The CiC comprises of 15 projects with 28 partners and aims to bring academics, suppliers, and primes together with the strategy of the National Composites Centre to support the delivery of a nationally connected network of materials specialists, manufacturing and process businesses, tooling and systems providers.

Key milestones

One of the key aims of the CiC is to address the market failures that have led to a shortage in skills and training. Relevant skills and training are needed to support the step change in manufacturing technology required to deliver emergent natural and thermoplastic materials as well as existing carbon-fibre reinforced polymers.

The AMSCI funding has meant that 15 training courses have been organised to support CiC partner employees with a total of 147 delegates in attendance, covering topics such as Microsoft Project, Resin-Transfer Moulding, The Awareness of Composites plus Abaqus, Thermoplastics, Pamcrash and CATIA.

The CiC has created 46 jobs with an additional 13 safeguarded. This means that the programme and the partner companies have already reached a quarter of the CiC’s total goal of 209 jobs. This comes before many of the projects have reached critical stages or begun commercialisation.

Supporting project partners

Terry Whitmore, Managing Director of Henniker Scientific, said: “Our involvement in the CiC has raised our profile within the UK composites community quite significantly. This has generated direct business for us and has also helped us to gain a much better understanding of the specific challenges facing the composites community, enabling us to develop specific plasma treatment processes ahead of our competitors.”

Lyndon Sanders, Director and General Manager, Far-UK, commented: “Being a part of the CiC has enabled the development of Far-UK at a faster pace than would have been possible otherwise. We have benefited from the invaluable support and advice of the CiC, which has allowed us to reach out to a wider group of new entrants to the composites industry. Also, we have been able to tap into a wide and diverse supply chain that is enabling us to build better solutions for our customers.”

www.the-cic.org.uk