MTC, Ansty Park, Coventry, CV7 9JU
The Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC) was established in 2010 as an independent Research & Technology Organisation (RTO) with the objective of bridging the gap between academia and industry – often referred to as ‘the valley of death’.
The MTC is part of the High Value Manufacturing Catapult (HVMC), which is supported by Innovate UK representing one of the largest public sector investments in UK manufacturing.
Since opening in 2011 the MTC’s rapid growth has seen the expansion of their campus with the construction of three more facilities, including the opening of the Advanced Manufacturing Training Centre and the National Centre for Additive Manufacturing
Blackberry was contacted by the MTC marketing team to support with the delivery of ‘Working Together Transforming Construction’, an event created to showcase technologies and processes that can drastically reduce hazards, improve quality, boost productivity, reduce waste and increase accuracy for those operating in the construction and infrastructure sector.
Blackberry was asked to explore a solution that would enable the MTC to welcome groups of visitors to the ‘workshop’ facility, meet with MTC experts and experience the new technologies being developed and available to industry practitioners.
The successful project delivery relied on finding a solution that would allow multiple workshops and presentations to take place in a noisy working environment, ensuring presenters could be heard by the attendees but not by other presenters a few meters away.
Following a number of site visits to understand the scope and constraints of the ‘workshop’ facility, our team recommended a silent disco style 4 channel headset-based solution.
In the workshop we created four separate demonstration areas (named 1-4), in which attendees could switch to the channel for that area and immediately connect to the relevant presenter. Each demonstration area was led by an MTC ‘chaperone’ responsible for managing their group of visitors.
Demonstrations were timed to be 20 minutes. In order to help presenters to predict how long they have left, one loud beep was played at 10 minutes so they knew they were halfway and then two beeps were played at 15 minutes to give presenters 5 minutes to wrap up. When 20 minutes had passed, music was played to signify to chaperones and attendees that it was time to move to the next demonstration area.
The successful execution of Working Together: Transforming Construction for the Manufacturing Technology Centre was met with overwhelming positive feedback from the client and attendees alike.
A highly successful event resulted in a follow up series of industry engagement events including Working Together: Transforming Construction, SMA Dissemination and the Robotics & Automation Open Lab event.
At the initial meeting the team at Blackberry were very keen to understand not just the what and the how but also the why. It was important to them that they were clear on the objectives of the event and shared our desired outcomes for success.
Operationally the team were great to work with, through rehearsals and on-site briefings they instilled confidence that the delivery would be seamless.
Guy Boucher, MTC Marketing Manager
