This week, the UK's Digital Manufacturing Centre officially opens its doors at Silverstone Park. TCT was invited to take an exclusive first look inside with founder Kieron Salter who provided us with a tour of the facility's 3D printing and advanced manufacturing capabilities, set within the heart of the Silverstone Technology Cluster and its roaring motorsport track.
Salter talks us through the DMC's ambitions (including the potential for a DMC in space), what the centre hopes to say about UK manufacturing and engineering, and why now is the time for companies to embrace digitisation.
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"There's so many benefits of additive [manufacturing]," Salter says during the tour. "If you have the opportunity to redesign your business case around them then there are significant advantages to be had, whether it be light-weighting, whether it be your carbon footprint, or whether it be your stock and reaction to market demand that's going on. So, although we were concerned that the pandemic might have some negative impact on what we're doing, I think actually we're fortunate now that we're probably in the right place at the right time to embrace the brave new world that's ahead of us, and advanced engineering and advanced manufacturing in the UK is going to be all part of that."
Watch our behind the scenes tour and listen to the interview in full on our Additive Insight podcast.