AMC expertise and support
We have a growing number of domestic and international partnerships with businesses, other universities and research centres.
We continue to grow our international presence which in-turn showcases the region as the international hub for development and delivery of skills excellence. Industrial forums provides external stakeholders engagement and ensures pedagogy and skills development is meaningful for the sector, including future skills needed for emerging offsite roles such as compliance, legislation, legal, servitisation etc.
All three partner Universities deliver a range of business support programmes related to AMC and have existing relationships with businesses in this sector.
Support ranges from Apprenticeships, to KTPs, joint research projects, use of specialist equipment and labs, workforce training, specialist workshops, CPD, incubator space and joint partnership arrangements.
WMCU has continued to invest heavily in sustainability. In doing so, it actively embeds the principles and ethos of lifecycle appraisal, from design through to development, deconstruction and demolition. This work aligns to Circular Economy practices, which play a critical role in architecture engineering & construction enabling resource efficiency – especially within the AMC sector and modular supply chains. Moreover, the School of Architecture and the Built Environment (SoABE) has extensive experience of leveraging solutions – from construction material reuse, through to the development of local supply chains engagement.
We have a comprehensive range of business start-up support across the partnership. For example STEAMHouse, STEAM Incubator and the Higher Level Skills Match programme which aims to tackle the gap between the future skills required by businesses, and the skills currently held by the workforce. STEAMhouse to date has supported over 500 SME members for the region and has refurbished 2 buildings with ERDF/LEP grants, and been part of research collaborations between academics and creative/scientific industries to develop and test innovative new products.
We have expertise in the area of offsite design manufacture and construction, developing the first offsite roadmap which led to the publication “Offsite Production and Manufacturing for Innovative Construction”. This expertise continues to be used to shape and inform future offsite thinking – through an international Offsite Manufacturing Working Commission for the CIB. This offsite expertise is complemented by highly specialist teams covering digital, costing, design/simulation and people/processes establishing organisational maturity and competence criteria for high level digital and advanced manufacturing skills.
Our Simulation Centre is an advanced interactive research, people training and development centre, unique in the UK. Its bespoke programmes, combined with cutting-edge technology, help companies and organisations across a range of sectors to train and develop their staff to new levels. The use of a Learning Curve interactive screen and real-life scenarios using specially-trained actors, not only improves skills but helps develop new ways of working to impact on efficiency and productivity.
We deliver Knowledge Transfer Partnerships, with companies such as AGA Rangemaster, D5 Architects and Evac Chair IST, Poppleton, Hargreaves Ductwork, Black Country Living Museum, Warrior Doors and Seeable. Exemplifying this is the development of VR technologies as a core pillar of the Severn Partnership. The KTP supported the company in realising an increase of 30% in annual profits and a 20% increase in new staff employed. Furthermore, this success led to a new spin-out business. Another project with Hargreaves has enhanced production yields by improving productivity within the entire business process by over 60%.