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CMAC recently hosted the nation's 3rd EPSRC Manufacturing the Future Conference at Glasgow Science Centre, chaired by Professor Alastair Florence, Academic Director of CMAC. The conference was a huge success with almost 400 delegates and has received outstanding feedback from all who attended. 

The annual conference provides a national forum for UK manufacturing research community to share experience, progress and challenges in progressing UK manufacturing. The event also provided a platform for early career researchers to showcase their excellent contributions to the manufacturing research community and contribute to debate on how to move forward.

Mr Atti Emecz, Director of EPSRC, opened the conference. CMAC featured highly in the programme, with CMAC Chair Prof Paul Sharratt, ICES; CMAC Co-Investigator Prof Sir Mike Gregory, University of Cambridge and CMAC Board member Dr Mark Buswell, Head of Advanced Manufacturing Technologies, GSK giving Plenary Lectures. Other Plenary speakers were Sir Mark Walport, Government Chief Scientific Adviser and Archie MacPherson, AFRC.

The Conference dinner was held at Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery.University of Strathclyde Principle Sir Jim McDonald; Mark Claydon-Smith, EPSRC and Alastair Florence, Academic Director of CMAC closed the conference.

The Conference was a great success, with over 370 delegates in attendance at the event over the course of two days, which featured parallel sessions around the four Manufacturing the Future themes (Innovative Production Processes, Manufacturing Informatics, Frontier Manufacturing, and Sustainable Industrial Systems).

There were over 120 posters and 26 exhibitors, including all of the EPSRC Centres for Innovative Manufacturing, EPSRC, Mettler Toledo, Alconbury Weston Ltd, and the Welsh Centre for Printing and Coating/Swansea University to name a few.

The 3rd EPSRC Manufacturing the Future Conference was held on 23-24 September 2014 at the Glasgow Science Centre. The 4th EPSRC Manufacturing the Future Conference will take place in Cambridge on 17-18 September 2015.

The Made to Order Processing Plants (MOPPs) project provided a case study for the Flexible Manufacturing Special Interest Group Report on the current innovation landscape provided in October 2014. This report has been the main driver behind InnovateUK’s new £6million call in the Flexible Manufacturing Competition for funding.

The case study: Advanced Process Control (APC) For Continuous Processing is featured on p27.
Humera Siddique works on the Innovate UK and EPSRC funded Made to Order Processing Plants (MOPPS) project. Humera recently won the prize for 2nd Best Poster for this work at the 3rd EPSRC Manufacturing the Future Conference was hosted by CMAC in September 2014. Please contact us if you want to find out more.

CMAC post-doctoral researchers: Dr Karen Robertson (University of Bath) and Dr Anna Jawor-Baczynska (University of Strathclyde), and Prof Chick Wilson from University of Bath presented their research at the Measuring Molecular Assembly workshop organised by the National Physical Laboratory and the EPSRC Directed Assembly Grand Challenge Network. The workshop promoted discussions on how to observe, measure and control processes which are facilitated by molecular assembly, such as crystal nucleation. Participants shared experience on what kind of observations and measurements should be made to better understand the initial assembly of molecules (nucleation process) as well as how to control the molecular assembly on surfaces and interfaces in order to prevent or promote the assembly (e.g. eliminate fouling problem). The question how to monitor the processes in real-time, how and what combined techniques (multiple measurements) can be applied to better understand and control processes that are run in continuous operation mode has been raised by Prof Wilson. The follow up meeting on process-ability will be held in P&G (Egham) in October.

Rt Hon Dr Vince Cable MP, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills visited the EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Continuous Manufacturing and Crystallisation (CMAC) on Wednesday 8^th January to open Phase 1 of the UK Research Partnership Investment Fund for Pharmaceutical Research at the University of Strathclyde. In June, it was formally announced by The Rt Hon George Osbourne MP, Chancellor of the Exchequer that CMAC was receiving a cash injection of £ 11.4 million from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), under the UK Research Partnership Investment Fund (UKRPIF). This grant is supported with industry and charity contributions of £ 22.8 million. The £34 million project will provide state of the art facilities to allow CMAC to fulfill its vision to accelerate the adoption of continuous manufacturing processes, systems and plants for the production of high-value chemical products to higher quality, at lower cost and more sustainably.

The EPSRC Centre has secured a dedicated new 500 m² laboratory facility in the new £ 100m Technology and Innovation Centre (TIC) at Strathclyde. TIC will enable world-leading academics and researchers to partner in delivering ground-breaking and viable solutions for energy, manufacturing, health and smart cities. The TIC lab will act as a physical hub for the National Centre and will house world-class capabilities for crystallisation, process development, materials characterisation, secondary processing and analysis.

The visit by Vince Cable encapsulated the extraordinary success of the Centre since it opened in October 2011. On speaking about the National Centre Dr Cable said: "With over £25 million of new UK Government money, this centre will transform the way in which pharmaceuticals are developed by finding quicker and more sustainable ways of manufacturing drugs and medicines. As part of the UK, Scotland not only benefits from strong research investment, but the rest of the country also benefits from the excellent innovation and entrepreneurial spirit we see in Scottish universities.

"The UK is ranked second only to the US in terms of world-class research. The UK's Life Sciences sector employs almost 170,000 people in more than 4,500 companies across industries such as health, agriculture, medicine and food science. Our continued investment in this area will strengthen our global position, creating new jobs and maintaining the UK as a world leader in medical research."

These are exciting times for the EPSRC Centre, both at the University of Strathclyde and its six partner universities, and this announcement has spurred the start to a prosperous 2014 and beyond.

To read the full national coverage of this event plesae refer to our Press page.

Vince Cable, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills announced a £3.6 million EPSRC funding award which will explore how light can be used in new ways in innovative manufacturing processes and technologies. One of the 14 funded project 'Laser-induced nucleation for crystallisation of high-value materials in continuous manufacturing processes' is lead by Dr Andrew Alexander (The University of Edinburgh) with Prof Pulham, Dr Sefcik (who are both co-investigators on the EPSRC Centre) and Dr Burns (Univeristy of Strathclyde) as co-investigators. The Centre will work with the Manufacturing with Light project to further develop the potential for non-photochemical laser-induced nucleation (NPLIN) as a novel manufacturing technique. For full details for the official announcement click here.

Cheaper medicines will be available – and new drugs developed more quickly – following a multi-million pound research project led by the University of Strathclyde.... (full story). This news has been published in over 99 press releases around the world. To see the full impact of this story visit our Press page.