IfM News

A new report from the IfM presents the latest trends in the globalisation of manufacturing.Capturing value from global networks describes a set of approaches developed by IfM researchers and put into practice with a range of leading manufacturers to help them achieve long-term, sustainable growth through the effective design and management of their global operations network.The publication of the report is timely in the context of a growing trend for reshoring and the government’s policy initiatives to support high value manufacturing in the UK, for example, through a £245 million supply chain fund.This new report makes the point, however, that reshoring is only one part of the puzzle. If the UK is to benefit from a more buoyant high value manufacturing sector,

companies need to make a range of effective strategic choices. While deciding where to manufacture goods is critical, companies also need to design and manage an effective supply network which relies on large numbers of specialist firms providing key components and technologies, often spread around the world. Furthermore, many companies are developing a service component to their businesses which brings with it further complexity and a whole new set of delivery partners. On top of this, new technologies are emerging to transform whole sectors and the business models of companies within them. The companies and their governments want to ensure they benefit from these new technologies – and to do so they need to understand the new industrial landscape and act accordingly.

Jag Srai, co-author of the report, said: “The off-shoring/reshoring discussion tends to focus on just one part of the story – cost. While cost is always a factor, leading companies are beginning to configure global networks to address the most attractive markets with highly responsive, integrated supply chains. Latest thinking on network resilience and sustainability has been incorporated into our methodologies, providing manufacturing firms with the network-based capabilities that competitors will find difficult to copy.”Paul Christodoulou, the other co-author, added: “Leading companies we have worked with, such as Caterpillar, LEGO and Rolls-Royce leverage their global networks to create better products, faster – using advanced network capabilities – and hence make higher profits.”CIM has developed a set of approaches that can help companies and governments understand and navigate their way through these complex issues. CIM is currently leading the research in a £23m project on reconfiguring UK pharmaceutical supply chains as part of the Advanced Manufacturing Supply Chain Initiative. Through IfM ECS, CIM has worked with 50 multinational companies on network design projects. Leila Alinaghian, Don Fleet, Tomás Harrington, Mukesh Kumar, Dennis Lewis and Yongjiang Shi were contributors to the report.Further details of the report, due to be published in April, will be posted on the IfM website soon.

March 2014No 195

Focus on: Capturing value from global networksCSF@IfM: Volunteers at the start of a very busy day at the Science Festival

Judith Shawcross made a good start to her 50-mile challenge in the Cambridge Half Marathon on 9 March. Next up is the Brighton Marathon on 6 April. She says that thanks to “amazing support from IfM” she has already hit over 70% of her £1,000 fund raising target for Cancer Research UK. Visit www.justgiving.com/Judith-Shawcross50 to sponsor Judith.

Report overviewA ‘global value network’ consists of all the value-adding firms involved in the supply of products and services to end users. Managing these networks has become increasingly challenging as firms specialise within the value chain and become more globally dispersed. The report describes the research and real-world application of innovative approaches for guiding strategy and policy in this rapidly changing field.

The imperativeThe vertically integrated business of the 20th century has become the global value network of today. Organisations that are able to align these complex value networks with their strategic aims have an opportunity to achieve clear differentiation from their competitors.

Integrated research and practiceCIM pursues an extensive programme of research and real-world application of new approaches for the strategic configuration of global value networks, working closely with a community of industrialists,

policymakers and academics.

Strategic network designCIM has developed a set of structured approaches, based on research, for the strategic design of global value networks. The report describes how these common approaches are used to address different elements within the value chain and shows how they have been applied in a number of multinational companies to achieve significant business benefits. The four strategic approaches are:l Designing production networksl Managing the end-to-end supply chainl Developing service supply networksl Configuring global value networks within industrial ecosystems

Emerging themesOngoing research activities are focused on creating the next generation of strategic approaches in response to some of the most pressing themes identified by industry. These themes are all explored in the second section of the report in terms of their impact

on global value networks. The five emerging themes are:l Risk and resiliencel Sustainable supply networksl Mergers and acquisitionsl Knowledge integrationl E-commerce driven ‘last-mile’ logistics

True Light Blues do us proudWell done to IfM representatives in recent Varsity matches. Sudhir Rama Murthy and Guilhem Aulotte (PhD and ISMM students respectively, above) were winners with the men’s seconds fencing team. Daniel Summerbell (men’s firsts fencing, below left), Yuuki Shigemoto (badminton seconds, above right) and Lampros Litos (boxing), all doctoral students, were on teams that lost to Oxford.

Meet the report team: Mike Gregory with, clockwise from bottom left, Mukesh Kumar, Yongjiang Shi, Don Fleet, Paul Christodoulou, Tomás Harrington, Dennis Lewis, Leila Alinaghian and Jag Srai

Half marathon done, but still miles to goMan Hang Yip (Yip) is also on the road and raising money for Parkinson’s Nurses. She ran the Cambridge Half Marathon in 1hr 45min 17sec. Her next challenge is the 13.1-mile Great North Run on 7 September.She said: “Not everyone thinks participating in long-distance races is a good way to raise money, but I have my reasons. One half-marathon takes about 13 weeks of 19 miles/week of training. The preparation and the race remind me of how Parkinson’s patients struggle with every little motion, and the endurance their carers show.” You can sponsor Yip at www.virginmoneygiving.com/mhyip

Atos delegates were in Cambridge on 9-14 March for the final module of their Gold for Experts programme. The theme was ‘delivering value and making things happen’, drawing on contributions from the CSA, CTM, ECS and input from programme partners, the University of Paderborn. Team projects were supported by many at IfM during a surgery session and final presentations to senior and executive management went down very well on Friday providing a fitting end to a successful programme. The March sunshine enabled delegates to try out games of croquet and boules. Another programme is planned in 2014 and two more in 2015. Judith Shawcross says ‘thank you’ to everyone who has been involved.

Atos course hits the target

MET alum’s robot to make programming more funJohn Ginger, a 2012 MET graduate, is one half of a team developing a robot to help children learn programming and robotics while they play. He and Cambridge alumnus Matt Screeton founded Robotiky and hope to ship robots worldwide by September 2014. They are trying to raise £25k on the KickStarter crowdsourcing platform (http://kck.st/1eldFqb) by 9 April. John said: “This has been an exciting adventure which has been a great opportunity to use the manufacturing skills learnt at the IfM in practice.”

The IfM interest group for Life Sciences and Healthcare held its first meeting on 28 February. It aims to provide a forum to share, exchange and collaborate on topics of common interest and discuss issues and challenges that face researchers in the life science and healthcare industries. At the first meeting Mark Phillips gave an overview of the healthcare industrial system, setting out the context in which the existing projects and activities are conducted and outlining key issues about the future shape of healthcare and life sciences. There was a round table discussion on people’s individual interests,

concluding with the identification of some new opportunities. The group currently has 20 members who hope to enhance their knowledge through information exchange as well as through collaborative publications and funding opportunities. The group offers an opportunity for researchers to get feedback from highly experienced practitioners on their work. It will meet at 11am-12.30pm on Fridays 6 June, 26 September and 12 December in Seminar Room 3.If you have any queries or would like to join the group contact Leila Alinaghian (lsa27@cam.ac.uk).

Launch reveals healthy interest in life sciences group

Science festival draws huge crowds to IfMHundreds of visitors thronged the IfM on Saturday 22 for the Cambridge Science Festival. Young and old enjoyed displays, exhibitions and hands-on activities including laser bunny hop, designing watch straps in Watch it Made, learning about sustainability, creating laser graffiti, seeing i-Teams and Raspberry Pi demos and hearing Tim Minshall’s talk It’s not science fiction: it’s just engineering. For more see www.ifm.eng.cam.ac.uk/resources/conference/ science-festival/

New visitorsDr Alejandro Torres Padilla of DUX Diligens, joined CTM as a visiting researcher in March. The research aims to build the theoretical foundations for practical strategy

and innovation methods being developed and tested in Latin America for Strategic Innovation System approaches integrated in a

framework called HiFFi (High Impact Framework For Innovation). The primary focus will be on literature review, combined with sharing of experience of practical approaches and tools for supporting strategy and innovation, and contributions to general research. Ricardo Gonzalez Nakazawa joined the CTM as a visitor in March with the main purpose of running field research by means of interviews and case studies for HiFFi, a framework for developing and sustaining a Strategic Innovation System within organisations. The field research is meant to provide the relevant data and feedback to enhance the framework as well as evidence of its functionality. His visit is part of an ongoing collaboration between CTM, Nakazawa CG and DUX Diligens.Janet McColl-Kennedy is a visiting professor with the CSA and an inaugural board member of the Cambridge Service Alliance Advisory Board. She is visiting from the University of Queensland where she is Professor of Marketing. She is recognised internationally as a leading researcher in service science. Her research interests include service recovery, customer

complaining behaviour, customer rage, customer value co-creation and pro-bono service. While in Cambridge, she will be working on the

customer experience project.

New arrivalsTanya Edwards started her role as an Executive Educator and Facilitator in ECS in March. Her focus is to support the design, development and delivery of customised education programmes for corporate clients using the extensive expertise available at IfM. Tanya is also a doctoral student in CSP, her research looks a generating a practical toolkits to aid exploiting synergistic competencies in the supply chain to aid new product development. Tanya worked for 12 years in a global manufacturing company in a variety of roles including new product and process development engineering, creativity and strategy facilitation, strategic marketing and technology strategy management. In parallel she completed an MSc in Engineering Management from Brunel University. Her career began teaching design and technology at secondary level.

Dr Alena Puchkova joined DIAL in March as a research associate. She is working on research topics related to the DisTAL (Disruption Tolerant Automated Lean Factories) project. Alena graduated in 2009 from the Faculty of Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics, Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU), Russia, with a degree in applied mathematics and computer science. She received her PhD in 2013 from the Department of Optimal Control, MSU. She has industrial and international research experience, having worked as a research and technical associate with Norilsk Nickel Australia in Perth, Australia. Alena also spent three months as an academic visitor at the University of Western Australia and at the Curtin University in Australia. Alena has worked as a research assistant at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Vienna, Austria.

A paper by Mukesh Kumar published in the Journal of Advances in Management Research has been selected by the journal’s editorial team as one of its three Highly Commended Papers of 2013. Their verdict on Mapping of the UK food supply chains: capturing trends and structural changes was: “It is one of the most impressive pieces of work the team has seen throughout 2013.”

Mukesh’s paper is one of the best of the year

. . . and departuresAnn Grady was a key part of the MET administration team for more than eight years and she also ably supported the division in a raft of ways including guiding the set up of our new servery with Carole and keeping us in stationery. There was a presentation for Ann in a packed common room on March 14. Ann has since decided to put her gift from the IfM towards a professional family photo. Yvonne Richards will leave the Inkjet Research centre at the end of March as the BiognostiX project comes to an end. Yvonne is joining Dr John Bradley’s group

in the Department of Medicine at Addenbrooke’s as a research technician. The group’s research programme aims to understand the mechanisms through which alterations in vascular cell function contribute to vascular disease and transplant rejection.Tom Bright, who has been working on the BiognostiX project, also leaves but will still be seen here in the labs. He will be working with Damian Gardiner from Division B and Wen-Kai Hsiao on the commercialisation of printable liquid crystal laser technology recently pioneered in CMMPE with the aim of establishing a spin-out company.

CSTI building partnershipsCSTI hosted a workshop on 3-4 March exploring ways of building long-term strategic university-industry partnerships. The workshop brought together senior thought-leaders from leading UK and US universities, their counterparts from major research-intensive multinational firms, as well as representatives from government funding agencies.Opening the workshop, the Vice Chancellor of Cambridge University, Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, set the 70+ delegates the challenge of identifying key practices for developing strategic partnerships

that delivered lasting value and were sustainable. The workshop then explored a number of themes, including: the value (and potential downsides) of strategic partnerships; how to initiate and grow them; how to nurture them to realise value; and how to deal with change.The participants – from university, industry and government, from the US and UK – revealed important differences (and similarities) across organisations, sectors and countries; and identified key effective practices and guiding principles for developing strategic partnerships. These lessons and insights will be captured in a workshop report to be disseminated in summer 2014.The workshop was organised by Tomas Ulrichsen and Eoin O’Sullivan at CSTI in partnership with PraxisUnico, the University-Industry Demonstration Partnership (UIDP), and UK Government’s Science & Innovation Network.

Notice boardGrant-writing adviceEoin O’Sullivan will share his tips for writing successful grant applications on Thursday 3 April. His talk is titled Impact Statements with Impact, Support Letters that Support: ‘Grantsmanship’ tips for selling your industry partnerships and ‘pathways-to-impact’ . It takes place at 12-1pm in Seminar Room 2, followed by lunch and networking.This seminar aims to share effective grant-writing practices and lessons for successfully communicating: (1) the value, contribution and relevance of your industry partnerships; and (2) a compelling ‘pathways-to-impact’ statement. In particular, the seminar shares insights into the ‘psychology’ of reviewers and review panels: what appeals to them and what turns them off, what is likely to make them recommend funding and why they might urge a funding agency to turn an application down.Eoin, director of CSTI, has read more research grant proposals and reviews than he cares to remember.

He is currently co-authoring a book (with a former US National Science Foundation programme director) on ‘How to Write a Successful Research Grant Proposal’.This seminar is courtesy of the IfM’s Research Capability Programme. To attend, please contact Charles Boulton (cb683@cam.ac.uk) to reserve a place and lunch.

Annual research workshopThe 21st Annual Research Methodology Workshop opens its door to students and research staff on 10 and 11 April. The event equips participants with an appreciation of research design, methods and how to overcome potential challenges in their research. First year/early stage PhD students find it particularly helpful to their research. For details see www.ifm.eng.cam.ac.uk/events/research-methods-2014/There are two options for participation in the workshop:1) Full registration: To attend all the lectures, the interactive session and the workshop dinner, apply online and

contact your Centre Administrator for payment details.2) Partial registration: If you would like to attend only specific lectures or the interactive session, please contact the organizing team to express your interest. The IfM Research Capability Development Programme is glad to sponsor a few places for partial registration.If you have any queries, please contact the workshop organizing team Sudhir Rama Murthy (ssrr3@cam.ac.uk), Jingchen Hou (jh821@cam.ac.uk) and Dominik Deradjat (dd418@cam.ac.uk).

Courses and eventsl Free webinar – Total information risk management Thursday 10 April

l IfM Briefing DayTuesday 13 May

l Visual Approaches for Strategy and Innovation ManagementTuesday 20 May

Alliance’s new membersThe CSA has expanded its membership to six with the recent additions of GEA and Zoetis. GEA is one of the largest suppliers for the food processing industry and a wide range of other process industries and employs around 18,000 people worldwide. The group’s operating segments include food solutions, farm technologies, mechanical equipment, process engineering and refrigeration technologies. The service business represents a substantial portion of the total volume.Zoetis is a leading animal health company, dedicated to supporting its customers and their businesses. Building on a 60-year history as the animal health business of Pfizer, Zoetis discovers, develops, manufactures and markets veterinary vaccines and medicines complemented by diagnostic products and genetic tests and supported by technical services, with a focus on both farm and companion animals.The first CSA Community of Interest Meeting took place on the 17-18 February at the University of

Cambridge. It is designed to provide an open forum where Alliance partner firms can share experiences and ideas, learning directly from one another. The next meeting will take place on 7-8 April in Cambridge with a focus on service ecosystems

and service metrics. The following meeting is on 7-8 July in Chicago with a focus on making the shift to services. The final one for 2014 is on 8-9 December in Cambridge and it will focus on big data and service optimisation.

Recent publicationsWilliams, N L, Ridgman, T, et al (2014): Internationalization as Interaction: A Process Perspective on Internationalization from a Small Developing Country, Thunderbird International Business Review, 56(2), pp 127-144.

Here is a selection of our latest media coverage:Keeping pace with ideasFeature-length interview with Stew McTavish, director of ideaSpace.Cambridge Business magazinePrint

The value of failureStew McTavish and Keith Cotterill, former IfM PhD student and entrepreneur, speak about how to exploit the economic potential of business failure.BBC Radio 4 programme broadcast on 6 March

Robotiky makes coding as simple as A B C++MET alumnus John Ginger, who has set up a firm called Robotiky, is trying to raise £25k to manufacture a robot that teaches children computer programming.Wired.co.ukhttp://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-03/06/robotiky

Mike SharmanObituary in The Daily Telegraph

Print and online at www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/10688360/Mike-Sharman-obituary.html

Increasing uptake of electric car usageCSA researchers suggest ways of increasing electric car rental usage in Japan.Machinery Marketwww.machinery-market.co.uk/news/5884/Increasing-uptake-of-electric-car-usage

IfM leads research in £23m project to reconfigure UK pharma supply chainsCIM will lead the research in the £23m REMEDIES (RE-configuring MEDIcines End-to-end Supply) project. Cambridge Networkwww.cambridgenetwork.co.uk/news/ifm-to-lead-research-in-23m-project/

38 Cambridge Business March 2014 cambridge-news.co.uk/Business/ Cambridge Business March 2014 39

What’s in a name? take ideaspace. split it one way and you have ‘idea’ and ‘space’, and that tells you what it does – it provides a space for an idea to grow and flourish.

split it another way and you get ‘ideas’ and ‘pace’ – and therein lies the rub. the key word is ‘pace’. the pace of ideas is constantly growing but the pace of space to house them is not. and that is the challenge facing stew Mctavish, the director of ideaspace.

Cambridge has never been short of an idea or two – 90 affiliates of the University of Cambridge are Nobel Prize laureates, nearly one a year since the prize’s inception in 1904. space, on the other hand, is always at a premium.

stew joined the university in september 2009 to be the director of ideaspace, after an entrepreneurial career as founder of three companies and advisor to many start-ups. In June 2010 ideaspace welcomed its first member.

the initial intake included audio analytic, Polysolar, Green tide turbine and Magicsolver – the first three are still members and the fourth is one of a growing cast of illustrious alumni.

Recalling the inception of ideaspace, stew says there was scepticism: “the vision came from the need for somewhere else other than bedrooms and coffee shops to set up companies. People had tried co-working in Cambridge in the past but nothing had taken off. People said: ‘Co-working? Yeah, right.”’

Created as a temporary project, ideaspace has flourished at its West Cambridge home in the hauser Forum. It has around 140 members representing 80 ventures, including those at the city centre location in Miller’s Yard, opened in 2013.

stew said: “about a year ago, there was a six-month waiting list at West. We said: ‘how do we support this level of demand?’ We have done it in West. We then opened City. We are growing faster there than West was.’

there has been evolution along with growth. stew says: “We have evolved to working with founders to help them start companies and build teams around them. We are re-framing what we do. We work with founders. they are different from innovators and entrepreneurs. Founders are people who lead the discovery and creation of new business models.”

the geography of Cambridge was a consideration in opening the city centre site, says stew. “seventy-five per cent of firms in West have a link with a department or a researcher within a 15-minute walk of the hauser Forum. the process can be very iterative, very discovery driven and you can just walk across and take advantage when someone has a free hour. Geography on a minute scale makes a big difference.

“If we were to support the whole university, we needed to

be within a 15-minute walk of the whole university.”Being a part of the University of Cambridge is central to

ideaspace’s sense of purpose. stew says ideaspace occupies a place in the continuum between the university and the wider Cambridge Cluster. Members get access to Cambridge’s unique combination of research excellence, business leadership, investment opportunities and a pool of high-calibre employees. and they benefit from connections with other start-up founders, sharing knowledge and experience in the early stages of establishing a new venture.

“how do start-ups engage with the university to benefit from that knowledge, talents and skills?,” asks stew, before answering. “What we do is we help the founders to meet the university. On the flip side, running a company is a craft. You

need this sort of a community to develop your practical skills. We have people from the university in their early 20s setting up a company and people in their 40s who are on their third or fourth company. that mixture of skills really makes ideaspace work.

“the big thing we do is we curate the membership. Previous co-working was either non-selective or sector-specific. We only let in a certain profile of individual. We catalyse the companies to work together. We want to be a place where people start and not where they stop. We want them to connect with the larger Cambridge community and then move on.

“In contrast to a lot of business incubators, we are defined by what we don’t do rather than what we do. We are not >

technologytechnology

ideaSpace members are creating new business models which could benefit millions of people within a few years of start-up. John Downing talks to its director, Stew McTavish, about the new focus on ‘founders’ and the pressing need for space.

with

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Keeping pace

Not short of ideas: Stew McTavish Picture: Warren Gunn

Read all about it: IfM in the news

STIMulating research dayThe STIM consortium held a research day at the IfM on 26 February with workshops to capture industrial perspectives and test initial concepts. Four projects of the nine in this year’s programme were covered.1 ‘Marketing’ process for technology: The project aims to develop an approach to identify problems a technology can solve, at the earlier stages of innovation, to enhance the exploitation opportunities.2 Value creation and capture: Value creation for firms involved in R&D and product launch presents many challenges. This project focuses on communicating information between stakeholders involved in

assessing options, and ways the decisions taken can be tracked to project outcomes and value created.3 Project portfolio selection for pre-commercial investigations: It will explore how organisations appraise and select pre-commercial technological (and other) competences, in order to invest in their development. 4 Issues for R&D location with a focus on China: China has been one of the preferred destinations for companies to leverage its labour dividend and fast-growing domestic market. The project aims to develop a checklist of issues that a company must consider before locating R&D activities there.For more details see www.ifm.eng.cam.ac.uk/research/ctm/stim

Electronics conferenceSteve Hoath participated in the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) Technical Committee 119: Printed Electronics conference held on 17-19 March at Clare College as a recently appointed BSI (UK) representative, joining 50 other experts from Korea, Japan, Europe and the USA. His expertise was offered to Working Group 3 (Equipment) and in particular on existing proposals to define the method for measurement of inkjet speeds to be used by inkjet print-head manufacturers. Steve would like to hear from companies in the UK wanting to know more about these aspects of standardization, or have comments to feed back into the IEC TC119 expert panel.