Andrea Leadsom, the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), has officially opened the Manufacturing Technology Centre’s (MTC) (www.the-mtc.org) new innovation and knowledge hub at Ansty Park in Coventry.

The new hub aims to lead R&D and collaboration on metal additive manufacturing (AM), “developing and testing ideas for taking AM technology forward”. It is situated within the MTC’s Aerospace Research Centre.

The hub’s opening underscores progress in the £15 million MTC-led DRAMA (Digital Reconfigurable Additive Manufacturing facilities for Aerospace) project, which encourages suppliers to the UK aerospace industry to adopt AM.

Supported by £11 million from BEIS’s Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, DRAMA has already engaged with more than 50 aerospace supply chain companies, and is still inviting applications for new projects.

Mrs Leadsom said: “I am delighted to launch this new facility.

“It is a great example of the strength of the UK’s capability in cutting edge manufacturing technology and has significant potential to help boost the competitiveness of UK companies and their supply chains.

"We are investing £11 million to help build it and support aerospace suppliers to develop their manufacturing capability.

"The MTC is making an important contribution to ensuring the UK remains a world leader in advanced manufacturing and
I am looking forward to seeing companies from across the sector make use of this facility.”

The new hub, which is among the first such facilities in Europe, includes a workshop, along with design, research and test facilities for AM.

It will offer training at all levels, expert advice on AM suitability, business case and implementation, research (both bespoke and collaborative), and face-to-face and online business and technical support.

Participating companies will have access to “facilities and expertise in a commercially neutral but technologically world-class environment”.

They can also get advice on funding technology development.

Katy Milne, chief engineer for the DRAMA project at the MTC, said: “Additive manufacture has the potential to revolutionise design app-roaches and supply chains.

"There are more than 4,000 companies involved in the aerospace industry, and there are current examples where aerospace primes have reduced the part count by an order of magnitude.

"Additive manufacturing offers the biggest opportunity since the introduction of composites.

“What we have learned from the DRAMA project is that collaboration is vital and everything we learn for aerospace can be transferred to other sectors.”