Robotics centre seeks new backers as govt cash runs out
The Doncaster-based centre – which was launched in 2007 to help food and drink manufacturers explore the benefits of increased automation - has historically been supported by regional development agency (RDA) Yorkshire Forward.
However, a three-year contract with Yorkshire Forward that comes to an end in November will not now be renewed following government plans to abolish RDAs and create a new network of Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) instead.
While CenFRA was in discussions with the RDA to try and secure enough cash to tide it over until March 2011, it will need to find a new source of funding in order to stay afloat beyond that date, and is understood to be talking to several interested parties.
CenFRA not (yet) financially self-sufficient
One industry source told FoodManufacture.co.uk: ”CenFRA makes money from project work – effectively consultancy work with food and drink manufacturers, things like its simulation work - but it’s a long way short of achieving financial self-sustainability.
“Originally there was a five-year plan with a view to becoming self-sufficient by the end of 2012.”
A Yorkshire Forward spokeswoman said: "The CenFRA contract is a standard three-year Yorkshire Forward contract, which comes to an end in November. In the past we had the facility to extend three year contracts up to a maximum of two additional years but we are no longer able to do this.”
More details of how the transition to LEPs would work will be published in a White Paper in the autumn, she added. "In the meantime we are working with CenFRA to explore a range of options."
Simulation: try before you buy
CenFRA, which employs six staff, has worked with a series of leading players in the food and drink sector from Northern Foods and Arla Foods to Morrisons, and has recently introduced new simulation techniques that can help firms ‘virtually’ evaluate the merits of automating aspects of their processes before making costly investments.
Mike Wilson, president of the British Automation & Robot Association (BARA) said that a recent government-funded research project exploring why UK firms were behind Continental counterparts in the robotics and automation stakes had identified a clear need for an organisation such as CenFRA to work with industry.
However, one industry source told FoodManufacture.co.uk that it would be “no great loss to the food industry if CenFRA folds up”.
He claimed: “It’s basically not offering anything that is not already available directly from suppliers and systems integrators already, and the staff are generally lacking in experience on applications. There seems to me to have been a lot of money going in and not much coming out.”
