- Connect

Building a Consortium - Best Practice
Will Searle, Programme Director, CiC
AMRC, February 12th 2014
A winning consortium starts with a Vision of
Success, and People, as Steve Jobs once said:
“It's not a faith in technology. It's faith in people.”
Images © 2014 Axillium Research
Together you need to have a clear target to
achieve that’s realistic for you, and others:
Remember too: As Lead, you and your Partners must believe that the
Consortium can, and will achieve success!
Plan for Success and have a Business plan that
works for your consortium from Day 1:
And choose Partners that you can work with beyond the TSB funded element, as
ultimately they may well be your Business Partner in 3 years time.
5 March ‘14
14 May ‘14
16
24
3 March ‘14
25 June ‘14
Stage 2
Workshop
Briefing &
Consortium Building
70
Aug ‘14
The
Deadline
Award
Competition Opens
24
70
16
8
Be READY to start from October to
December 2014.
Don’t forget the Innovation - this means it has
to be something new, which delivers benefit:
And that the TSB, your Partners and Your seniors are investors who want to
see you deliver advantage to your business, on time, and to budget.
Theme
Review
PSO
Review
CA
Agreed
L0 Plan
Defined
PSO
Set-up
D&E
Agreed
Themes
Agreed
Theme
Review
Theme
Review
Monthly
Steering
Group
Theme
Review
Theme
Review
TSB
Review
Theme
Review
Technology Innovation calls for an Innovative
Management approach
Remember to promote the Consortium’s
success, whenever you can and with style:
Consortiums need strong collaboration, so don’t let the Collaboration
Agreement throttle your successful venture !
Regular Dissemination has been supported by all
partners from Q1 and long past Q4
And finally, keep a clear business head & have
a clear target to achieve a S.M.A.R.T objective.
Oh, and some tangible, kickable results that you can show to your stakeholders, or,
a passing Minister !
Making Collaboration Work - Best
Practice
Helen Corney, CiC
AMRC, February 12th 2014
The Composites Innovation Cluster
Delivered by 18 Suppliers, 6 Universities, 2 Catapults
The Composites Innovation Cluster
Experiences and Benefits of a Consortium
•
Collaboration creates strong synergies & supported partnerships that money
won’t buy – coffee and biscuits are easier to talk over than the balance sheet
•
In a Consortium you are supported and able to share experiences - not just
technical but also wider benefits of Skills, Training and Recruitment
•
Having a brand name on board can help engagement & help focus and develop
supply chains and markets – they can also slow you down !
•
Make the complex simple – be open on innovation & use simple management
methods and a central project management team to govern the delivery
•
Work with your Monitoring Officer, the TSB, the Catapults – all are there to
support you and to help share the load, yes even the MO !
•
Think carefully about the Consortium Lead - choose yours from someone who
has a track record in delivering as it’s not all about technology – Business,
Leadership, Dissemination & Exploitation are all vital ingredients
With a Primes and Supplier Vision:
A Vision for the UK Composites Supply Chain:
•
The Composites Innovation Cluster is financed by £22million in total, of
which over £11 million is awarded by the UK Government Advanced
Manufacturing Supply Chain Initiative (AMSCI), and the rest matched from
private partners
•
The CiC Programme is led by Cytec Industrial Materials (Heanor, UK),
partnered by Axillium and Composites UK in response to the demand
signals of all UK industry sectors.
•
Our mission is to support the delivery of a nationally connected
network of composite knowledge and technology providers to
address the market failures facing composites for high value
manufacturing applications in the UK.
•
Under the leadership of the partners, the collaborative cluster programme is
being delivered by materials specialists, manufacturing & process
businesses, and tooling & systems providers, all working with academic
support from experts in the field.
The Composites Innovation Cluster
Partners across 4 Themes with Key Sector Sponsors
The Composites Innovation Cluster
Programme Structure
13 Projects delivered by 25 Partners
COMPFORE
DATACOMP
PROSEL
COMBINE
ECOPROCESS
BIO-COMP
THERMOCOMP
LiRIC
FAR-MFD
LOWPRO
ACTIVATE
MACoB
ATTOM
RHUL
ALTAIR
CRAN UNI
SIGMATEX
EPL
NET
COMP
TFP
COBHAM
FAR
EPL
CYTEC
DOWTY
CYTEC
CYTEC
TILSATEC
ALTAIR
SIGMATEX
NOTS UNI
CYTEC
AEL
AXON
AXON
NET
COMP
ASSYST
BULLMER
ASSYST
BULLMER
GRANTA
HERTS
UNI
SIGMATEX
GŰDEL
GŰDEL
NCCEF
HENNIKER
WMG
SIGMATEX
FORMAX
TODS
AERO
IMP COL
CYTEC
AXON
TILSATEC
Knowledge
COMP-FORE The project will create a
sustainable model of the composites supply
chain that will allow companies to make
realistic engineering decisions on technology
insertion to strengthen the UK supply chain,
based on real-world economic data as well as
the technical merits of that technology.
DATACOMP The vision of this project is to
establish a material database to facilitate the
use of established virtual prototyping
methodologies for composite product
development. The database will also facilitate
validation & quality assurance of composite
materials used within the UK supply chain.
PROSEL aims to develop a software tool for
composite component design & manufacturing
which provides recommendation of materials &
process selection, as well as design &
manufacturing guidelines, depending on
product application & requirement
specifications.
Process
COMBINE will develop Dry Fabric stabilisation
processes & Automation to ensure that the UK
Supply Chain is ready for anticipated
opportunities in non pre-preg composites
systems including 3 Dimensional Woven fabrics
& Multi-axial Non-Crimp Fabrics for resin
infusion.
ECOPROCESS aims to develop a unique,
flexible manufacturing process that can
produce structural thermoplastic (TP)
automotive components at competitive cost ,
thus allowing OEM’s to take advantage of the
light weight, superior impact properties, clean
manufacture & full recyclability of these
materials.
Materials
BIOCOMP will develop the materials & process
technologies necessary to manufacture the novel
biopregs via an integrated continuous process. The
successful execution & subsequent exploitation of the
project will deliver bio-composite components to
Primes that truly compete with glass fibre composites.
THERMOCOMP will develop a short cycle time, high
volume manufacturing process for carbon fibrereinforced thermoplastic components, aiming to
develop production technologies for the rapid “stampforming” of CFRP parts similar to the stamping of sheet
metals.
LOWPRO will develop and establish a low cost, flexible
prototyping service for complex thermoplastic
composite components.
LiRIC aims to increase the range of composite
components which are suitable for liquid resin infusion,
therefore replacing processes such as hand layup of
prepregs which require high manufacturing labour.
FAR-MFD will set up a demonstration manufacturing
facility that will focus on the industrial research to
bring cost effective & affordable manufacturing of
composite components & structures to a range of
primes.
Automation
ACTIVATE will improve affordability of
advanced composites for mid- & high-volume
automotive production.
MACoB will develop manufacturing techniques
& design for manufacture guidelines for
complex composite structures, particularly
high-sweep propeller blades.
ATTOM will design and manufacture selected
mouldings for automated/mechanised
production methods for tidal turbine
applications
Recommendations for Consortiums: Plan for
Success, and failure is much harder to deliver!
Lessons Learned from experiences in Consortiums of all shapes and sizes:
•
Be open-minded and prepare to really collaborate within your Consortium, but be
pragmatic as to what to share when in doubt of who owns what.
•
Don’t under-estimate the amount of time required by each Consortium member to
prepare and complete the Application, the Appendices and good, transparent finances
– as well as the claims, and the quarterly reports once you are sucessful.
•
Start working as early as possible on the creation of acceptable Legal document
(Collaboration Agreement) that all Industrial and Academic Consortium members will
sign – remember don’t squabble over who owns what and who see’s what, after all it’s
a Consortium & tensions don’t add value.
•
Put a simple governance structure in place, and ensure it covers how Consortium
members will work together, and process the mundane as well as the exciting –
remember the money (& coffee & biscuits) makes the financial claim management
world go round !
•
Be prepared for the grind - your Consortium may take between 1 & 3 months to get up
and running after the Grant Offer Letter is issued – plan for this and be ready to work
with the TSB to make their job easier too !
The Result: The Composites Innovation Cluster
Our Key Objectives
Any Questions ?
Helen Corney
CiC Project Manager
E: Helen@the-CiC.org.uk
M: 07734 979858
W: www.the-CiC.org.uk
Composites Innovation Cluster
Forsyth House
39 Mark Road
Hemel Hempstead
HP2 7DN, UK
Mob: +44(0)7446 045271
Tel: +44(0)1442 275365
Fax: +44(0)1442 275301
Email: info@the-cic.org
www.the-cic.org
© 2014 Composites Innovation Cluster
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