R C to develop a 3D-printed
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2015 - The AMRC carried out the UK’s first full airworthiness test for 30 years on an aerobatic stunt plane. Engineers designed a bespoke test rig simulating forces the aircraft would have to cope with.
Advanced digital technologies at work at the AMRC’s Factory 2050.
2021 - AMRC engineer, Dr Alexei Winter, demonstrates the automation process for positioning powerful magnets for Sheffield-based Magnomatics. The AMRC made the labour-intensive process 60 times faster.
2020 - An Airbus worker assembles a ventilator at the AMRC’s £20m facility in Wales, AMRC Cymru, which was turned into a production facility for the life-saving devices during the Covid-19 pandemic.
titanium chef's knife. 2018 – Boeing Sheffield opens Boeing’s first factory in Europe follows its long-standing relationship with the AMRC and is based on the region’s capabilities, talent pool and strong manufacturing supply chains. 2018 - McLaren Composites Technology Centre opens The £50m factory makes lightweight carbon fibre chassis for McLaren supercars. It created more than 200 jobs and is set to pump an estimated £100m into the local
economy by 2028. 2019 – Engineers used CGI movie technology to create a digital operating theatre demonstrator. 2019 - A former soldier in the Parachute Regiment created a system that used balloons to put satellites into space with AMRC design engineers. 2020 – Upright wheelchair designed and prototyped at the AMRC hailed a 'game changer for users the world over'. 2020 - MiniTANKS, a lightweight fuel tank for small
satellites, are designed and developed by metal additive manufacture engineers. 2020 - Developed manufacturing of components as part of the VentilatorChallengeUK, answering a plea for help from the Prime Minister. The AMRC's facility in Wales was turned into a production facility for the life-saving devices. 2021 – Automation experts create a way for Sheffield firm Magnomatics to place powerful magnets on generators for offshore wind that is 60 times faster.
Robots secure skilled jobs Robots, we hear, are taking our jobs: replacing skilled craftsmen with tireless automatons. But not at Footprint Tools, where a secondhand robot has given a new lease of life to its skilled craftsmen, boosting the firm’s productivity three-fold. The 150-year-old Sheffield company has been in the Jewitt family for four generations, and enjoyed huge success during the hey-day of coal and steel. But the low-wage economies in the Far East, the col-
At Footprint Tools with the robot and builder’s line pins.
lapse of coal and steel and the 2008 crash brought Footprint to the brink of closure. To fight back they turned to the AMRC. The result was a robot cell producing their staple product - the humble builder’s line pin. Director Richard Jewitt, said: “It has had a massive impact. The robot cell has
enabled us to unblock bottlenecks by freeing up two skilled members of staff. “In the past, our average days-to-despatch was 21 days, but since the introduction of the robot cell that has come down to just seven. We could not have done it without the research and development talents of the AMRC.”
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The future is made in factories – why not build them here? By David Walsh
david.walsh@jpimedia.co.uk @DavidWalsh_M
Picture the scene: 60 new, hitech factories working with the AMRC, its training centre and the ‘brilliant’ supply chain in South Yorkshire and the North. Ambitious and exciting - but possible, according to Ben Morgan, who sees the big three pioneers: Rolls-Royce, Boeing and McLaren, as just the ‘tip of the iceberg’. After 12 years with the AMRC, and now its research director, there can be few people with a better view of the region’s advanced manufacturing capabilities. He said: “They are the tip of the iceberg, five per cent of the region’s capability. I think we can do a lot more. “It’s probably very ambitious. But if I said the big three support 2,000 jobs I would love it to be 25,000 jobs. “There’s a lot of pride and grit in Sheffield to get it done. “Sustainability, new forms of aviation propulsion, clean energy, that’s where opportunity lies for the region. “The AMRC is at the table, we have good relations with aerospace firms and we’re moving into new markets around Zero Carbon Humber.” That huge programme aims to build the world’s first next zero carbon industrial cluster and ‘decarbonise the North of England’. His job also involves working with the AMRC’s industrial partners to develop their capabilities and working out how manufacturing can ‘level up’ the country. Small wonder he wants to stay.
Ben Morgan with robots at AMRC Factory 2050.
“I feel like I’ve learned a lot in 12 years. It’s a fantastic opportunity. It will be interesting to see what the government does. They talk a lot about levelling up, I think it can happen through innovation in manufacturing. “I want to anchor as much as possible in the region. I’d love to have more outposts across the North and level up some of those forgotten regions and support their manufacturing bases. “In the pandemic, the government was caught short on PPE and there’s a drive for more resilience in the
Engineer James Lindsay working on a demonstrator at the AMRC.
supply chain. “The economies that bounced back quickest, like Germany, have strong export markets.”
Ben was just 22, with an MSc in mechanical engineering, when he sent his CV to AMRC co-founder and then executive director Keith Ridg-
way. In the interview Keith asked the killer question: “Are you clever?” Sound smug, or admit being unintelligent were the pitfalls. He leapt them by responding: “I think so, at least I try to be.” He got the job and went on to build the Integrated Manufacturing Group from eight people to 70, helped open and establish Factory 2050, ‘the digital manufacturing flagship for the UK’ and helped BAE Systems save millions on the F35 fighter jet production line. Following the departure of
Keith Ridgway and co-founders in 2019, he was promoted to the board headed by new chief executive Steve Foxley. But projects with local SMEs still excite him. Helping Footprint Tools install a robotic polisher to stay competitive, and bringing Sheffield digital firm Razor in to work with RollsRoyce are just two. “I have a huge amount of pride in the local stuff. Supporting Footprint, a third generation metal working business in Sheffield, was brilliant. It means so much for owners and staff.”
Rebecca is former rebel with a cause Studying for a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the University of Sheffield seemed a million miles away for Rebecca Wright when she was at school. “I never got on well with education; I got kicked out of a lot of lessons and was a bit of a rebel,” said the 22-year-old from Sheffield. After working in a chippy
and a call centre, Rebecca’s life turned on its head when she was introduced to the University of Sheffield AMRC Training Centre, where she secured a place as an apprentice with the AMRC’s Integrated Manufacturing Group. “My apprenticeship has changed my life, it has given me confidence and ambition,” said Rebecca who was
named Yorkshire and Humber Advanced Apprentice of the Year in 2019. Now an engineering technician at the AMRC, Rebecca finished her technical support apprenticeship in February and will begin a manufacturing technology degree apprenticeship in September. AMRC apprentices are
perfectly placed to draw on the experience of an elite Russell Group university and the resources of a world-leading research and innovation organisation, whose 120-plus partners include Siemens, Technicut and Airbus. Think an apprenticeship at the AMRC Training Centre could be for you? Find out more: amrctraining.co.uk. Rebecca Wright and her mentor at the AMRC, lead engineer, James Lindsay.