Oh to be talked about upon one's launch!
Following my post to the list, there has been some confusion; presumably from those who
would see us as a competitor and do not see that the market can only benefit from "coopetition"
as to what the Centre does.
What we are about is quite simple really. We are a commercial organisation, with industrial
customers. Our crusade is not to seek to simply "sell RPandM" technologies or practices to industry.
What we do offer though, is a simple reduction in time to market, through the application of our
knowledge (partly for which I thank the list members again). A wide range of skills, services and
management paradigms that result from our philosophy of being beholden to no one technology, piece
of machinery or supplier: only to the Client. No force-fit.
The market for RPandM is large. It is inadequately served. If the number of services provided to the
market doubled overnight, would it hurt the existing supply? I think not. RPandM has been around
for some time and very little is known about it. De facto. As a marketer, and professional product
development marketer at that, it took some time to permeate through to me the advantages of the
technologies. The need to educate is apparent. The need to deliver and fulfil is overwhelming.
Fundamentally, we are not a bureaux in the traditional sense. We help design for rapid manufacture
and fix Client companies problems. As a founder member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing's
Technology group, we have studied the apparent need to provide solutions, not technologies or
prescriptive processes, but to offer a wide range of services and management strategic advice. Hence a
"Centre" as opposed to another traditional Bureaux. There are Bureaux aplenty out there!
Additionally, we are not an academic institution. We are a profit making organisation.
Strangely, there was a suggestion that we were also Euro-funded, and it would be a waste of time funding
our activities. Funny, I thought that to be "Europes new RPM Centre" may suggest that we work and
operate in Europe. Silly me, maybe it only means to tap into European money . . . . I had hoped that
being European was a bit more than that.
Finally, and I have taken up too much space here I know, but I have not been on the list long enough
to have seen the academia / bureaux wars. All I see is that Client companies, ie. manufacturers do not
need a war. What they need is a product development plan, better marketing research, project
management, vendor management and a host of other tangibles and intangibles to solve their problems.
Lets here it for coopetition! We have a long way to go!
David Hood
Director
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....The Rapid Prototyping and Manufacturing Centre....
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RPM Centre Ltd., Enterprise House,
1 Dalziel Street, Motherwell ML1 1PJ, Scotland
Tel: 01698 327 100 Fax: 01698 26 93 28
office@rpmcentre.com
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For more information about the rp-ml, see http://ltk.hut.fi/rp-ml/
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