The Northern Automotive Alliance (NAA) Awards took place in November where Genlab was presented with the Industry 4.0 award for the innovative work they completed with the Virtual Engineering Centre (VEC) through the LCR 4.0 Project.
The Widnes based SME approached LCR 4.0, a partly ERDF funded project which supports manufacturers within the Liverpool City Region to learn more about Industry 4.0 technologies and how the adoption of such technologies including big data, IoT and simulation to name a few, can benefit their business.
Genlab manufacturer Industrial and Laboratory ovens, with a wide range of clients from all over the world. The company wanted to explore the ways in which new technologies could improve their business, in particular, their efficiency levels as product demand was continuously growing.
Approaching the Virtual Engineering Centre, Genlab were able to explore the ways in which factory simulation could help them quickly and easily model their facility to identify opportunities to improve efficiency. Genlab is also working with the VEC to develop a strategy to adopt the industrial Internet of Things as a basis for providing predictive maintenance services to its products as well as exploring how computer aided engineering can help the company provide new levels of energy efficiency and reduce the carbon emission from industrial ovens.
Within the factory, the collaboration enabled Genlab to identify how to increase its productivity by 5% in the short term with a plan to increase this to 20% of the longer term.
Recognising this fantastic achievement, the VEC nominated Genlab for the NAA award and were thrilled to accept on Genlab behalf. Andrew Borland, VEC Commercialisation Manager said:
“Genlab is a great example of a manufacturing business with a focus on highly skilled manual tasks that have benefited from the adoption of digital tools, using them to refine rather and optimise time tested approaches.”
Since working with the VEC to explore the application of factory simulations, Genlab is now looking at how Industrial IoT and virtual prototyping can be implemented into the business to complement their product line.
Pictured (L-R) Andrew Borland, Commercialisation Manager for the VEC, Phil Crompton, Genlab Finance Director, Martina Rodrigues, Project Manager for NAA and Rick Johnson, Genlab Technical and Commercial Manager
