Factory Tours

Sponsored by:

Jaguar Land Rover, Halewood

Liverpool is birthplace of the Range Rover Evoque and Land Rover Discovery Sport, both of which are produced at Halewood. Trace the same journey that over 100,000 tonnes of steel makes each year as it arrives in the press shop, and leaves the factory 48 hours later. Since 2010 production has trebled, with more than £600m of investment in new machinery and infrastructure – the company is one of the region’s poster pin-ups for advanced manufacturing.

This factory tour will give you a flavour of Jaguar Land Rover vehicle manufacturing, with an expert guide providing an overview of the production process to specific customer orders. This will concentrate on one area of the build process, namely Trim and Final Production. At the end of the factory visit you will have the chance for a short debrief on the factory’s digital manufacturing story including a Q&A session with members of JLR team.

Dates/times available:  [14 Nov 2017 at 09.00, 10.30, 13.00 and 14.30 are all now sold out]

Duration: 1 hour 30 minutes

Restrictions: All limbs must be covered and appropriate footwear must be worn. No photography allowed in factory. Please note that the tour requires a substantial amount of walking.

Sci-Tech Daresbury

Delegates will be able to visit one of the most exciting innovation campuses in Europe and a global leader in the deployment of industrial digitisation throughout industry. Sci-Tech Daresbury is home to over 100 high-tech companies employing over 500 people in areas such as advanced engineering, digital/ICT, biomedical and energy and environmental technologies:

• The Virtual Engineering Centre delivers innovative Digital Engineering solutions to industry, through academic research and the latest scientific and technological infrastructure. It helps organisations to deliver their digital strategies, with the key aim of enhancing capability and transform business performance and competitiveness – it achieves this through the evaluation, application and adoption of digital tools and techniques.

Companies, including SMEs who work with the VEC gain access to a leading centre in: advanced modelling and simulation, autonomous systems and robotics infrastructure, virtual test beds and immersive visualisation.

• The Hartree Centre transforms UK competitiveness by accelerating the adoption of high performance computing, big data and cognitive technologies. Hartree has partnerships with many organisations such as IBM and Unilever, and applies the most technically advance high performance computing, data analytics and machine learning innovations from the research community and partners. This allows the Hartree Centre to address real life challenges and deliver transformative gains in performance, innovation and time to market for UK industry.

Services include collaborative projects, research/Invention projects, software development and optimisation, platform as a service and training and skills.  The facilities, high performance computing, big data analytics clusters, cognitive computing platforms, energy efficient platforms, software and visualisation suites.

• Campus Technology Hub, this purpose built engineering facility enables businesses, universities and research organisations to work in partnership to tackle engineering challenges through rapid-prototyping. See how 3D printing technology can be applied to medical, automotive, aerospace, electronics and building construction. The CTH also eliminates the need to develop, buy or pay prohibitively high prices to use engineering R&D capabilities as there is an impressive array or tech, equipment and expertise.

CTH offers laboratory space for ‘proof of concept’ projects, high-specification equipment, flexible power, network and benching, test equipment and flexible workspace with in-house expertise.

• Techspace One is a laboratory and office building for companies from sectors such as biomedical, materials, process technology and clean technology with approximately 10 to 50 staff.

The building provides high quality facilities for science and technology companies developing or upscaling their business.  The 3-storey multi-let building provides a combination of 33,000 sq ft of wet and instrumentation laboratories, together with grade A office accommodation.  The three individual uses are separated on a floor-by-floor basis.

Dates/times available: [14 Nov 2017 at 14.00, 17 Nov 2017 at 10.00 now sold out]

Duration: 2 hours

Liverpool John Moores University – Faculty of Engineering and Technology

Engineering and Technology is a pioneering Faculty, dedicated to providing knowledge and opportunities to ensure its 4,085 students can excel within their chosen discipline. Courses and research are delivered across a diverse field, in areas ranging from computing and engineering to maritime studies, built environment and product design to mathematics.

The faculty is very proud of its varied research landscape. From microwave technologies to maritime logistics, teams of researchers have achieved excellence in their fields, producing high-quality, high-impact work; work that not only has commercial application, but also has a positive impact on both economic and social wellbeing.

The faculty prides itself on strong links with industry which are particularly evident through a number of ERDF business support projects such as LCR 4.0, Low Carbon Eco innovatory, Maritime SuperSkills and LCR Activate.

These projects use faculty resources and expertise to provide companies with assistance in areas such as:

• research and development
• commercialisation of products
• funding and finance

Covered on the tour, you will see:

• Maritime Simulator
• BRE Houses
• Engineering Workshop – Robot
• Formula Students
• IC Labs
• Sensor Lab
• Drones

Dates/times available: [14 Nov 2017 at 10.00 & 14.00 now sold out]

Duration: 2 hours