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Made Smarter is now open!

As a manufacturer or production business, your daily challenges often revolve around managing frequent machine downtime, meeting customer demand, dealing with delays from manual tasks, and lacking essential data for decision-making – technology might just be the answer. Investing in technology can unlock numerous advantages for your business: streamlining operations, minimising waste, driving sales growth, exploring new markets, addressing resource constraints, enhancing competitiveness, and developing resilience, agility, and innovation.

Manufacturing and production businesses, based in the West of England can now apply for a variety of specialised support including grant funding, digital leadership training and access to a fully-funded student intern.

You'll also get a 1:1 consultation with an expert from the National Composite Centre who will undertake an audit to assess the current status of your business and areas of improvement. They will also recommend which measures from Made Smarter are most suitable to your business.

What support can I get?

Digital leadership training

A free course designed to support leaders and digital champions enhance their skills and get their business ready for a digital future.

Grant funding

Up to £20,000 match funded grants that can be used towards the purchase of new digital technology hardware or software.

Internships

Fully funded university level intern and support delivered by the University of the West of England.

Check if you're eligible

Start your application
  • Hand holding money icon You will need to be an SME with fewer than 250 employees
  • Location icon You will need to be located in the West of England (Bristol, Bath and North East Somerset , South Gloucestershire or North Somerset)
  • You must be a production-based business producing physical items in-house
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Apex Pumps

Andrew Simpson

"The 1:1 Digital Acceleration sessions with Made Smarter West of England were extremely worthwhile and helped me to take a new perspective and consider other opportunities for the business."

Essential Trading

Richard Cook

"The sessions with Made Smarter West of England were very positive. The first session was on site which made it easy for us to explain how our organisation functions, where our potential issues were and the strategies we are currently looking into. The recommendations were all relevant and very useful for our organisation."

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Bath Aqua Glass

Themis Mikellides

"The 1:1 Digital Acceleration sessions were extremely useful as it provided is with third party expert involvement and guidance. It helped us to see things from a different perspective, after all, it’s easy to lose track of the forest when so close to the trees."

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MinuteMan Press

Peter Wise

"The 1:1 Digital Acceleration sessions enabled us to access experts from outside the organisation who came into the business and made unbiased and unfiltered recommendations from observation and analysis, giving us a new perspective."

The impact so far

Kelpi team

Case Study: Kelpi and Made Smarter

BDM Machine

Case Study: Pinkmans Bakery and Made Smarter

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Speak with the team to access grants, guidance and support.

If you have any questions about the support on offer, please get in touch with the expert team at Growth Hub.

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