Austin-Smith:Lord worked with Arup and Welsh Assembly Government to design the AMR facility for Broughton which will be occupied in the first instance by AMRC and Airbus to design machines and technologies to support the manufacture of composite wings.

As part of the scheme ARMC reach out to local engineering SMEs to see how robotics and advanced manufacturing can be utilised to streamline their existing processes and to open them up to new markets utilising their skill base.

This outreach was piloted in Sheffield by AMRC who are working with Boeing, McLaren, Cateram and others in the development of composite injection techniques which have resulted in the new Monocoque McLaren chassis which weighs in at just 80Kg. The use of glass on the external envelope to showcase the technology and multifunctional canteen spaces that act as hosted meeting areas with viewing galleries allow the public and business to see first hand the scale of the opportunity with government catapult funding allowing access to machines and robots on a shared basis to lower the barriers to considering new technology.