ESCO announced today its proposal for the Smart Manufacturing Living Laboratories, a project to boost productivity, inspire ambition, develop skills and capability in manufacturing and industry. The project budget is for £30m over 5 years, using a matched funding model with 50% coming from industry and 50% from government.

The launch of the Smart Manufacturing Living Laboratories project follows the successful launch of the Industry 4.0 demonstrator at the Manufacturing Technology Centre in Coventry in 2014.

The proposal is for the UK to create and utilise three regional Smart Manufacturing Living Laboratories with a focus on:
 Improving productivity – Manufacturers and industry developing and adopting smart manufacturing methods
 Inspiring ambition – demonstrating the “art of the possible” to stimulate and promote smart manufacturing excellence in the UK and tackle the barriers to technology adoption.
 Developing skills - Training, education and professional engineering development for apprentices, students and professionals
 Developing capability – Automation, robotics and technology research, development and testing

We are now looking to engage with other industry bodies in order to broaden the industry support as well as engaging with the Department for Business, Skills and Innovation (BIS) to help build the case for the matched funding support from government.

The project has already received confirmation of support from twenty businesses in the UK but we are, of course, looking to gain support from as wide a group of businesses as possible, especially from end-user partner / manufacturing organisations. At this stage, we are not looking for commitment to a formal contribution of a specific value, but simply an intent to participate and a demonstration of support, until a firm proposal is agreed.

For more information, see Smart Manufacturing Living Laboratories Proposal

If you are interested in supporting the project, please contact us via this website or email [email protected]