The Advanced Forming Research Centre is a globally recognised centre of excellence in metal forming research, manufacturing technologies and innovation. It is the heart of Scotland’s manufacturing research and development sector and is the country’s only High Value Manufacturing Catapult centre; one of just seven in the UK.
The AFRC addresses the important challenge of taking low maturity technologies developed within research environments and deploying them within industrial manufacturing facilities.
It fills the gap between traditional university research and the industrial need to demonstrate new technology on real products, in real factories. This is often expressed in terms of manufacturing readiness levels which were derived from the NASA TRL scale and are used to articulate the journey to industrial application of new technologies.
How we work with businesses
The centre’s work supports businesses of all shapes and sizes by helping them to increase their competitiveness by taking a structured approach to innovation. It de-risks and accelerates the introduction of new technologies, materials and processes and assists companies by converting the art of innovation into a science that can be applied to their businesses.
The AFRC’s work covers the entire product development cycle – from material testing and characterisation through to industry standard manufacturing trials and product assessments.
The way we work is based on our customers’ needs; all of our standard services can be tailored accordingly and if there is a need we can create bespoke services depending on customer requirements.