When the Rail Sector Deal was launched last year Rail Forum Midlands (RFM) was asked to lead the work on two ‘Midlands pilots’. One of these, SME Resilience and Growth Through Collaboration, aims to provide specific opportunities for SMEs to collaborate and respond to specific client requirements or challenges.
Supported by Bombardier, Hitachi, Porterbrook and Siemens, with other clients welcome to get involved; the first challenge is now ready to launch. It will focus on opportunities to come up with light-weighting options for both new and existing rolling stock with SMEs being encouraged to collaborate to develop new ideas, products and services that will be pitched to the clients through a series of Dragon’s Den style sessions. Nothing is off the table; from interiors to drive systems and from HVAC to specific components to name a few.
The collaboration pilot was developed to recognise that UK SMEs sometimes struggle to compete with larger foreign companies – both when selling into the UK and overseas. It aims to provide agglomeration opportunities for them to work together to provide full systems solutions making them more attractive to clients at home and abroad.
“The opportunity to get involved is open to any SME whether they are currently involved in rail or not,” says Elaine Clark, CEO RFM.
“RFM will act as the facilitator to bring companies together where needed and also act as a bridge to specific expertise, routes to potential funding if required and facilities for R&D. We are really excited to be working with such a broad range of potential clients and delighted to be able to launch this project at a time when our SME supply chain is looking for opportunities as we begin to emerge from the Covid19 crisis.”
A key objective of the sector deal pilot is to create opportunities for SMEs to develop new products that can be exported. “We know that our SMEs sometimes struggle to compete with larger companies on the continent and further afield so this pilot is encouraging them to come together to create partnerships that can compete on the world stage,” added Elaine.
“We are also working on a second challenge and we hope to be able to launch that in the next few weeks.”
The light-weighting challenge will be launched via an online event on 21st July. To register for the event click here.
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