Manufacturing Thursdays Seminars, Institute for Manufacturing

Steve Spall describes the changes in the manufacturing & operations arrangements that allowed Innocent to grow from a tiny business in West London to Europe's No1 Smoothie company in just over 10 years.

Jonathan Duck, CEO of Coventry-based Amtico International, discusses management buy-outs, growing business in tough economic conditions and how manufacturing can compete with the Far East.

Julian Hunt of the Food and Drink Federation on the challenges facing the UK’s biggest manufacturing sector and how a unique collaborative project between IfM and the FDF has indentified some of the ways in which the industry needs to adapt in order to prosper in the future.

David Gill, MD of the St John's Innovation Centre, discusses issues surrounding the dearth of risk capital and venture funding required by the innovative, growth potential firms on which the Cambridge cluster has relied for 30-40 years.

The IfM's Dr Tim Minshall talks about the realtionship between open innovation and Cambridge, the nature of partnerships. In this interview he examines the nature of OI, the role of serendipity and the role OI plays in getting ideas out of the door

Clean technology industries are emerging and attracting significant attention from policy-makers, entrepreneurs and investors. Dr. Gregory Theyel discusses the location and firm strategy decisions of companies in the wind turbine, solar cell, and air and water purification industries.

Professor Mike Gregory, Head of Cambridge University Institute for Manufacturing, argues that a more integrated approach is required to manufacturing research.

Professor Robèrt, is the founder of the internationally renowned NGO The Natural Step explains how he developed a unifying framework for sustainability and how it has been implemented in industries all over the world.

Waste is produced whenever more power, water or materials are used than is absolutely necessary. In this presentation, Dr Claire Barlow will take a broad definition of waste in manufacturing industry to include anything that does not directly contribute to making the desired product.

The design of the supply network, linking suppliers, producers, distributors with their customers is becoming ever more important. Globalization, new routes to market and rapid technology change have resulted in changing industry structures, often involving a fragmentation of the traditional supply chain. Dr Jag Srai details some of the exemplar models identified in recent research projects within the Centre for International Manufacturing.

Technology roadmapping was originally developed by Motorolain the 1970s, as a means for aligning technology programmes with product developments. Since then it has been widely adopted widely, at firm and sector levels. Dr Rob Phaal looks at how roadmapping has been used to emphasise cross-functional strategic dialogue, decision making and action, providing a light-touch iterative approach for developing strategy.

Looking at the findings of a recent study led by the IfM, exploring international design capabilities. It provides the first attempt at ranking 12 countries in terms of their national design capability.

2010 marks half a century of lasers, Dr Bill O'Neill charts the rise of this fantastic technology and how it is being used across a range of industries and sectors. He also looks at the next steps in laser research and the potential applications.

Looking at the latest developments in supply chain research with Aerospace giant Boeing, including developing components with in-built intelligence which use the latest technologies to assess and manage their own service needs.

Dr Letizia Mortara looks at how multi-nationals have been approaching Open Innovation and the common themes that were observed by researchers across a range of industries following a two year IfM study of OI.

Finbarr Livesey, head of the IfM's Centre for Industry and Government, discusses his new research project investigating which points in the innovation process require which types of policy support

This interview discusses the experience of a large European equipment manufacturer that has successfully moved into services.

This interview introduces the IfM's Emerging Industries programme and looks at how “emergence maps” can depict the growth of existing industries. The discussion will explore some of the recurring factors that have been found to promote or inhibit emergence.

Professor Ian Hutchings, GKN Professor of Manufacturing Engineering at the IfM, discusses the possibilities of using ink-jet printing technology for manufacturing very small things out of metal, ceramics and polymers.

Interview with Professor Andy Neely, discussing the impact of servitization on manufacturing, the reasons why it has taken hold and the potential barriers and challenges to its adoption

Interview with Dr Elizabeth Garnsey, discussing the strengths and weaknesses of Cambridge's high tech cluster of companies and the potential for Cambridge's Silicon Fen to provide an industrial blueprint for Britain as a whole.

Dr Ajith Parlikad will discuss the key challenges in asset management and the role of emerging information technologies in improving the way in which assets are tracked and managed