Product category:
Manufacturing seminars and workshops
News Release from: Technology Innovation Centre
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 25 January 2007
Briefings to help UK SMEs raise quality,
delivery
To educate on improvements in quality, cost and delivery, a series of free monthly breakfast briefings are being set up for the UK's SMEs.
Despite manufacturing's 2006 recovery, the UK's Midlands' suppliers are under increasing pressure to attain international quality standards demanded across competitive global markets Recent business advantages won by local SMEs can only be retained if ongoing improvements in quality, cost and delivery continue to meet customer expectations
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 14 Sep 2006 at 8.00am (UK)
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This has led UCE Birmingham's Technology Innovation Centre (TIC) to launch a series of free monthly breakfast briefings for SMEs.
The first event, on Tuesday 30th January, focuses on how smaller manufacturers can gain free access to TIC's knowledge and expertise in the field of quality.
As a top Institute of Quality Assurance academic centre, TIC has transferred new technologies and world-class quality standards into hundreds of Midlands manufacturing and service businesses.
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TIC seminar leader, Business Operations manager, Tom McDermott, said: "We've led technology-transfer for the West Midlands Manufacturing Advisory Service and implemented several Accelerate programmes.
TIC plays a major role in the West Midlands Technology Network (WMTN) has run several significant government-funded SME-support initiatives.
We are able to help SMEs achieve world-class manufacturing quality standards." The TIC's 'quality-themed' breakfast programme features Richard McCulloch, financial director of Tipton-based SME, Cab Automotive.
which successfully combined the assets of three businesses that suffered from MG-Rover's demise.
It is now a tier-one supplier of car interiors to Jaguar, Land Rover, Toyota and Honda.
McCulloch will describe how TIC helped it achieve the automotive industry TS16949 standard.
McCulloch said: "TIC's quality knowledge has proved invaluable.
Their team not only brought in the expertise, tools and techniques we needed, but also filled the resource-gap with mature postgraduate students.
This gave us the personnel who have helped establish a sustainable quality culture in the business." Any SMEs interested in receiving further information or wanting to book a free should contact Ruth McGuinness on 0121 331 5400 or e-mail
* About TIC - The Technology Innovation Centre's position as a leading technology teaching and training institution has once again been underpinned in the 2006 Guardian university league tables.
The TUC is the UCE Birmingham campus where a wide range of technologies are both practised and taught.
Strong links and partnerships with both international and local Industry have brought about the TIC's high rating in the Guardian's general engineering category.
It is making an increasingly significant contribution to raising skills in UK Industry and continues to attract a record intake of students.
The tic is playing a valuable role in UCE Birmingham's strengthening overall position among leading 'new' UK universities.
(Source: Education Guardian's University Guide May 2006).
The Technology Innovation Centre is a national centre of excellence for technology-based Lifelong Learning and Business Solutions, with Specialist Technologies, for individuals and for businesses.
It provides 'cutting-edge' resources and specialised knowledge structures to meet the needs of a rapidly developing technology-based society.
Its activities come under four main categories, as follows.
* Interactive media.
* Design technology.
* Information and communications technology.
* Advanced engineering.
It is also a prominent education centre in the fields of logistics, the environment and quality.
TIC is a significant initiative in the UK through which business development services and advanced technologies are made both accessible and affordable to companies of every size and type, whilst benefiting from and being rooted in a lifelong learning organisation, UCE Birmingham, UK.
The TIC is a member of the UCE Birmingham group.
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