NWAA expands with product oriented approach

THE North West Aerospace Alliance has said the opening of its new Preston office is an important milestone in its move away from a reliance on public sector funding.

The aerospace cluster organisation lobbies for businesses in the industry’s supply chain. It has around 350 paying members but works with closer to 800 organisations across the sector, which is worth £3.7bn in the North West and around £7bn nationally.

Two thirds of the NWAA’s 35 staff will be based at the new 3,000 sq ft office at South Preston Office Village, with the remainder at its Nelson headquarters.

NWAA chief executive Martin Wright said the expansion into Preston marks a significant step in its transformation from a membership organisation reliant on public funding to one that is self sustaining.

A big part of that is the development of products and services, to be run out of Preston, that are of value to the aerospace sector and its supply chain.

Last year, the NWAA was granted £7.1m in funding from the Northwest Regional Development Agency and European Redevelopment Fund to develop its industry Aerospace Supply Chain Excellence (ASCE) programme, with a second follow-up programme.

Mr Wright told TheBusinessDesk: “We are developing processes for and working with large organisations. We develop programmes that are tailored for aerospace and we bring in specialists.

“The first programme was about developing the individual companies. This second programme is about getting those companies to work as an integrated cluster with universities, other companies, science-based businesses.

“It’s of regional benefit for companies to collaborate and share, and it means they have a much greater chance of fitting the model of larger work purchases down the supply chain.”

This development of ASCE 1 and 2 has marked a shift within the organisation to becoming more product orientated, he added.

“We are moving successfully to being commercially viable,” he said. “We have to have something to sell. We can’t just rely on events and networking and providing magazines and information o run the cluster. We need to be more sophisticated than that.

“Organisations like ourselves have to recognize there may be changes in where our funds might come from. Because something might be happening with the RDAs in the future we have to make provision for that and make sure we have continuity.”

The Preston expansion was marked with a visit from Quentin Davies MP, Minister for Defence Equipment and Support.

He said: “It’s very difficult to succeed in any market, but particularly difficult where there is lots of international competition and its very high tech. There is a lot to keep up with and it is difficult for businesses to do that alone.

“The work on the ASCE programme is exemplary and a model to be picked up by other sectors.”