50 n SM&EW PREVIEW May 2024 www.drivesncontrols.com Change starts with each company If you want to be the sort of person who makes this world a better place, if you want to be the sort of person who makes your community a better place, then get into manufacturing,” declares Rosa Wilkinson, director of policy at the High Value Manufacturing Catapult. “Because it's either engineers or manufacturers who deliver the tools that protect our environment and allow us to transition to net-zero, that help us tackle some of the horrors we have in icted upon our environment. It’s also the manufacturers who deliver the products that drive growth which leads to more prosperous communities.” Wilkinson’s passion for manufacturing is deeply rooted in her childhood in Doncaster. She remembers the 1980s when the police were heavily involved in controlling the miners’ strike. One community she picks out is Orgreave, near Rotherham, which was the site of some shocking confrontations between the authorities and the striking miners. “The community was dying” she recalls. “There was no hope, there was no aspiration. If you go to Orgreave today what you will nd is a landscape of transformed industry. You will nd McLaren, Boeing, Rolls Royce and all the companies supplying them. Why? It’s partially because the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre – one of the seven High Value Manufacturing Catapult Centres across the UK – set up a location there, supporting businesses in their innovation work, helping to transform those businesses and, in turn, transforming the community. The impacts have been breathtaking.” Wilkinson’s passion and the focus of the HVM Catapult dovetail with her work on the Smart Manufacturing & Engineering Week advisory council and a partnership with the Week. “The reality is that industrial transformation begins with the transformation of individual companies and what SM&E Week provides, either on its exhibition stands or via various platforms and theatres, is the opportunity to engage with a signicant number of companies that want to be the best that they can be, to start a conversation about how they can raise their game and strengthen their bottom line and do that without some of the risks involved in innovation. “At the same time,” she continues, “being on the advisory council gives me the opportunity to suggest to the organisers what it is that people are interested in when they are talking to us, what diculties they are wrestling with, and what it is that they need from such an event to be the best that they can be. By feeding this back, we can help to shape an event which is not just appealing but is useful.” Wilkinson’s view of Smart Manufacturing & Engineering Week is that it oers a holistic view of the landscape in which manufacturers operate, bringing skills, nance, the regulatory environment and the taxation environment together. “One of the things I remember clearly from last year” she says, “is that the event had a few spaces where people could just drop down and have a conversation. Sometimes it’s about serendipity – who do you bump into? What’s the conversation that you have? SM&E Week does give people from diverse sectors and with diverse interests the chance to get together and have these serendipitous conversations.” The HVM Catapult will be part of Innovate UK’s stand at the Week with a space where colleagues from across the organisation will answer people's questions. “We are quite nice people to talk to,”Wilkinson deadpans, “and change always starts with a conversation. It’s always possible to Google things as a rst step, but speaking to someone who understands the challenges you face, who gets what might be worrying you, and knows how to reduce the risks in making change happen, does make a dierence.” A more ringing endorsement of Smart Manufacturing & Engineering Week and its aspirations you couldn’t hope to nd. n The Smart Manufacturing & Engineering Week is steered by an advisory council that includes Rosa Wilkinson, director of policy at the High Value Manufacturing Catapult (right). She talks here about her involvement and how the council and SM&E Week are a natural extension of her life’s work supporting manufacturing. Rosa Wilkinson, director of policy at the High Value Manufacturing Catapult (left), at the 2023 SM&E Week “
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