Ben Morgan, Research Director at the Advanced Manufacturing Research Center (AMRC), part of the University of Sheffield and High-Value Manufacturing Catapult.

AMRC is a not for profit organisation and has 4 sites; Sheffield with BOEING, Broughton with AIRBUS, Preston with BAE Systems and they have a facility in Korea which has been launched to build on the technological successes of joint projects involving the AMRC in the UK.

AMRC cover everything from high-value design through to component manufacture, factories in a bid to make the UK competitive in supply chains of major OEMs and “make the industry better” through innovation.

Ben discusses the current state of UK manufacturing, how COVID-19 has impacted the Aerospace sector in terms of manufacturing and reminisces about the national efforts with the ventilator challenge. Also discussed is the opportunities which have arisen due to the pandemic such as digitisation, automation, IoT and additive manufacturing.