KW Special Projects opens facility at Silverstone Park

KW Special Projects (KWSP; Oxford, U.K.) recently reported that it plans to open its state-of-the-art Digital Manufacturing Centre (DMC) in the U.K.’s Silverstone Park. This project, serving aerospace, automotive, defense and marine sectors, will total more than 20,000 square feet of manufacturing and office space. The DMC will be the third specialist high-tech facility at Silverstone Park since MEPC (Oxford, U.K.) took over development of the site in 2013, and the project has received funding from the South East Midlands Local Enterprise Partnership (SEMLEP; Bedford, U.K.).

KWSP and SEMLEP project the DMC will provide opportunities for more than 100 small and medium enterprises, and will add £9 million GVA (gross value added) over three years for the region. The companies also said that the facility will act as an “incubator,” giving tech start-ups and SME businesses access to its technology. While the facility will include polymer additive machines as is standard with KWSP, it will also specialize in metal additive manufacturing to serve high-end applications in aerospace, motorsport and other sectors.

The DMC’s location in Silverstone Park — not far from Milton Keynes, rail networks, the M1, the M40 and the Oxford-Cambridge Arc — improves the project’s accessibility and places it in line with KWSP and SEMLEP’s outreach goals. Both organizations plan to interface with local schools and students about careers in machining and technology, hoping to ease local employers’ concerns about a growing manufacturing skills gap.