Global engineering technologies company Renishaw recently hosted 150 visitors during an Open Day (at its Innovation Centre in Gloucestershire) with the theme Manufacturing in Aerospace — The Direction of Travel.

This featured a presentation from Renishaw (www.renishaw.com/aerospace), alongside talks from Airbus, GKN, Rolls-Royce, Castle Precision Engineering and Sandvik Coromant — followed by discussions on the future of aerospace and what preparations manufacturers should make to meet the expectations of this growing industry.

The visitors were a mix of Tier One and Tier Two suppliers, including manufacturing professionals, company directors and shopfloor engineers.

Trevor Higgs, head of engineering at Airbus UK, provided an insight into Airbus’s views on the future of flight.

His presentation also focused on the industry’s reliance on manual work and how automation and digitalisation still have a long way to go to make a difference to aerospace.

Adrian Billingsley, Renishaw’s marketing co-ordinator, said: “Aerospace is the one of the biggest manufacturing industries in the UK, and there are so many opportunities for growth and development.

“Bringing these leading figures of aerospace together with other like-minded professionals gave real insights into the industry and opened up the discussion on how we should shape future development.”

Paul Maxted, Renishaw’s director of industrial metrology applications, said: “Renishaw has pioneered a new generation of aerospace technologies in additive manufacturing and metrology.

“This enables aerospace businesses to manufacture a new generation of bespoke, lightweight and highly accurate parts.

"Renishaw’s approach to process control has been instrumental in developing innovative technologies, and the event provided a great environment to share knowledge with the rest of the industry.”