TWI is one of Europe’s foremost independent not-for-profit research and technology organisations, employing over 800 scientists, technologists, administrative and support staff world-wide (560 in the UK and Europe) and with annual (2014) group sales of £79.3million. Many of the staff based at the UK headquarters in Cambridge have backgrounds in business, commercial, legal and technical subjects and with and thus have the capability to cover a wide range of expertise. TWI works across all industry sectors with expertise in key aspects of materials, materials joining, structural integrity, static and dynamic testing, Non Destructive Testing (NDT) and asset integrity. TWI has a large industrial membership of around 3000 members from 65 countries centred mainly in energy related business sectors such as oil & gas, petrochemical, process plant, power generation and their support industries (e.g. pressure vessel and component manufacture and fabrication) and also in the transportation industry sector of aerospace/air-transport, marine/shipping, rail and automotive and their support manufacturing and maintenance organisations.
TWI Wales was previously involved in a collaborative project which undertook an investigation into the development of an EMATS based inspection system. Added to this is the combination of specialist expertise and considerable knowledge of the railway domain and significant capability to build commission and validate an NDT system the staff and centre are well placed to support with the commercial exploitation of the proposed rail inspection system.
Furthermore, added to this is are the dedicated IP, Commercial and Marketing departments, who will assist the licencing and patenting of technology, market analysis and commercialisation and dissemination and exploitation respectively. TWI therefore has the ideal credentials to deliver a successful project, on time and within budget with a higher than normal chance of product exploitation at the end of the project and particularly where the project developments are highly relevant to their industrial membership that is currently around 3000 organisations in over 60 countries.