Research centre 'will help manufacturers improve efficiency'

The Centre for Resource Efficient Manufacturing Systems (REMS) is based at Teesside University and will research and investigate manufacturing processes and supply chains to help companies improve production processes by reducing emissions, saving time, reducing cost and minimising the resources they use. The centre's approach that combines the business-facing expertise of Teesside University, the research skills of the Institute for Manufacturing and the manufacturing innovation abilities of CPI at Wilton in Redcar. A number of UK based companies have already expressed an interest in working with the centre to understand their supply chains and investigate ways in which they can improve their whole manufacturing system to increase efficiency and reduce resource consumption. The Centre's director is Dr Graham Hillier, director of strategy and futures at CPI, who will work with recent appointments Dr Richard Court and Callum Campbell as well as PhD student Mangesh Gharfalkar. Dr Hillier said: "There is a finite amount of raw materials in the world and, at some point in the future, some of the most important could start to run out. The challenge is to use the resources we have as efficiently as possible. The REMS Centre will work with companies to help them to understand how to make better products with lower environmental impact while still making enough money to succeed economically - in short to become more resource efficient... "We want to link together a lot of different disciplines to demonstrate how whole manufacturing systems work. Even if a company is only a small part of a system, it can do things to make its operations run smoother and to make the whole supply chain run better." The picture shows, from left, Mangesh Gharfalkar, Dr Graham Hillier, Dr Richard Court and Callum Campbell.