Morgan Ashurst wins £15 million manufacturing technology centre

Morgan Ashurst has won a £15 million contract to create a Manufacturing Technology Centre in the West Midlands.

The 12,000m² MTC is part of a £130 million development at Ansty Park, a technology and research park in Coventry, which provides 1.5 million square feet of space for science and technology companies.

When complete, it is expected that the MTC will provide up to 150 highly skilled jobs. It will be run by research partners including the Universities of Birmingham and Nottingham, Loughborough University and TWI Ltd, the operating division of The Welding Institute. It will allow researchers to demonstrate new processes to would-be manufacturers in an industrial setting, showing them new processes in action before they take the major financial risk of putting them into practice. Major companies signed up to the MTC project to date are Rolls-Royce, Aero Engine Controls and Airbus in the UK.

The MTC project is being jointly funded by Advantage West Midlands (AWM) and East Midlands Development Agency (emda).

Work begins in April and will complete in spring 2011.