ADVANCED MANUFACTURING INNOVATION CENTRE (AMIC)

The challenge

With £98m of investment, the Advanced Manufacturing Innovation Centre (AMIC) is being set up to operate at the interface between academia and industry, by creating new opportunities for innovative manufacturing.

AMIC is one of three innovation projects being delivered by Queen’s University Belfast in partnership with government and industry under the Belfast Region City Deal. Manufacturing in Northern Ireland (NI) is more important to the regional economy as a percentage compared to the rest of the UK and is dominated by SME businesses.

IfM Engage was approached by senior leads at AMIC to help them consult with industry to develop a strategy that:

• Is forward looking and met the needs of industry
• Involves consultation with the industrial base from SMEs to world-leading multinational organisations
• Helps smaller organisations build on their domestic strengths whilst realising the opportunities available internationally
• Ensures that the range of innovation investment and support is delivered effectively at both central and local levels
• Aligns with local and global industry trends and drivers and supports the key opportunities for future product and service developments.

The main objectives of the project were to:

• Help frame the strategic agenda for technology in the AMIC
• Provide input into the skills development agenda
• Understand the key thematic areas on which to focus funding and support

3. Roadmapping and ecosystem mapping workshops

The two-day roadmapping workshops involved representatives of approximately 60 companies and organisations including managers and senior leads from manufacturing, services providers, consulancies, and government agencies.

Two workshops, each with the same process and structure involved stareholders from industries including aerospace, automotive, mechanical handling, electrical, healthcare, process and food and drink; as well as automation providers, consultancies and other relevant services.

Delegates were grouped into like-minded sectors and they were provided with the initial landscape which was identified during the interviews and pre-work. The groups worked on the landscapes from the perspectives of their sector and they added to, subtracted from and reprioritised what was most important to them.

At the end of the workshops on day one, responses were collated to  identify high-priority themes emerging from the groups. The findings were recut into six strategic themes and a first-pass view of between two and four topics per theme for which small working groups would develop roadmaps.

On day two, the groups focused first on the ecosystem surrounding their key theme. By working on the straw man ecosystem developed through the interviews and pre-work, they looked at who the key players are who need to be involved to make innovation work and what they could contribute. The groups also looked at what observations they could make about how well the market is generally understood and how competitive they are within the theme. This discussion prompted a finalisation of the topics for which roadmaps were then developed. Each roadmap was then reviewed by all delegates who added their assessment of the scale of opportunity and the feasibility of delivery.

An IfM Engage report was generated based on the output from the workshops which was shared with all of the key stakeholders, including workshop attendees and pre-work contributors for their feedback.

The results

Key theme recommendations for AMIC

• Six key themes were identified as priorities for AMIC, assessed as offering very substantial and persistent medium- to long-term improvement in Northern Ireland’s global advanced manufacturing competitiveness
• Four themes were assessed as able to be readily adopted by the supply chain or adopted with concerted efforts by government and industry, as the capability already exists
• Two themes were assessed as more challenging, as delegates were uncertain whether concerted investment by government and industry will realise that capability. Subsequent discussions indicated that these themes offer an opportunity for NI to take a lead in developing capability in concert with the wider UK

The benefits of roadmapping and ecosystem mapping

• The outcomes have confirmed AMIC’s top-level strategy and gained a clear alignment on its priorities to take forward
• A good platform has been established for the promotion of the AMIC, what it’s about and the way it works has been established. The workshops have helped strengthen relationships between industry and AMIC
• An understanding has been gained of how to manage the wider innovation ecosystem and the role of local innovation centres vs larger centres, such as building the capability of smaller companies
• A roadmapping and ecosystem mapping-based innovation process has enhanced engagement and collaboration amongst a diverse group of stakeholders:
  • Ecosystem mapping spurred helpful conversations about the role of AMIC as part of the industry network and what they need to do for example in addition to building specific technology applications, knowledge enhancement and bringing outside-world expertise to NI
  • Roadmapping brought a structured model and common language for efficient collaboration across a diverse group of stakeholders