Sheffield Forgemasters joins forging research centre to go green

The Brightside steelmaker is a tier one partner with the University of Strathclyde’s Advanced Forming Research Centre, part of the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland.

Its new Sheffield office is run by manufacturing guru Keith Ridgway who co-founded the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre in Rotherham.

Forgemasters will now have access to the AFRC’s state-of-the-art research and development facilities in Renfrewshire.

David Bond, Sheffield Forgemasters CEO, said: “As we move into a new phase of our growth and development – both in clean civil nuclear energy and defence technology – it is vital that we harness the best brains and cutting edge equipment to support us on that journey.

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“This partnership with the AFRC, which is one of the seven High Value Manufacturing Catapult centres across the UK, allows us to do that in a way that may help us to become more innovative and productive while maintaining the most rigorous engineering quality standards.”

Forgemasters was recently nationalised and is now controlled by the Ministry of Defence.

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AFRC executive chair, Keith Ridgway, said: “Sheffield Forgemasters is an iconic global company with deep roots in the history of Sheffield and engineering innovation.

“But there are many other forging and forming companies in this part of the world that would benefit from partnering with the AFRC.”

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