Tickets are now available for Innovation Rocks, the brand new event created by Rock the Cotswolds showcasing incredible speakers and advisers from the area which will be held at the Renishaw’s mind-blowing £20 million Innovation Centre, opened less than a year ago by HRH The Princess Royal.
The Centre is located at the company’s headquarters site near Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire, but the then Princess Anne opened an extension to Renishaw’s first commercial premises located within the town of Wotton back in 1980.
At that time Renishaw had:
– just over 100 employees
– annual sales of £2 million
– all of its employees based at one site
– no overseas operations
– just recruited its first apprentice (1979)
– just won its 2nd Queen’s Award
Today the company:
– has over 4,000 employees
– had annual sales for the year ended June 2015 of £495 million
– has 15 offices in the UK and an additional 61 offices in 34 countries, including 12 offices in China
– has 120 apprentices in training and this year will also recruit around 70 young graduates
– was honoured in 2015 with its 18th Queen’s Award
Reflecting on her original visit The Princess Royal commented, “It’s extraordinary how you have evolved that technology which was so ahead of its time into being such an integral part of pretty well what anybody wants to do in terms of precision manufacturing; an astonishing achievement.”
The Renishaw Innovation Centre houses research and development and corporate services staff, as well as demonstration, training and conference facilities. The additional space is also enabling Renishaw’s spectroscopy and laser calibration product lines to relocate to the company’s headquarters site.
Guests of Innovation Rocks will be able to get up close to results of this astounding R&D including the world’s first metal 3D printed bike that’s rather well connected…..
Photo: courtesy of MTA
Here it is being admired by Sir Chris Hoy and he’s not the only one – since its creation the bike’s met Princess Royal (twice), Prince Charles, David Cameron (twice), Vince Cable, Sir Ben Ainslie, James Cracknell, Ben Morgan, plus numerous other politicians, TV and sports personalities – it even got mentioned by the PM at PMQs two weeks ago….
Speaking about the new building Sir David McMurtry, Renishaw’s Chairman and Chief Executive, said, “The Renishaw Innovation Centre is one of a series of significant investments that we are making to secure our future growth here in the UK, and in our many overseas markets. This building on its own represents a £20 million investment and I would like to thank all of the Renishaw employees and our contractors who have worked incredibly hard to deliver such a high quality facility.”
For an innovative engineering company, it is appropriate that the design and construction of the Renishaw Innovation Centre was a challenging process that needed innovative solutions. The existing site slopes significantly in places, and the requirement was for a building on a single level, not stepped along its length. Additionally the centre is a very well insulated structure that is mechanically heated, cooled and ventilated and all 40 meeting rooms are named after British innovators, primarily in the fields of science and engineering, but also innovators local to Renishaw’s headquarters site such as Tyndale, Jenner and Pitman.
Said Sir David McMurtry, Renishaw’s Chairman and Chief Executive: “This excellent new building is a place which we hope inspires people and whilst it is very much focused on the future and helping Renishaw and our customers to achieve ever greater technology breakthroughs, we are also very keen to honour those British innovators who have helped us as a society get to where we are today.”
www.renishaw.com www.rockthecotswolds.com
