Faculty of Technology

Case studies

The following case studies give some idea of the range of benefits that individuals and organisations can gain by becoming involved with SEKE.

These include valuable opportunities for updating staff, student placements for businesses, guidance and resources for entrepreneurs and the creation of funded projects for strategic product and organisational development, as well as the stimulation of learning and teaching support for schools and colleges.

The SEKE team has substantial experience in identifying appropriate solutions in the "concept-to rapid-manufacture" value chain. They are happy to discuss the needs and aims of each enquirer and to recommend the best way in which SEKE research and knowledge transfer can help.

Getting The Most Out Of SEKE...

SEKE offers many different ways by which entrepreneurs, companies and students can work collaboratively to generate benefits not just for the participants themselves but for the wider regional community. These include student projects and work placements, postgraduate studies, seminars and workshops, collaborative research, work based learning, commercial testing and prototyping services, consultancy and a range of projects that can be developed and submitted to funding agencies.

What Costs And Charges Are Involved?

As a general rule, educational experiences for student visitors are undertaken at no cost. SEKE will however wish to recoup the direct costs involved in university student studies, they will advise on adequate support levels for student placements and will charge market rates for professional development education and commercial services.

In the case of funded project proposals the partners will normally assist in bid development free of charge on the basis that projected income will result from the work. Intellectual property, licensing and equity arrangements can apply in other joint venture and collaborative work.

Case study 1 - Danlite Ltd. (Product Innovation)

Daniel Beard, a young engineer working in London, is acutely aware of the hazards of riding bicycles in congested traffic. His interest in solving technical problems, especially those with an environmental bias, led him to invent an innovative device that would provide an extra safety factor - the Danlite.

The idea is disarmingly simple - Danlite is a battery powered light extension, which extends from the handlebars and gives forward and rear beams, encouraging passing motorists to give cyclists a wide birth.

Having come up with the concept, he decided to review some of his ideas with the Wessex Innovation Service and the University of Portsmouth.

Wessex Innovation Service responded by setting up a virtual company, involving three final year students based in the University of Portsmouth's Regional Centre for Manufacturing Industry (RCMI). They agreed to create computer aided visuals and build several prototypes of the working Danlite, including aesthetic form analysis, electronics and assembly methodologies.

Danlite Ltd was then able to patent the idea and secure almost £50,000 of funding for development work and tooling. Danlite is now in full production and even won a mention on the weblog of that well-known London cyclist Boris Johnson who called it "a magical device".

As Daniel explained: "We managed to overcome some major challenges in sourcing raw materials from overseas, ironed out some design difficulties and learnt how to sweat blood!"

Case study 2 - Moss Traffic Ease Ltd. (Product Innovation)

Thomas Moss and Patrick Simmons are two Portsmouth based entrepreneurs with a classic bright idea. They wanted to develop a new concept in the way portable traffic lights were designed and deployed.

Their vision was to develop a product that would help ease congestion around temporary obstacles, such as minor road works or incidents that are an everyday occurrence on British and European Roads. Of great importance was the need to provide a portable traffic light system that could be easily transported in most vehicles, be deployed by a single person in an instant and be cost effective, so as to enable all Authorities and Contractors to maintain an inventory of portable traffic lights that could be readily available when needed.

Working with the inventors and the Highways Authority in a SMART Feasibility Study, the University of Portsmouth’s Regional Centre for Manufacturing Industry (RCMI) turned the concept into reality through the development of a prototype using advanced computer aided design and rapid prototyping systems.

This prototype went on to undergo trials with a number of emergency services throughout the UK. During this time RCMI refined the concept to meet pan-European legislative compliance thereby opening up the European market to Moss Traffic Ease Ltd.

The first Moss Traffic Ease prototypes went on display at the UK Police Emergency Equipment Exhibition Hendon and at the Innovations Exhibition Earls Court. Licence arrangements in EC for volume manufacture have been progressed.

Case study 3 - Ably Shelters Ltd. (Research, Development & Testing)

Ably Shelters is a respected and experienced company specialising in the design, hire and sale of a unique range of covering systems and relocatable buildings for industrial, commercial and military use.

The objectives of the SEKE project were to provide manufacturing strategy, analyse product quality attributes, and carry out product integrity trials and certification.

The work was successfully carried out in parallel with varying specification requirements to suppliers in order to achieve a final, optimised product design. The result was enhanced product performance and substantially increased sales volume and market share.

SEKE involvement and liaison continued into new areas of composites and the provision of education and training for company employees in the form of work-based learning and short courses. Ably Shelters has now progressed to new product sales and a NATO design study promises large additional business potential.

Case study 4 - Odyssey Training Ltd. (Product Concept & Prototyping)

Odyssey Training Ltd is a company specialising in management training and consultancy to the maritime sector worldwide. It helps ship operators, port operators, passenger transport organizations, and many other related companies, to develop their personnel and improve their performance.

When the company wanted advice on its innovation needs in order to diversify into product development and licensing, it was introduced to SEKE by Business Link Wessex. Knowledge transfer in product development processes was successfully achieved by working closely with Odyssey over several months.

This work has resulted in a partnership approach to Business Link Wessex for guidance on innovation funding, which in turn has resulted in a SMART (Pocket) award strategy being agreed, in liaison with the Defence  Diversification Agency (DDA) for technology transfer for patent content. It has also led to dialogue with marine technoloy collaborators about potential joint product development and support for volume manufacture.

Case study 5 - Stewart Plastics

Stewart Plastics has been a leading manufacturer of plastic domestic and catering food storage and food preparation products since 1945. In addition to its Home and Professional Catering Division, Stewart Plastics also has a Gardening Division (the UK's leading supplier of a wide range of injection and rotationally moulded plant containers supplying the garden centre and DIY market place) and also has a long established Promotional Packaging Division.

Stewart Plastics first engaged with the University of Brighton's Knowledge Exchange programme when it was looking for assistance to develop new variations for its storage products. The brief for the design group, based at the University of Brighton, was to develop new products without the need for extensive re-tooling.

The end result was that eleven creative solutions were selected by Stewart Plastics to progress further, and the relationship with the University has moved to a more formal basis and a much closer working partnership.

Lee Mowle, Managing Director, said, "We were looking to work with a dynamic team with fresh ideas and open minds to develop a totally new range of food storage products - to literally think outside the box. So impressed were we with the work done by the designers on our original brief that we are now working closely with the University's design team on a whole range of ideas across not only our food storage and preparation offering but our gardening and packaging ranges as well."

Case study 6 - Rimor Precision Engineering Ltd. (Lean Manufacturing)

Rimor Ltd has an excellent reputation for high precision, low volume, high value manufacture, with particular emphasis on modular build. It serves customers in the oil and gas, autosport, electronics, aerospace, clean room and high precision industry sectors.

To help meet the exacting demands of its customers, Rimor worked with University of Portsmouth's RCMI (Regional Centre for Manufacturing Industry) on a programme to implement Lean manufacturing processes throughout the company. Using Kaizen seminars - based on the involvement of everyone, from management to shop floor, in a cycle of continuous evaluation and improvement - the focus of the programme was to inform staff on current Lean concepts and thinking and to create, in each seminar, a process of feedback to form the basis of identifying perceived strengths and weaknesses in internal processes.

The programme included management seminars illustrating the expectations of leading multinationals in Lean processes and staff seminars involving prizes for suggestions on how to achieve improvements.

The resulting performance enhancements have already led to successful Lean benchmarking audits for Rimor by major client companies and valuable new orders.

A DTI-funded Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) is extending these achievements to all factory and office process value chains.

Case study 7 - Hotchkiss Ltd

Hotchkiss Limited is the leading contractor for ductwork and associated technologies in the United Kingdom.

When Giles Wooley, Hotchkiss Group MD, attended a local University of Brighton event, "Engineer Your Business", the presentation on the Knowledge Exchange caught his attention as a possible solution to a production problem within one of his subsidiary companies. In a short timeframe, prototypes were produced in a completely new way and are now being tested in a production environment.

Giles commented "We needed a fast and cost effective way to produce prototypes. The particular items concerned are difficult to produce by conventional machining techniques. The fast prototyping really was fast, the quality was good and the cost was competitive. We will certainly be using the service again in the future."

Case study 8 - HMD / Kontro Seal-less Pumps, part of Sundyne Corporation (Rapid prototyping services)

When HMD / Kontro, the leading manufacturer of seal-less pumps took over production of a pump previously made in Italy, they only had a basic drawing for one complicated component and production tooling details had been  lost in the transfer of the business to the UK.

During a "knowledge exchange" visit to Buckinghamshire Chiltern University College members of HMD's design team realised that they could solve the problem of the missing information by using rapid prototyping technology.

Simon Purbrook, senior product development engineer at HMD/Kontro said: "Following the visit arranged by the University of Brighton, with whom we had been working for several years, I used this technology to solve our short-term problem, but subsequently we have made it an integral part of our production process and have produced savings of over £24,000 on the production of only 30 items."

Case study 9 - Spinlock Ltd. (Rapid Prototyping Services)

Spinlock Ltd, the Cowes-based designers and manufacturer of nautical rope-holding products, has successfully exploited three dimensional design and rapid product development techniques to create a high performance product range that has moved the company to a market leader position in their sector.

The University of Portsmouth's Regional Centre for Manufacturing Industry assisted the design team at Spinlock Ltd to develop a clear competitive advantage through close working on rapid prototyping using the stereolithography and thermojet processes. The company is an exemplar in terms of the adoption of new design and rapid product development technologies underpinning product and business growth.

Commenting on the process, Professor Nick Bennett, Director of the Regional Centre for Manufacturing Industry at the University of Portsmouth said: "In the case of Spinlock, they are leading the way in high performance rope holding product innovation in embedding advanced 3D CAD linked to rapid prototyping technologies."

Case study 10 - CTI International Ltd (Rapid Product Development)

CTI International is a local microenterprise, specialising in automotive multi-functional antennae. The company requested the University of Portsmouth’s Regional Centre for Manufacturing Industry to work on new antennae developments.

They engaged a postgraduate student project team working in HEROBC, (Higher Education Reach-Out to Business and the Community) to test the concept to ensure that it was reliable and fit for purpose. CTI supplied the  students with the relevant test standards and a thorough programme of testing and evaluation was carried out against these.

A range of prototypes for the automotive antennae was developed and tested, and significant changes were made to the company’s original model.

Subsequent production of a number of prototypes enabled CTI International to take their product to a number of automotive companies and win contracts to supply Mercedes Benz, Renault and an automotive design house in Detroit.

These major international contracts have now resulted in CTI International growing from a company with only 5 employees to its current position of a workforce of thirty-five.

Case study 11 - Elta Fans Ltd. (Product Analysis & Test)

Elta Fans Ltd is a world leader in the design and manufacture of quality industrial and commercial fans. SEKE's first contact with the company involved design project work associated with the assembly of complex, multi-component, mixed-flow fan impellers.

Since then further projects have been completed and reported including analysis of the geometric characteristics of imported, low-pressure die cast hubs and studies using a Mitutoyo 706 co-ordinate measuring machine, touch trigger probing and software capable of analysing variances between specified geometry and actual product geometry.

The work has provided Elta's engineering team with accurate production engineering data on which to base their designs. Production developments have advanced to further computer aided design and fatigue testing of impellor assemblies for installation in new capital ships.

Case study 12 - Engineering Education Scheme

Bronagh Liddicoat is the manager of SETPOINT Sussex, the focus for teachers, business and industry to obtain information about resources, schemes and initiatives concerned with science, technology, engineering and maths.

As part of the organisation's remit to promote and organise schools activities it communicates with 678 schools via direct email shots and through its website (www.setpointsussex.org.uk) which has between 60,000 - 100,000 hits per month.

"The Knowledge Exchange was an integral part of the planning, organising, and running of the Engineering Education Scheme (EES) held at the University of Brighton in  December 2005", said Bronagh. "We had ten schools and engineers from their sponsoring companies participating, and the event was so successful that the Regional Director for EES has requested that we accommodate twenty schools next year. It would have  been difficult to run the event were it not for the direct involvement of the Knowledge Exchange team.

"The planned outreach to schools in Sussex during the coming year is exciting as it will provide pupils with a real experience in modern product design."

Case study 13 - Ardingly College

Mark Harrison, Head of Design Technology for Ardingly College in Sussex commented: "University of Brighton has been tremendously supportive to our students who are currently studying their 'A' levels in Design and Technology.

"As well as giving individual help in particular to two of our students, they have also given time to support and advise our students in the design stages of their projects and have helped with the manufacturing of the individual prototypes.

"Without their help, our students would have found it difficult if not impossible to progress their projects. We are fortunate to have a university so close at hand that is able to support in this way."