To maximise the value we create for our local communities, we’ve been working with social value experts, the Social Value Portal. They’ve helped us to better understand what matters most in the areas we operate so we can tailor our social value activities to support the needs of our local stakeholders today, while leaving a positive legacy for future generations.
Turnchapel, Plymouth, Devon
Thales has invested over £2m to create a state-of-the-art innovation centre at Turnchapel in Plymouth. The Royal Navy and Thales UK have come together at the waterfront facility to transform maritime autonomy.
Critical to its success and achieving technology firsts is the trusted ecosystem of over 30 suppliers and universities, bringing diversity of thought and skills. In the local area, we have created new jobs and skills with a team of 20 people and we plan to create a further 30 roles by 2023, including apprenticeships.
From the heart of Britain’s Ocean City, we are building on our proud maritime heritage and looking to the next generation of maritime technology. Thales’ss Turnchapel centre will change the way autonomous capability is developed over the next decade with a focus on emerging and disruptive technologies, such as artificial intelligence and digital security, which are critical enablers of autonomy.
Sir Gary Streeter, Member of Parliament for South West Devon
Connecting between regions – COREF
We’re using our extensive industrial footprint across all four nations of the UK to enhance regional connections for greater social and economic benefit. COREF, the COnnected REconfigurable Factory, is a great example of how we are doing just that. Funded through the UK Government’s Aerospace Technology Institute programme, it consists of two digitally linked innovation hubs in Belfast and Crawley.
COREF promotes growth and productivity in the aerospace manufacturing sector and its supply chains by harnessing and exploiting new technologies, trends and methods for low volume, high-complexity production lines.
This in turn stimulates growth opportunities for businesses and boosts the demand for developing and upskilling a workforce that’s trained in new technologies such as smart tools, robots, cobots and the Internet of Things (IoT).
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BelfastOur Belfast site will host a physical, state-of-the-art manufacturing innovation hub where we can work alongside partners in academia and SMEs to innovate product design and assembly, taking manufacturing R&D projects to prototype stage (Technology Readiness Level 5). |
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CrawleyCOREF’s Crawley site is a digital laboratory, equipped to develop technical expertise to exploit tools for data manipulation, visualisation and scenario modelling. The capacity for real-time scenario updates and simulations, which even includes a “pseudo” supply chain, makes Crawley a virtual digital twin to Belfast, giving students and employees anywhere in the UK remote access to work and train with both innovation hubs. |
Investing for the future
Together with our COREF partners, we are investing over £10 million over the next three years into these sites. The hope is to stimulate the formation of manufacturing innovation ecosystems around Crawley and Belfast and, in turn, generate jobs in new fields for local and remote collaborators. With future growth, COREF will deliver wider regional social benefits by indirectly benefitting community cohesion as more employees support local amenities, shops and their supply chains.
“The ATI is pleased to support the Connected Reconfigurable Factory (COREF) project which is a further extension to the innovation and technology ecosystem that Thales is creating across the UK, and represents a real partnership between the Thales Belfast and Crawley sites, academia and SMEs in order to accelerate the adoption of industry 4.0 practices into the advanced manufacturing processes of complex avionics and Systems.” Gary Elliot, Chief Executive, Aerospace Technology Institute.
Merlin Flex (Hartlepool) SC21
Merlin Flex is a leading global supplier of flexible interconnection systems to a number of markets spanning defence, aerospace, medical, instrumentation, robotics and telecoms.
Located in Hartlepool in the North East of England, with 58 employees, here’s what Mark Merifield, Managing Director of Merlin Flex had to say about working with Thales and the SC21 programme:
“Over the past four years, Thales has helped us immensely as part of our SC21 journey. Through this collaboration, we have improved our systems and working practices to enable us to perform consistently at a much higher level.
“It’s been an educational and rewarding experience, which we have embraced throughout our entire organisation and has seen us realise both incremental and radical change in our processes as well as the skills of our people. We look forward to continuing our relationship with Thales and further growing our footprint in the North East.”