Helping manufacturing start-ups to grow
Our experienced teams of experts are here to help you transform your manufacturing start-up business and grow your bottom line.
Growing your start-up manufacturing business
When you’re starting a manufacturing business, it’s often hard to know how to grow quickly. With the increasing cost of energy and materials, you might only see the barriers to manufacturing success.
Investments in your production, in new products and markets, and in the skills of your workforce are key to growth. But these investments can feel like a big risk.
We’re here to help.
How we can help
Transform your bottom line
We can help you develop new products and manufacturing processes whilst scaling your production to start delivering for more customers.
Grow fast
We can help you access new markets and make data-led decisions to enable faster business growth.
Build your productivity
We can help you build your supply chain, freeing you up to expand.
Connect and expand
We can help you connect with the right partners in industry, government and academia to turn your ideas into commercial reality.
Can we help – SMEs
"*" indicates required fields
SME manufacturers transformed each year
SME manufacturers advised each year
Manufacturing and engineering experts across the HVM Catapult
Manufacturing experts, working for you
Our manufacturing and engineering experts will:
- Find the right place for your project, whether that’s with us or another organisation
- Discover the opportunities, risks and needs of your business
- Provide detailed impartial advice tailored to your business
- Build the right plan to deliver for your business
- Develop the right solution to transform your business, whether that’s new products, processes or skills
Your manufacturing transformation journey
To transform your business you need to be in the right place with the right plan for the right solution.
Our 3-step process can help you get there.
Engage
Getting you to the right place
Our manufacturing and engineering experts will give you free impartial advice on the best direction and place for your project, whether that’s with us or another organisation. We’ll then use our national network to help you make the connections you need to succeed.
Discover
Helping you build the right plan
Using our expertise and industry-proven experience, we work directly with you to build the right plan to transform your business. Our detailed recommendations will guide you to the best ways you can create new products and processes to deliver business value.
Transform
Empowering you with the right solution
We give you access to our world-class facilities, cutting-edge equipment and industry-proven experience, and help your business secure the right skills and partnerships for your project. Based on our proposal, we work with you to develop the right solution to transform your bottom line, build your supply chain and access new markets.
Find out more about our services for manufacturing start-ups
When are my business needs not the best fit?
If we think that:
- Your business needs more general business support, eg initial business case for investment
- Your business idea is too early in its development for our help, eg before a business model has been agreed or competitor/intellectual property analysis have been completed
- Your business is better suited to other specific market offerings, eg intellectual property scoping, digital tech adoption via Made Smarter etc
If you think this might apply to your business, please contact Innovate UK EDGE for more information.
What we offer to manufacturing entrepreneurs and start-ups
We can help you to minimise the risk of high-growth projects with open access to industry-leading experts, cutting-edge equipment, world-class facilities and the best of engineering research.
Success Stories
View all SME case studies
CASE STUDY
Helping an innovative SME soar
Robop are now looking at what other components can be manufactured using the method developed by the NCC, as well as looking to see if they can bring the manufacturing in-house, which would allow them to upskill their workforce and save costs.
3 February 2022
CASE STUDY
Deaf community hails new lip-reading face masks
Scientists and healthcare professionals around the world have underlined the importance of face coverings to reduce transmission of the coronavirus. While necessary for public safety, facemasks present huge challenges for the hard of hearing.
2 February 2022
CASE STUDY
Developing premium sustainable bio-packaging
Packaging matters in every sector, With over two megatons of plastic packaging waste in the UK each year, a more sustainable alternative is sorely needed.
3 February 2022
Consultation
We offer free impartial advice to direct you to the right partners (both within or outside the HVM Catapult) to transform your business. Our manufacturing and engineering experts will explore your initial thinking with you to see if we’re the best fit to help transform your business
If we’re not the best fit, we’ll refer you to other services that can help.
Discovery workshop
After the initial consultation, our experts may need to bring you into our facilities (either physically or digitally) to host a workshop on your business needs. We will find out more about your complex business challenge, work through your ideas using the experience of colleagues across the HVM Catapult and share our ideas for your business needs.
Innovation project
If we are the right partners for your business needs, a team of our world-leading engineers will work directly with you to research and develop the right solution for your challenge. Whether this is a new product, technology or process, or the adoption of existing technologies or processes in your business, we’ll work with you to achieve joint goals and maximise your growth.
We continue to work with WMG to look at our bottlenecks and identify where we can use robotics to drive costs down and speed things up. Having the ongoing support from WMG has been invaluable and we cannot wait to work with WMG’s digital manufacturing team to help us create the ‘Ramfoam Way’ across all our operations.
By continuing to work with MTC Apprenticeships, we ensure we have access to the talented engineers of the future. In my opinion the MTC, amongst a couple of other organisations, have changed the perception of apprenticeships which is helping to transform SMEs.
Our work with the MTC has been truly transformational. We’ve invested in our factory and new technologies. We’ve taken on new staff and improved the skills of our existing employees.
As a result of working with the AMRC, we have purchased our own 3D printer that has been used for a multitude of things, from machine parts, to jigs, to a scaled plan of our factory. It has also helped our business to save a sum of money and we have also seen massive gains in productivity.
The robot cell has enabled us to unblock bottlenecks by freeing up resource. It’s a massive impact for an SME like Footprint Tools, and we could not have done it without the R&D and innovation talents of the AMRC.
Without the AMRC I don’t think we could have reached the point we are at now. It really was that decisive for us; it was a major factor in our business moving forward.
I can’t emphasise enough how happy we’ve been with the work by the AMRC engineers. They produced designs for our guard idea for a handheld laser marking machine, showing that there is real potential for this to be a world-beating product.
HVM Catapult centres
Working through and with our seven centres of industrial innovation, we cover development in areas from material formulation to advanced assembly.
Where do I start and how do I get in touch?
Whether you have an idea for a new product or need a hand in moving into a new manufacturing industry or market, we’re here for you.
Please use the form above to contact us.
Read our FAQs for answers to some common questions.
