NPL extend links with University
Thu, 14 Mar 2013 13:25:00 GMT
New lab up and running and more collaboration in the offing
THE National Physical Laboratory – possibly the world’s most-respected organisation in the science and business of precision measurement – has reaffirmed its close links with the University of Huddersfield.
Over three years ago it established a base of operations within the University’s main technology building and signed a Memorandum of Understanding. Now it has moved to a specially-equipped laboratory in the University’s all-new 3M Buckley Innovation Centre (3MBIC).
NPL’s Huddersfield Laboratory Manager, Andy Morris, says that the relocation to the 3MBIC was absolutely the right move.
“Here it is more of a lab, rather than a workshop environment. We need temperature control, cleanliness, lack of vibration – everything that goes with having a good quality laboratory. And that is what we have got.”
And now that the move is almost complete, Mr Morris envisages new areas of collaboration with the University’s own experts in the science of measurement. The fact that the University Huddersfield is home to a world-class team of metrologists, based at its Centre for Precision Technologies and its EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Advanced Metrology*, meant that the tie-in with NPL was always a logical one.
The NPL’s national HQ is a long-established and world-famous laboratory at Teddington, where much of the work deals with research and development, said Mr Morris. The Huddersfield base specialises in working commercially with companies – locally, regionally and nationally – and has particular expertise in measuring complex components such as blades for aero engines.
The newly-kitted out NPL lab at the 3MBIC has some traditional measuring devices that enable staff to work from first principles – but it is also equipped with new Mitutoyo and Nikon co-ordinate measuring machines (CMM) which can provide precise measurements of complex components at every stage of manufacture, either singly or in batches.
Other services offered to industry by the NPL lab at Huddersfield include CMM programming for companies. And there are plans to expand at the 3MBIC, so that extra specialist equipment can be installed. There are currently four permanent staff based in the laboratory – a number that will increase in the near future.
Andy Morris, who began his career in metrology with the Post Office and then British Telecom, is a former operations director and co-owner of a calibration company before being recruited by NPL five years ago. It was a career move he was delighted to make: “You can’t get much higher. NPL is top of the tree.”
The advantages of close proximity to the University of Huddersfield and its metrology expertise will continue to grow, adds Mr Morris.
Pictured right is the 3M Buckley Innovation Centre.
“Now that we have made this commitment by moving to the 3MBIC we will try and increase the level of collaboration finding more and more areas in which we can work together.”
* The NPL is a partner in the EPSRC Centre. The EPSRC Centre brings together a consortium of leading research and development organisations and global companies from the aerospace, automotive, instrumentation, machine-tools and optics sectors. Its partners are world-leaders in their fields and bring expertise, knowledge and resources that will ensure that we address the critical challenges in precision engineering.
