IfM News

ideaSpace, based just down the road from the IfM in the Hauser Forum, and with a city centre location since last year, provides office space and resources for anyone looking to start a new, high-impact company in Cambridge.In June 2010 ideaSpace welcomed its first member, nine months after Stew McTavish had joined the University of Cambridge to be the director of ideaSpace. That initial intake included Audio Analytic, Polysolar and Green Tide Turbine, all of which are still members, and MagicSolver, one of a growing list of alumni that includes almost 200 members who represent more than 70 companies.Day-to-day management of ideaSpace is provided by ECS and this includes maintaining the website, which was relaunched in December 2013.The focus at ideaSpace is on ‘founders’ – people who lead the discovery and creation of new

business models. ideaSpace is looking for people with big ideas and the drive to create a new business which will positively affect the lives of a million people within three to five years. The members and their employees work in a stimulating environment with other start-up founders and they have access to some of the UK’s most successful entrepreneurs and investors.Start-up founders can choose between drop-in or full-time membership packages for themselves and any employees they might have. Drop-in members are guaranteed workspace once a week and are free to call in at other times to see if space is available. Full-time members can have either a dedicated workspace or a different workspace every day. Membership options offer the flexibility required as business needs change.

ideaSpace has grown rapidly and expanded with the creation of the city centre location, in Miller’s Yard, Mill Lane, in 2013. It currently has around 140 members representing 80 ventures at the two sites. There are also plans to create a third location on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, near Addenbrooke’s Hospital. It works with governments, agencies and higher education institutions to develop policies, strategies and programmes to support a thriving start-up sector. The founders and companies at ideaSpace have hit the national headlines. A story in The Observer in December 2013 titled ‘Cambridge’s leading tech start-ups’ featured seven ideaSpace members out of the 16 firms profiled, six current and one of the alumni, MagicSolver. That list highlights the wide range of activities that ideaSpace firms are involved in:l Aqdot – it has developed and patented new technology for creating microcapsules filled with a range of active ingredients that can then be released under controll Audio Analytic – it produces software that automatically classifies sounds by means of computer analysis

January 2014No 193

Focus on: ideaSpace

Profs at play: Mike Gregory and Ian Hutchings show their skills at air

hockey at the IfM Christmas party

l Cambridge Carbon Capture – it works with industrial and university partners using mineral carbonation process chemistry to extract value from silicate minerals and wastesl IntelliSense.io – embracing the ‘internet of things’, it hooks up wireless-enabled sensors to industrial equipment and processes to unlock efficiency savingsl Knowledge Transmission – it brings high-quality learning materials to students at low cost through tablets and mobilesl MagicSolver – with its popular iPhone, iPad and Android apps, it helps smartphone users to discover the best apps every day for freel Sparrho – it is an intelligent discovery platform for science that provides updates and recommendations tailored to your interests and enables you to share them with others.Michael Priestnall, co-founder in 2010 of Cambridge Carbon Capture, said in the article: “We work extremely closely with Cambridge

University. The proximity of the Institute of Manufacturing and the Judge Business School, together with top-class students, was also a draw.”Other media have also picked up on the success of ideaSpace founders and companies – Cambridge Intelligence is listed in Business Weekly’s Killer 50 companies alongside world-renowned Cambridge firms like Abcam and ARM.

Meet the ideaSpace teamStew McTavish joined the University of Cambridge in September 2009 to be the founding director of ideaSpace, after an

entrepreneurial career as founder of three companies and advisor to many start-ups. He has a BA in Computer Science and an MPhil in Engineering from the University of Cambridge and he was both president and then chairman of the Cambridge University Entrepreneurs. Stew hopes to return to life as an entrepreneur when his two daughters are a bit older.Belinda Brown joined ideaSpace in May 2013 to manage the City location and is also PA to Stew.She spent the previous 10 years working in the voluntary sector as an office manager and PA and has experience of starting up several offices from scratch. Previously Belinda lived in Canada where she was a photographic journalist for a daily newspaper, enjoying everything from interviewing Indian Chiefs to covering winter ice storms and maple sugar trails.

. . . and farewell to AlysonAlyson Lee, who has been with the IfM and ideaSpace for eight years, will be moving on at the end of January. Alyson has been an integral part of the team and we

would like to take this opportunity to thank her for all her hard work. Alyson joined the IfM in 2006 down in the depths of Mill Lane as receptionist. She moved

from that role to support the SME team a few years later, then latterly as office manager for ideaSpace. We wish her all the very best with her future, and hope she comes back regularly for buns!

Spot the jumper . . .

Who was wearing these seasonal jumpers at the Christmas party at the IfM on 19 December? Turn to page 5 for the answers.

. . . jumpers for goalposts – IfM take on all comersOver the past month, we have seen IfM football Mondays turn into IfM vs the University, pitting us against the likes of Estate Management, the Moller Centre and the Schofield Centre. IfM won the games in terms of team spirit and effort levels, though this was not always reflected in the final score. On the IfM side alone, players from 17 countries have joined in since we started in September 2013. To play on Mondays at 5-6pm, email Nick Mann nm402@cam.ac.uk

Born 17 September 1933, died 20 December 2013

Mike Sharman was a pioneering course director in manufacturing at the University of Cambridge’s Department of Engineering.Mike did well at school and read Engineering at St John’s College, Cambridge. Always more keen on practical action than on abstract theorizing, he went to work for the famous de Havilland aircraft company in Hatfield. An enthusiastic and engaging communicator, Mike moved to become a lecturer at the highly-regarded Hatfield Polytechnic before being recruited back to Cambridge by John Reddaway to run a radical new postgraduate course, initially known as the Reddaway Plan. Reddaway had returned to join the staff of the Engineering Department after a period in industry. Encouraged by John Baker and Will Hawthorne, he outlined, with David Marples, a more engaging and demanding way to introduce graduates into industrial life rather than the then commonplace ‘sitting by Nelly’ – learning from experienced workers. After a couple of trial runs in long vacations the ‘Advanced Course in Production Methods and Management’ (ACPMM) was launched in 1966 with 12 handpicked graduates as ‘guinea pigs’, support from leading manufacturing companies of the time, and Mike Sharman as the Course Director.This pioneering role fitted Mike like a glove and he immediately took full ownership of the initiative. His energy, enthusiasm and knowledge of practical engineering as well as the theoretical context, inspired and excited the ‘guinea pigs’ who loved the course, as have successive generations of students. Lasting a full calendar year, and designed to emulate professional rather than student tasks and disciplines, the course involved an intense series of real 2-3 week

projects in factories across the country, interleaved with lectures from practitioners as well as academics. The projects, typically analyzing and improving factory operations, were almost always successful – sometimes spectacularly so. They demonstrated how bright young engineers with the right preparation could make an early impact in industry, boosting their professional confidence. Industry was delighted to see students getting to grips with the practicalities of engineering and manufacturing and graduates from the course were, and continue to be, much sought after.Under Mike Sharman’s vigorous and tenacious leadership the course flourished enjoying support from major companies as well as the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) at a time when manufacturing was much less fashionable. At its peak the course was able to take more than 50 students per year and was became the Advanced Course in Design, Manufacture and Management (ACDMM). Today, the course is the MPhil in Industrial Systems, Manufacturing and Management (ISMM) and its 40 places are regularly five times oversubscribed – though Mike always wished to see more bursaries for UK students.

The influence and legacy of the course cannot be over-estimated. Having run for many years purely on its reputation and without any qualifications, Mike piloted the course into the mainstream thanks to the encouragement of David Newland, the efforts of Colin Andrew, support from the Gatsby Charitable Foundation and the award of a Masters degree. The importance of blending practical engagement with theoretical study is now widely accepted as vital – Mike Sharman’s thinking and example were years ahead of this now accepted wisdom, not least in subsequent developments in Cambridge. Thousands of students have experienced the excitement of getting grips with the people and places that actually make things.But engineering and manufacturing practice and education were not Mike’s only passion. He was nationally known as an expert on, and an avid collector of, historic railway lamps. Those who had the privilege of being introduced to his collection will recall seeing his attic, shed and garage festooned with lamps – filling and covering the vintage Rolls Royce! In recent years he had been ensuring that many of these fascinating and often beautiful objects found their way into major public collections, though the nameplates from famous steam age equipment still decorate his hallway at home. Mike was a Fellow of Wolfson College from 1982 to 1996 and an Emeritus Fellow from 1996 to 2013. He was awarded the MBE in 1994 for his significant contribution to Engineering Education.Unfailingly generous, lnowledgeable and engaged, Mike substantially influenced the lives of many of us who were taught by him. He died peacefully and is survived by his three daughters and his wife, Margaret, whose calm and wise counsel was a perfect foil for Mike’s energy and enthusiasms.

Mike Sharman

Book (and report) reviewA short report designed to support engineering researchers to target journals for publication and to inform the process for raising the profile and impact of engineering education journals in now available online. The authors of the Manufacturing Industry Education Research Group (MIERG) report, Publishing Engineering Education Research, are Judith Shawcross and Tom Ridgman.Journals that publish engineering education research were investigated and a survey of researchers who sought to publish engineering education research in the last three years was undertaken to provide a picture of publishing practice. Suggestions for improvements were also sought from researchers in the survey.Download it at www.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/detail/disciplines/engineering/report-publishing-engineering-education-research

Following the book Inkjet Technology for Digital Fabrication by Ian Hutchings and Graham Martin, published by Wiley (UK) in 2013, Steve Hoath has been appointed by Wiley-VCH (Germany) as the editor of a new academic textbook to be published in autumn 2015.

Fundamentals of Inkjet Printing: The Science of Inkjet and Droplets is intended for inkjet research students. An international and UK authorship will complement chapters written by the Inkjet Research Centre. Steve says it will not help you fix your desktop printer or refill ink cartridges but it does aim to provide industrial research workers and students with a better understanding of the science underlying inkjet. The textbook will include worked examples for the students and some open problems too.Tim Minshall and Letizia Mortara have co-edited a book with Nicole

Pfeffermann, a colleague from Germany, called Strategy and Communication for Innovation, published by Springer. This book makes a contribution to the research on innovation communication by providing multiple perspectives on the latest research on innovation communication and strategic open innovation. It also provides guidance for managers seeking to understand ways by which they can leverage communication to support successful innovation.Tim and Letizia have written a chapter with Bettina Blasini, a second year PhD student in CTM, and Dr Rani Dang, a former visitor to IfM, and currently lecturer at the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis and the University of Gothenburg.For details of the book see www.springer.com/business+&+manage ment/technology+management/book/978-3-642-41478-7

Some of the CIS team spent most of December in Taiwan and China.On 2 and 3 December the World Federation Sporting Goods Industry (WFSGI) Workshop was held in Taipei to discuss the future of manufacturing in their industry and was attended by more than 180 representatives of brands manufacturers. Steve Evans and Dai Morgan provided support throughout the conference.On the first day Steve shared insights from the EPSRC centre‘s research and the outputs of the UK Government Future of Manufacturing Foresight exercise. Steve and Dai ran value mapping workshops, helping delegates explore business models, identify value they were missing or destroying, and design new models.Dai said: “It was a fascinating insight into an industry on the cusp of change with serious debate about the future shapes of the manufacturing system and how we organise and operate industry for a more sustainable future for all. “As conference co-summariser, Steve emphasised the power of forums such as the WFSGI to help move an

industry towards a more sustainable future and said this needs trust among partners and a common vision of the future.

On 16 December, Steve Evans (above, front centre) was awarded the title of Visiting Professor at the School of Management of the Northwestern Polytechnical University in Xi’an.He said: “I am deeply honoured by this appointment and am looking forward to furthering the links between ourselves, the school and Chinese industry. China is the world’s factory and is facing huge challenges and opportunities in industrial sustainability and we hope to learn from and contribute to the tackling of such issues.“Also in attendance were Ian Bamford and Dai Morgan, who,

along with Steve, were involved in a 5-day programme of meetings and visits with students, researchers, local officials and industry. Yuan Tao (below left) won a Young Scientist Award and Best Paper for her paper (along with Steve Evans and Dai Morgan) Policy Challenges to implement Industrial Symbiosis – Comparing UK and China at the Asian Conference of Management Science and Applications (ACMSA2013), 21-23 December, in Kunming, China.

Awards, papers and workshops: CIS in China

Jumpers spottedClockwise, from top left: Sudhir Rama Murthy; Sophie Fuller; Ella Whellams and Lauren King; Anna Rowntree; Simon Sennitt, Alyson Lee and Giles Hainsworth.

Golden goal at AtosModule 2 of the Atos – Gold for Experts Programme was delivered at the University of Paderborn, Germany, on 12-17 January by ECS. The module kicked off with a “world cup” tournament in table football. Countries were allocated at random to the six competing teams but the results had a familiar feel – overall champions were Brazil and Germany finished ahead of England! The module was mainly focussed on computer science topics with some IfM-led sessions delivered by Alan Cousens, Michèle Routley and Judith Shawcross covering topics including customer value propositions, strategic roadmapping and building business proposals.

Flora abounds at IfM pondOne of the most interesting sites on a survey of the Coton Footpath area on New Year’s Day by the Cambridge Natural History Society (CNHS) was the IfM pond. Jonathan Shanklin, of CNHS, said: “Around its margins the group found Henbane Hyoscyamus niger, a plant that is becoming rare in the county, ThornApple Datura stramonium and an unusual form of Black Nightshade Solanum nigrum with yellow fruits. The rough ground round the margin also had a good selection of other arable weeds, some of which were in flower.”He said the group hopes the pond will be allowed to develop naturally and that they will find further species during monthly visits to the area. Visitors are welcome on the walks, see www.cnhs.org.uk/coton_footpath.htm for details.

Professing innovationFunded by the Royal Academy of Engineering, three Visiting Professors of Innovation have been appointed to help develop innovation activities across the Department of Engineering.Rick Mitchell, Visiting Fellow at the IfM and former group technical and quality director at Domino Printing Sciences, will focus on undergraduate students. Sam Beale, former head of technology strategy at Rolls-Royce Group, will focus on academic and research staff while Pieter Knook, ex-director of internet services at Vodafone and president of Microsoft Asia, will concentrate on graduate students.

New report on high value manufacturingECS and IfM had a major involvement in The future of High Value Manufacturing in the UK – Pharmaceutical, Biopharmaceutical and Medical Device Sectors, prepared for the Technology Strategy Board.The aims of this report were to: identify the needs and capability gaps to achieving innovation in manufacturing through to 2025; determine actions to meet these needs and build capabilities; and better define the HVM landscape with additional data from the life sciences sector. Contributors to the report included Andrew Gill, Jonathan Hughes and Steve Mann from ECS, along with Leila Alinaghian and Jag Srai.The report, available to download from the Resources section of the IfM website, follows on from A landscape for the future of high value manufacturing in the UK (2012).

Arsalan Ghani, above, PhD student in CIM, was invited to speak in front of Great St Mary’s Church during the second University of Cambridge lecturers and staff strike.

Look out for henbane later in the year

Speaking out at strike

New visitorsMarkus Eurich joins the CSA as a visiting researcher until the end of 2014. Markus is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich). His research interests include technology and innovation management, business model design, and the interaction between strategy, business model and innovation, in particular in the context of information systems. He has led and participated in several projects regarding business model design and service innovation, high performance computing, and technology and innovation management. Prior to his academic career he had worked several years in the IT industry, mainly in the fields of business consulting and customer relationship management.

Xiaohong (Michelle) Chen has joined CTM as a visiting PhD student from The School of Public Policy & Management, Tsinghua University, China. She is studying open innovation and

technology transfer under the supervision of David Probert and Tim Minshall. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Southwest Jiaotong University and her research interests include open innovation, public policy and technological policy, knowledge transfer in university-industry collocation and open source software (OSS) community.

Nitish Gupta is a final year MBA student from Birla Institute of Technology & Science (BITS-Pilani), Pilani campus, India and is visiting CTM until May 2014. He will be writing

his master’s dissertation on project portfolio selection for pre-commercial investigations, one of the projects of the STIM consortium in 2014. He is working under the supervision of David Probert, Rob Phaal and Rick Mitchell. He worked on the Technology Leadership and Deployment project of STIM in 2013. Nitish holds a Bachelor of Technology in Computer Science Engineering from Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University and worked at Tata Consultancy Services Limited in India as a researcher for a year after completing his bachelor’s degree.

New joinersStefano Miraglia joins as a Research Associate at the CSA, where he leads collaborative strategy research on business model innovation in collaboration with BAE Systems, Caterpillar, GEA, IBM, Pearson and Zoetis. In particular, the research team seeks to understand how firms can influence value creation and capture in business ecosystems. Stefano has completed a PhD in Management at Imperial College London, where he participated in a large research project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and conducted in collaboration with IBM and British Telecom. His research aimed to understand how global ICT corporations manage the tension between efficiency and flexibility to sustain

growth and performance in the provision of product-service integrated solutions.

Veronica Martinez joined the CSA in January to work in the ‘Shift from products to services’ project. Veronica is a visiting professor at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany. Prior to this she worked at Cranfield and Strathclyde Universities as a researcher and lecturer. Her major research interests revolve around the fields of service performance, value creation and performance measurement and management systems. Veronica has led and participated in large European and UK research projects in products and services. Before her academic career, she worked in Daimler-Chrysler, Highland Spring, Alcan Chemicals, COMIMSA and Daks Group.

New arrivals – December baby boomDecember saw the arrival of three babies in the families of IfM staff past and present.First to appear was Elias Alexander, born on 15 December to Zied Ouertani (former IfM Research Associate at DIAL and Cambridge Service Alliance, now at ABB in

Germany) and wife Alexandra.Next came Laura, born on 27 December, a first child for Wen-Kai (Kai) Hsiao and Barbara Lorber.And Rachel Cuthbert, Martin, Hannah and Noah welcomed a new arrival in their family, Elijah Thomas, born on 28 December.

From left, Elias Alexander, Laura and Elijah Thomas

Notice boardAudience interactionThe next Bitesize Education seminar is Interacting with your audience – explore a range of different options identifying good practice and common problems to be avoidedIt takes place at 12.30-1.45pm on Tuesday 25 February in Seminar Room 3. You must reserve a place as lunch is provided – email Rebecca Meagor (rm727@cam.ac.uk).

Embedding your researchKnowledge Transfer Partnerships – how to embed your research in industry takes place at 12-2pm on Tuesday 4 February. Jan Stringer (regional KTP adviser), Professor Robert Mair (successful exponent of KTPs as core to his research) and Tariq Masood (past KTP associate) will describe how KTPs work in practice and how to make them most productive for research and for applications. The venue is the

Oatley Meeting Room, Department of Engineering main site. To reserve a place and lunch, contact Charles Boulton (cb683@cam.ac.uk).

Care for research centresResearch Centres – their care and feeding is part of a series run between the Research Capability Programme and CUED’s Inspiring Research through Industrial Collaboration theme.What happens when the initial euphoria has died down and it is time to find the second round of funding for a Research Centre? How do you find the funding, manage the transition and maintain momentum? What preparation is needed in the closing years of the first tranche of funding? How do you keep the industrial partners on board?In a panel session at 12-2pm on Thursday 20 February, Chris Rider

(CAPE), Jennifer Schooling (CSIC) and Ian Hutchings will discuss these questions. The venue is the Oatley Meeting Room, Department of Engineering main site. Contact Tariq Masood (tm487@cam.ac.uk) or Charles Boulton (cb683@cam.ac.uk) to reserve a place and lunch.

Courses and eventsl Inside IfMThursday 6 February

l Strategic Technology and Innovation Management Consortium Research Day 2014Wednesday 26 February

l Building and Sustaining Long Term Strategic University-Industry PartnershipsMonday 3 and Tuesday 4 March

Four new researchers . . .Daniel Summerbell starts his PhD under the supervision of Claire Barlow in CIS. He will be looking for ways to improve the greenhouse gas

emissions associated with industrial processes. He spent the last three years working as an operations consultant in France, Canada and the United States, and studied aerospace engineering at CUED, graduating in 2010.

Jee-Yeon Choi starts her PhD under the supervision of Steve Evans in CIS. She will be looking for ways to improve product design. She studied visual and industrial design as an undergraduate and received a master’s degree. She has five years’ experience in the field of product design.

Pu (Jacky) Liu begins his PhD under the supervision of Claire Barlow in CIS. His research interests are the end of life process of wind

turbine blades and advanced materials for wind turbine blades. Jacky received an MSc in nuclear engineering from Imperial College London and a BEng in mechanical engineering from University of Bristol. He has experience in finite element analysis, computer aid design and Matlab programming.

Ekaterina (Katya) Yatskovskaya joined CIM as a doctoral student under the supervision of Jag Srai. Before joining the PhD programme Ekaterina was awarded with a Master’s in Research from the Cass Business School, City University, London. Her main field of research was sustainability in the supply chain. Previously she obtained a Master of Science in Economics from St Petersburg State Polytechnical University (SPbGPU). Her thesis was devoted to operations management. Ekaterina holds a Bachelor of Economics from SPbGPU.

. . and one completed PhDGerry Frizelle passed his viva for PhD on 21 November. His submission was based on published work covering the development of performance measures for complex systems. These measures use ideas taken from Information theory and have been applied both in manufacturing companies and, more recently, in supply chains. This is the first time that a member of the IfM has made a submission for a PhD based on published work.

Promotion for PhilCongratulations to Phil Woodall who has been promoted to Senior Research Associate with effect from 1 February. Phil joined DIAL in April 2009 to work as a lead researcher on the Information Quality of Asset Management project. In 2011-2012,

he researched and lead the tool development of the KT-Box project. Since April 2012, Phil has been a lead researcher on the Aladdin project

which is funded by Boeing.

Recent publicationsMinshall, T, Kouris, S, Mortara, L, and Weiss, D (2014): Developing infrastructure to support open innovation: Analysis of case studies in the East of England, International Journal of Innovation & Technology Management 11 (1).Mohr, V, Garnsey, E, and Theyel, G (2014): The role of alliances in the early development of high-growth firms, Industrial and Corporate Change, Vol 23, pp233-259. doi: 10.1093/icc/dtt056Hoath, S, Vadillo, DC, Harlen, OG, McIlroy, C, Morrison, NF, Tuladhar, TR, Jung, S, Hsiao, WK, Martin, G, and Hutchings, I: (2014): Ink-jet printing of weakly elastic polymer solutions, Journal of Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics. doi 10.1016/j.jnnfm.2014.01.002

Conference papers:Ahn, J, Mortara, L, and Minshall, T (2014): Linkage between CEO characteristics and OI adoption in innovative SMEs, DRUID Academy, 15-17 January, Aarlborg, Denmark.Blasini, B, Minshall, T, and Mortara, L (2014): The role of communicators in innovation clusters: Initial evidence from the case studies of Munich and Cambridge, DRUID Academy, 15-17 January, Aarlborg, Denmark.Tao, Y, Evans, S, and Morgan, D (2013): Policy Challenges to implement Industrial Symbiosis – Comparing UK and China, Asian Conference of Management Science and Applications (ACMSA2013), 21-23 December 2013, Kunming, China.Yang, M, Vladimirova, D, Rana, P, and Evans, S (2013): Developing the Sustainable Value Analysis Tool (SVAT), Asian Conference of Management Science and Applications (ACMSA2013), 21-23 December 2013, Kunming, China.

Read all about it: IfM in the newsHere is a selection of our latest media coverage:Scientists make more eye cells – with an inkjet printerForbes (and also in several other media outlets)Researchers from the IfM have used inkjet printing technology to print cells taken from the eye for the first time. Print and online at http://www.forbes.com/sites/bridaineparnell/2013/12/18/scientists-make-more-eye-cells-with-an-inkjet-printer/

Redefining 21st Century Supply ChainsJag Srai on the global nature of the supply chain in the 21st century.Manufacturing Leadership JournalPrint

The next manufacturing revolution?Doroteya Vladimarova on value creation opportunities for businesses developing circular resource flows.Inside TrackPrint

Carbon nanotubes find real world applicationsMichael De Volder on the hype surrounding nanotubes and their ‘real world’ applications.New ElectronicsPrint and online at http://www.newelectronics.co.uk/new-electronics-digital-magazine/2686

Plant lifeSteve Evans on the characteristics

of a factory of the future.Tire Technology International

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