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Project Summary:
The project is designed to transfer ICT technologies from the Jewellery, Ceramics and General Engineering sectors to the UK Cutlery and Silverware sectors. These sectors, with mainly small and medium sized manufacturers, face severe competition from overseas and need to improve their competitiveness rapidly. The sectors are defined to include those manufacturers who produce cutlery and silver or silver plated flatware, hollowware, tableware, silver giftware and silver designer Jewellery.

Project Partners:
British Cutlery & Silverware Association (BCSA)
British Jewellers' Association (BJA)
CERAM Research Limited
Chamberlain Clark Limited
Findlay Publications Limited
JA & OM Tait & Company Limited
Precious Portraits a Division of R. Platnauer Ltd
Sheffield Assay Office

Need:
The manufacture of Cutlery and Silverware involves a range of design and manufacturing processes that vary in scale and complexity. At the most technically developed level, product formation involves sophisticated CAD/CAM technology, at the other extreme traditional die sink and highly skilled artisan manufacturing techniques are employed. Sector competitiveness studies clearly indicate that companies must improve the design and manufacture of their products in order to be able to respond quickly and effectively to market demands and to be able to exploit the increased number of distribution channels. Companies are unable to compete on price with overseas manufacturers, including northern Europe, where investment has been made in advanced manufacturing machinery.

Solution:
Reducing the cost of manufacture of silver and cutlery products by the use of modern manufacturing methods and techniques. In order to facilitate the uptake of ICT based New Product Development and manufacturing technologies they will need to be adapted and then demonstrated. These adaptations will provide the means to enhance the design decision making, new product introduction and product delivery processes that will, in, turn improve home and export market demand.

Benefits:
Transfer of NPD technologies, techniques and associated supply chain developments would radically improve the potential of UK Cutlery and Silverware manufacturers to compete successfully in the UK and Global markets. These technologies will allow companies to develop their business and manufacturing processes to:

• Dramatically reduce time to market and thus increase UK and export market share
• Increase customer/retail feed-back and thus quality of product design
• Reduce manufacturing costs and improve manufacturing flexibility
• Identify and exploit new ICT supported business opportunities
• Adopt continuous business development and improvement strategies to radically improve the skills and knowledge base of the sector and thus achieve improved productivity and competitiveness