Sustainable packaging firm DS Smith joins Coventry's Manufacturing Technology Centre

By Peter Davison

30 August 2023

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The Business Magazine article image for: Sustainable packaging firm DS Smith joins Coventry's Manufacturing Technology Centre

Rachael Biggs of DS Smith, Simon Philip Smith of the MTC, Glyn Tomlinson of DS Smith and Colin Bancroft of the MTC

Sustainable packaging, paper products and recycling services provider DS Smith has joined the Manufacturing Technology Centre as a member.

DS Smith and the Coventry-based MTC have already worked together on two major innovation programmes, with DS Smith benefiting from the MTC’s expertise in modelling and simulation to provide valuable insights and assistance.

The collaboration between DS Smith and the MTC will focus on automation and robotics, advanced tooling, data analytics and special purpose technology to test and prove the feasibility of innovations in different stages of development.

DS Smith aims to redefine packaging for a changing world. Headquartered in London the company operates in 34 countries across Europe and North America. Their innovation programmes and projects follow five core themes: circular ready and reusable packaging, e-commerce packaging and fulfillment, consumer packaging, supply chain agility, and smart packaging.

Glyn Tomlinson, group innovation operations and technology manager at DS Smith said, “We’ve built up a good relationship with the MTC over the past three years working together on research projects, so it is great to now step up our relationship by becoming a member.

"We have an ambitious innovation and research and development agenda at DS Smith that seeks to create more value for our customers with radically different packaging products and services.

"Partnering with the MTC and its members on the enabling manufacturing technologies will be vital. I’m excited to get more involved in collaborative research opportunities.”

Colin Bancroft, senior business development manager at the MTC, said, “Building on the relationship that has been established with DS Smith, the MTC is keen to support them in the development of the next generation of sustainable packaging through the use of automation and digital technologies.

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"It is great to see DS Smith’s commitment to innovation and R&D and welcome them on board as valued members. I see the relationship growing from strength to strength over the coming years with many exciting opportunities to be explored.”

The MTC aims to provide a competitive environment to bridge the gap between university-based research and the development of innovative manufacturing solutions, in line with the Government’s manufacturing strategy. The MTC is part of the High Value Manufacturing Catapult, supported by Innovate UK.

By Peter Davison

Peter Davison is deputy editor of The Business Magazine. He has spent his life in journalism – doing work experience in newsrooms in and around Bristol while still at school, and landing his first job on a local newspaper aged 19. By 28 he was the youngest newspaper editor in the country.

An early advocate of online news, he spent the first years of the 2000s telling his bosses that the internet posed both the biggest opportunity and greatest threat to the newspaper industry and the art of journalism. He was right on both counts.

Since 2006 he has enjoyed a career as a freelance journalist. He lives in rural Wiltshire with one wife, two children, and three cats.