Partnership opens door to ideas and knowledge exchange for North East manufacturing

Northumbria University’s Newcastle Business School has entered into a strategic partnership with the Advanced Manufacturing Forum (AMF).

A community of industry experts, the AMF brings together the North-East of England manufacturing and engineering sector to engage with members and partners within the wider business community. A key remit of the AMF is to exchange ideas and knowledge to generate business growth, share opportunities and to champion advanced manufacturing in the UK.

The Marketing, Operations and Systems (MOS) department within Newcastle Business School will be sharing expertise in the areas of operations and supply chain management, data and analytics, and marketing with AMF members to create research and knowledge exchange opportunities. This will be beneficial to both AMF members and Newcastle Business School as it allows current thinking to be disseminated directly into industry, whilst allowing new questions and areas for investigation to emerge.

As manufacturing evolves, technologies become more complex, and sustainability becomes even more important, manufacturers will need to be thinking more about how they can add more value to the products and services they offer. By collaborating with Newcastle Business School, manufacturers can understand the many ways this can be achieved. At the same, academics at Newcastle Business School will be able to publish the results of new research findings in this area making this a great match between two committed organisations.

AMF Chair Richard Swart commented: “As one of the fastest growing manufacturing and engineering membership organisations in the North East, we are delighted to partner with Newcastle Business School, one of the leading providers of business courses, support and research in the region. We are committed to ensuring a most constructive collaboration that can only benefit the constituencies of both and the North East business community as a whole. This partnership should be particularly helpful in this current period of seemingly endless and extraordinary challenges”.

Dr Adrian Small, Associate Professor of Operations Management (Director of Enterprise and Engagement for the MOS department) at Newcastle Business School, added: “The manufacturing sector is facing a multitude of challenges including the economic impact that Covid-19 has left, current supply chain challenges, and skills shortages to name a few. By collaborating with North-East manufactures, we hope to find solutions to these and other problems and demonstrate how our research is impactful and relevant”.