Shigeru Okada, MD of Makita UK, secures company logo on the MTC members’ board.
The Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC) in Coventry has welcomed world leading power tool manufacturer, Makita to its list of members.
The Telford based company is currently celebrating 100 years of supporting the manufacturing industry with its tools and equipment and will now work with the MTC to develop professional power tools that match the emerging technologies coming out of the UK based centre.
Makita was founded in 1915 in Nagoya City, Japan as an electric motor specialist. and moved into the professional power tool sector to become a market leader. The UK manufacturing facility in Telford was opened in 1992 and now produces 63,000 power tools every week.
The MTC aims to provide a competitive environment to bridge the gap between university-based research and the development of innovative manufacturing solutions, in line with the Government’s manufacturing strategy. Last week, the MTC formally opened its National Additive Centre and Aerospace Research Centre which will focus on the development and application of additive technologies. The combination of the two means that MTC engineers will have the opportunity to work with some of the world’s most advanced production tools and Makita will be able to take advantage of the advanced technologies the centre currently houses.
“This is a two-way street. We can provide our innovative production tools used by multi-national brands in the automotive, aerospace and technical manufacturing industries where precise torque requirements are mandatory and automatic data recording is essential,” Mark Earles, from Makita UK, explained. “This gives the MTC’s engineers first-hand experience with Makita’s advanced production tools. At the same time Makita gets exposure to the latest and experimental manufacturing processes. In this way we can design tools to meet future needs and the engineers grow to understand the depth of capability in Makita to solve varied challenges.”
MTC chief executive Dr Clive Hickman, added: “Makita joins partners from many sectors of industry determined to advance the high-tech skills of the future generations of manufacturing engineers for the benefit of British industry. We look forward to working with Makita’s engineers and experts here at the MTC.”
