A spotlight on innovation: Top tales of engineering excellence

Woman’s legacy helps inspire 2,000 young people to pursue STEM careers
Nearly 2,000 pupils will have the opportunity to get a better taste of vocational learning, thanks to the expansion of the STEM Engagement Fund in the Black Country and Birmingham. Five additional schools will take part
in In-Comm Training’s intensive mix of STEM workshops, apprenticeship taster days, pre-apprenticeship courses, and the nationally recognised F1 in Schools programme launch days.

The new financial backing is the brainchild of Michael Orlik and his sons Anthony and Phillip, who have gifted £25,000 to the Training Manufacturing Group
(TMG)’s charitable fund in memory of their wife and mother Susan, who lost her life to cancer in 2022. The fund will honour Susan’s legacy as a passionate advocate of giving young people the best start in education and employment.

UK’s first large-format hybrid 3D printer expected to
drive “major reshoring boom”
Exeter-based Rapid Fusion has tapped into a £1.2m grant from Innovate UK to develop, test, design and build Medusa, an industrial 3D printer which is three times faster than conventional machines, twice as accurate, and promises to reduce training and maintenance costs by 30
percent.

Projected to bring a potential £5m revenue return in the first year after launch, the company believes the project will act as “catalyst for many domestic companies to bring production back – it could have that big an impact on manufacturing performance and cost points”.

Read the full article in DPA's March 2025 issue