VBN clients in the news

On target for world class innovation - adding value to regional business

Published in the Express & Star (West Midlands) (City/London)
2 April 2004

Since its launch last year, Wolverhampton Telford Technology Corridor is well on track to shape future economic success for the region.

Through its two Cluster Centres, the Advanced Engineering Centre, based at the Science Park in Wolverhampton, and the Polymer Cluster Centre, established at the University of Wolverhampton's Telford Campus, the project's teams of experts have been in discussion with over 200 companies and well over 1 million is committed in capital and resources.

Almost 100 companies are currently being assisted with packages of free, specialist, practical help and support, including over 300 days of consultancy. Pleased with such encouraging results, corridor director Mike Norris said: 'Our aim is to make companies much more competitive, leading to increased sales and the creation of new jobs.

'The Technology Corridor's long-term intention is to produce a world-class environment for innovation by creating state of the art facilities such as those offered by the Wolverhampton Science Park Phase 3 development and the proposed E-innovation Centre at the University of Wolverhampton's Telford Campus,' he said:

'We are working to bring business closer together, so encouraging 'clusters' of expertise, where companies can profit from the experience and knowledge of others. We want to nurture the entrepreneurial spirit that once transformed so many local businesses in the region into household names, creating hundreds of jobs in the process.

'Given the quality and range of technologically orientated companies in the region, the presence of the University of Wolverhampton, research organisations, skills, technical expertise and the rich industrial history, it makes sense to exploit all possible networking opportunities. We want to work with people and companies to offer the support they need to meet their aims and objectives. Our early success stories illustrate what can be achieved,' he added.

Harnessing the region's power

Since it went live on the internet at the beginning of November last year, Charles Lee has been steadily developing a Virtual Business Network (VBN), a solution built upon VBN's innovative product designed to support collaborative activities between companies in the Wolverhampton Telford Technology Corridor.

Charles points the way to the benefits offered to businesses register on the VBN:

'We have two websites where companies can join either our Advanced Engineering Cluster or Polymer Cluster.

'Our aim is to encourage companies to work together on areas of shared interest, giving them extra resources to improve their market offer. We want to help them identify new opportunities, products and markets and, through our Cluster Centres, we can also provide access to support with research and development, design manufacturing and training.'

The internet portal also offers industry news, information, a technical questions service and links to related suppliers and services.

Membership of the VBN is free and entitles members to post their company's profile with sections for their own news, views and events, business opportunities and job vacancies.

'Companies can use the site to promote themselves to potential customers and possible supply chains through our on-line company directory.' said Mr Lee, 'and these can increase traffic to their own websites through our site's excellent regional and national links.

'As well as our own enquiry service, there are links to other sources of technical and funding information and each cluster site has an events calendar. The address for site visitors is www.ae-cluster.co.uk. and www.polymercluster.co.uk or email charles@technologycorridor.co.uk or telephone on 01902 824304.'

Membership now also includes automatic registration with the Centre of Engineering Excellence Lean Manufacturing Group whose internet portal give details of best practice are special interest group meetings, seminars and training schedule, plus services engineering recruitment and sales leads.

Collaborative for competitive advantage

One company that has recently joined the VBN family is Rojac Tooling Technologies, Wednesbury-based toolmakers with a world-wide customer base.

Managing director Duncan Blakemore thinks it works well:

'I have just added our company to both websites and I must say I am very impressed with the quality and ease of use of both of them!

'Well done and good luck - this is a great idea, it's about time we stared to work together to harness the power of our region'

Duncan is conscious of the need for UK engineering companies to establish a competitive advantage, reduce costs, improve lead times and speed up communication.

OPMcreator, a web-based project management tool, is used by Rojac and helps companies work more closely with their employees, customers, suppliers, subcontractors and project teams by providing one secure central area for all project data.

The system streamlines communications, speeding up technical queries and team communication, reducing paperwork and the need for meetings, encouraging problem solving, and providing real-time project feedback from customers.

The Advanced Engineering cluster is supporting the offer of an extended free three months' trial of the system to selected engineering companies.

There's no investment in hardware, software or training - all that's needed is internet access and a web browser, which means it is available 24 hours a day 365 days a year.

The system is fully customisable; companies can brand the system to match their own company image and upload their own logos.

For further information on the Cluster Centres' activities please contact Jill McCallum 01902 321748 or email jill@technology-corridor.co.uk.

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Article Id:	102166
Release date:	20 May 2004

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