Liverpool City Region has a new Making It Board to set out the future development and direction of Advanced Manufacturing across the City Region.
Last year’s Making It report was the culmination of a detailed study of the manufacturing landscape in the Liverpool City Region conducted by the Institute for Manufacturing (IfM) at the University of Cambridge and involved input from over 50 representatives from industry as well as academia and specialist support services.
The Board, led by Alistair Poole, Managing Director NGF Europe, will drive forward the six short to medium term opportunities identified during the Making It process.
These opportunities include: smart, none invasive monitoring such as embedded sensors; lightweight manufacturing in the automotive industry; marine ballast water treatment; shale gas opportunities and waste energy.
The first meeting took place on Thursday, 29 May, 2014 where a draft action plan was presented to the Board and topics such as skills and entrepreneurship were discussed.
Alistair Poole, Chair of Making It Board said: “The importance of this sector to the future prosperity of Liverpool City Region cannot be underestimated. It currently provides 53,000 jobs in this area alone and contributes £2.7 billion into the local economy. By establishing the Making It Board, we will provide real support to make our manufacturing sector globally competitive.
“The Board will look at the future of manufacturing, what we make, how we make it and what we should be making in the future. Liverpool City Region has always been innovative and now is the time to work out how we can build on that innovation and establish ourselves as market leaders once more.”
Robert Hough, Chair of the Liverpool City Region Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) said: “The future of manufacturing is changing and in an ever-competitive global market, we must be ready to adapt and prepare for these changes to ensure we remain a major player in the sector and establish ourselves as market leaders in our specialist fields. The Making It strategy launched last year by Secretary of State Vince Cable started this process and I welcome the fact that our private sector companies are working together to provide leadership and direction in this economically important sector.”
Making It Board Members:
Alistair Poole, Managing Director NGF Europe and Chair of Making It Board
Mike Austin, Senior Director Site Operations, Astra Zeneca
Graeme McLaren, Sales Director, United Automation
Peter Carew, Director Of Process Development, Unilever
Alan Seeley, Human Resources Manager, Getrag Ford
Brian Stone, Operations Manager, Jaguar Land Rover
Scott Tolson, CEO, Sigmatex
Robin Leatherbarrow, Pro-Vice-Chancellor Scholarship, Research and Knowledge Transfer at Liverpool John Moores University
Richard Farrow, Sector Expert Manufacturing, Sci-Tech Daresbury
Darrell Matthews, Regional Director, EEF
Ken Badcock, Professor of Computational Aerodynamics,
Executive Pro Vice Chancellor for Science and Engineering, University of Liverpool
Dale Milburn, Director of Regeneration, Knowsley Council