Innovation-Direct is a consultancy service for SME manufacturing companies delivered by the University of Warwick.
The service is available until June 2008

The service uses concurrent engineering methods to bring together marketing, product design, manufacturing and business expertise to support the successful design and innovation of products and processes.

The service is provided free of charge to qualifying companies. For free support, companies must be SMEs located in the West Midlands Objective 2 area

Up to 10 days consultancy support is available per project with in-kind match required from the company.

The service is funded by the European Regional Development Fund with the aim of increasing employment, sales and investment in the West Midlands.

For more information and to enquire about eligibility please contact:

• University of Warwick team 024 76 572 505

Concurrent Engineering Environment

• Concurrent engineering is the principle of bringing together market, product, process and business expertise to work on the development process to deliver significant benefit in terms of reduced project and product cost, improved product performance and quality, and reduced time to market.
• It can be applied throughout the product introduction process from the setting of strategy through to the launch of new products. Application at the front-end of this process is particularly beneficial and is the focus of this project.
• The Concurrent Engineering Environment is created by the right combination of people, process, systems and tools as indicated below.