Profitable partnership between university and business
Transcript of Dr Kiran Fernandes discussing the Knowledge Transfer Partnership between the University of York and Oakdale (Contracts) Ltd.
This is a company based in North Yorkshire and the company were facing several problems. And when they started encountering these problems they contacted the local Business Link office and the Business Link office broadly analysed their case and thought that this was a topic that would be of interest to the academics at York University.
And once we came to know what exactly the nature of the problem was we realised that this was something that was not going to be solved in a matter of weeks or days, it was something we had to look at as a matter of a two or three year horizon. That is why the Knowledge Transfer Partnership was felt as the best avenue to pursue.
It’s a company that is in the business of landscaping products. That means they manufacture items from concrete, stone and other products of aggregate nature which is used in the construction industry for paving, slabbing, items related to kitchen, general garden-like equipment and so on and so forth so that’s broadly what the do.
The company is a small SME, a small-medium enterprise with about 20-odd people, the new managing director’s ambition was ‘what we need is probably a new culture, a new way of thinking.’ So he was very keen to say ‘I am very keen to get a new young graduate who has a new way of thinking and new ideas on board’ and so on and so forth. And the person has finished working for them for two years and the company has now offered him a fairly senior position.
Obviously, the company, like any other business, wants to increase their sales turnovers, they want to be looking at the export market, they want to of course increase their profit, they want to make sure the number of employees are safeguarded and of course they want to have a bigger market share. In all these areas I can easily quote the numbers and all are pretty significant changes to the company.
Subsequent to this project we have helped the company get a few local grants. Now one grant we have got them is to install robotics. Now this is a company that used to use chisel and hammers broadly in some form to break stones. The company in two years time is now having robos doing this work.
The company also, as a result of this, has applied for a patent now. The company is in the business of concrete manufacture. Concrete is an extremely non-eco-friendly product. Stones that come from different parts of the world are very heavy. To carry these stones from ports you need huge trucks. Again that creates a huge eco-footprint in the environment. So the company’s question was simple: we can’t go down this route forever, we need to think of a way of changing how we produce our products, how we make our products, because we can’t rely solely on concrete and stones. And the solution, without going into great details, is something that can be locally sourced, ie within Yorkshire, saves the company a lot of money and the product we are now currently planning to use is a product which is broadly taken down and now currently put in a big dump.
We have got many things at different levels. Most business schools in the country generally try to work with big companies. SMEs is generally not what they work with and so this was something different, new. We have had several case studies from this company that have been presented to our students. Several students spent their summer projects in the company. Two postgraduate students have graduated with their theses in this company. Last year the entire second year cohort used data sets from the company as part of the project. Some of my final year students are working on projects in this so we have gained a lot equally and also it has taught us because as academics we are more used to doing either theoretical research or research with big companies.
Knowledge Transfer Partnership is an excellent model in the world as it stands. It is knowledge transfer and it is not just knowledge transfer, it’s a partnership, it’s really a knowledge flow between two parties. It is a very good mechanism for academics to broadly transfer the theories, the hypotheses, the models they have into industry. Equally it is an extremely good opportunity for the academics to use the datasets from the company to validate their theories so I think it is a fantastic opportunity.
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