Queen’s University opens £7.5m tech centre to boost industry 

Posted on 14 Jun 2018 by Jonny Williamson

Queen's University Belfast has opened a new £7.5m manufacturing technology centre, as a collaboration between the university and the government.

Queen’s University has opened a new £7.5m manufacturing technology centre – image courtesy of Nick Birse.

The centre is designed to benefit a number of manufacturing companies, with the aim of making them more competitive through increased productivity.

The business partners include RLC Global Point; Moyola Precision Engineering; JW Kane Precision Engineering Ltd; Travan Precision Engineering, and Retec Engineering Solutions.

The project has been backed by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy at Westminster, Innovate UK and the Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI).

Details of the new facility at the Northern Ireland Technology Centre at Queen’s will be announced at the university’s Manufacturing Beyond The Horizon conference later today.

It is part of what the university is calling the Centre for Intelligent Autonomous Manufacturing Systems (i-AMS), a research programme for developing new technologies for advanced manufacturing.

Professor Mark Price, from the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences at Queen’s, commented: “Both i-AMS and the new facility are open for business and are already making a difference to the advanced manufacturing community in Northern Ireland and the UK.

“This is a great example of industry, government and academia working in partnership to move Northern Ireland forward.”

Professor Sean McLoone, director of i-AMS, said the project is spearheading the computerisation of manufacturing.

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