Examination of Witnesses (Questions 140
- 155)
WEDNESDAY 2 JULY 2008
PROFESSOR SIR
DAVID KING,
MR CHRIS
WILLIAMS, DR
TOM TAYLOR
AND MR
NIGEL PERRY
Q140 Mr Boswell: If I were, hypothetically,
in the position of having a good idea and maybe some pre-developed
technology, you would be able to fit me up with the people I needed
to get hold of?
Mr Williams: Yes.
Q141 Mr Boswell: There is a specific
point to you Chris, and others may want to contribute. I think
in your evidence you suggest that academics are often unable to
access state of the art facilities. Richard Friend rather said
the contrary. Maybe he can, but why is there this difference of
view? I have set it up for you by saying, if I have got a good
idea it is going to be all right, somebody will get hold of it
and eventually, if Sir David works his miracle, we will have finance
as well, but are there gaps here and how can we address them most
effectively? How can we expose them and how can we then address
them?
Mr Williams: There are severe
gaps in the quality of resource available to universities around
the UK that are interested in engaging in plastic electronics.
Q142 Mr Boswell: I think you did
mention that earlier, did you not?
Mr Williams: Yes. It is really
when they are looking to bid in for project work and to create
the industrial consortia to work with them. They can be extremely
limited in terms of the resources available to them, so it can
very often be a self-fulfilling prophecy that companies will prefer
to deal with a Cambridge or a Manchester, simply because the resources
are better, rather than with a Brunner, or with a Hull, or with
a Bangor.
Q143 Mr Boswell: Nigel, you wanted
to come in.
Mr Perry: I was going to make
a point in the CPI context. What we discovered again when we looked
at starting it up is that the skill-set that is required to actually
do some of these things is different but complementary to the
skill-set you find in universities? If you talk to industry, if
you actually examine the market place, you will find this integrating
role is needed, which is people pulling everything together. That
is exactly what CPI is there to do. So the industry will talk
to CBI; we will then talk to and engage with the academics; we
then provide the assets, and so it is actually recognising where
the skills are that are needed, what part of the chain you are
in, what part of the process you are in. Putting large assets
of the sort that we have going into PETeC into a university may
not yield the results you want because you would then have to
complement it with the skill-set that you would need to commercialise
and drive the—
Q144 Mr Boswell: Specifically, if
you need access to a higher grade facility, be it Cambridge or
Manchester or wherever, in order to support a particular piece
of development on behalf of one of the members or otherwise, are
there levers that you can use, as it were, to bang heads together
and say, "Do not sit on this kit. Make sure that it is available
to somebody so they can then develop it"? Have you got some,
if not sanctions, at least some fairly strong moral persuasion
if necessary?
Dr Taylor: There are always moral
arguments present and available, but there are two challenges
for us. The first one is CPI is not an academic institution, so
we cannot be funded by Research UK, we can only be funded by the
TSB and by the RDAs, et cetera. Where a university has a particular
piece of kit, we do provide very strong encouragement that that
piece of kit is made available, but we have noticed that there
are differing policies across the UK universities as to how to
access that kit depending on IP policy, depending on full economic
costing, et cetera. It is for that basis that we would strongly
argue that the kit is located at CPI, because we are about as
independent as you get. We are not privately owned; we are in
the centre space.
Q145 Dr Blackman-Woods: I think these
are questions probably for Tom and Nigel. PETeC is going to open
later this year. What is it going to do? What facilities is it
going to have and why will it benefit the plastics electronic
community?
Dr Taylor: We have been involved
in this endeavour now for four years. It started in flexible electronics
with a joint venture with Dupont Teijin Films, creating what has
been termed an open access facility. That is a facility that is
shared with Dupont Teijin Films and then shared with the rest
of the population, and the PETeC Centre has grown into an extension
of that model. We received keys to the building last week and
it is currently being kitted out to open in September. It has
been set up to provide as broad a range of high technology, leading-edge
capability as is possible given our existing resources. We have
been very careful not to pick any one technology winner and not
be too narrow, but to have as broad a range of technology as we
can afford, while at the same time starting off with a focus.
We have had to do that, otherwise we would be diluted. Our initial
focus was on the display area, and that was informed by the market.
It was also informed by the particular skill base in the north
of England, the material strengths and the capability that was
arranged to us. The capability in that area is broader than some
of the evidence that I heard or saw at the last session. The underlying
technology starts roll-to-roll. The film that is made is manufactured
in a roll process. Some of the technologies that add value to
that are done on a roll process and roll technology is being looked
at to add further value. Currently there is no technology developed
to have complete roll-to-roll manufacturing throughout the whole
chain, so at a point down the chain you get more diverse technologies,
and we have been able to secure a sufficient private sector and
public sector backing to get a range of technology solutions,
so companies in the UK will have access to high technology capital
equipment. The open access model allows for public funding to
establish such a facility and then a trading vehicle to give people
access to that, and that includes advanced printing technologies,
a review of flexigraphic printing, advance patterning technologies,
a novel UK technology that is being pioneered, inkjet printing,
and some of these other technologies, will all be present within
PETeC. So there is a diversity of technologies. This was initially
focused in the display area, but, as it has evolved and we have
achieved a critical mass in that area, we have been able to enter
the lighting and one or two other sectors, particularly where
the UK has strengths, and we have been able to get consortia together
to do that. Recently a large TSB sponsored project is allowing
the acceleration of a UK LED lighting solution.
Chairman: Okay, I think we have got a
good flavour.
Q146 Dr Blackman-Woods: What would
you say to your critics who say you are putting all your energies
into one production process: if that fails the PETeC is going
to fail, that this is a dangerous route to go down?
Dr Taylor: I would say that that
is misunderstanding the complexity of the situation. People see
the very impressive roll technology that we have assembled at
Wilton in combination with Dupont Teijin. We have not been able
to show people all the new technology that is emerging in PETeC,
I think it is probably fair to say, but it is diverse. It has
to be. It cannot be everything to all people. One of the things
we have to do is to focus and to make choices, and in doing that
we will not satisfy all quarters.
Q147 Dr Blackman-Woods: What about
Plastic Logic's assertion that PETeC has only a 50% chance of
success?
Dr Taylor: Given the chances of
success in a high-tech industry are often put at one in 10, I
would take that as a compliment. A 50:50 chance, I think, says
we are above the curve, and I believe we are above the curve.
Our order book, our business development, is well ahead of the
business plan that we assembled 18 months ago. We have seen more
interest, we have been able to diversify our operation faster
than we thought, we were able to achieve critical mass much sooner
than we first thought. On the metrics that were set with the fund
providers, with the bids that we won, we are ahead on those, so
at the moment we are particularly confident about the business
plan going forward.
Mr Williams: Could I make one
comment? The review that was done of the PETeC Centre last year
was not done by Plastic Logic, it was done by Stuart Evans and
David Monk acting on behalf of UKDL, where we were invited to
pass comment, and they, very kindly, agreed to visit the very
senior experienced people in the UK with tremendous business acumen
and were able to prepare a detailed report that was submitted
back through to PETeC and also through to us at UKDL. We expressed
concern at the time that the business plan appeared to be predicated
on focusing in the Far East to secure off-shore research programmes.
We felt that there was a far greater need for focus in the UK,
that the UK community would be more than enough to satisfy the
business requirements of the PETeC Centre, and we were very concerned
that there would be a loss of focus on the UK's lead, but it was
very frustrating because we could see that the RDA places very
strict sustainability issues on to the PETeC Centre, but the business
growth from the UK has shown that the UK will be sustaining the
PETeC Centre very strongly as it goes forward into the future.
Mr Perry: Can I make a couple
of comments? First of all, we are setting our stall out to be
a better than 50:50 chance of success. There is a risk-management
process, we do have a technology and industry advisory group that
guides us, UK Lighting and Displays, amongst other people, at
present on that so people are very fully informed and very involved
in what PETeC is doing and how it moves forwards. Secondly, on
the commercial sustainability issue and drive, there are a number
of reasons for doing that, but, obviously, there is the sustainability
issue. The RDA is keen that we reduce our dependence on them,
quite rightly, but it is also very important that we prove our
capability on the international stage. The way I would like to
phrase it is that we can do more good for the UK by proving that
we are genuinely internationally capable than ranked really as
well-meaning, gifted amateurs grown up in the north-east of England.
I think the international competitive pressure that we sense is
absolutely crucial in setting the standards and setting the ambition
to which the centre can and will operate.
Q148 Dr Blackman-Woods: I am obviously
very pleased that you are located where you are, because you are
just outside my constituency, and I hope you are really successful,
but we have had a previous panellist query whether it was entirely
sensible to be located where you are. How would you answer that
challenge? Why is it important that you are located at NETPark?
Mr Perry: There has been a strategic
intent from the north-east to have an interest in printable and
plastic electronics in the region. There are a number of significant
initiatives which indicate that that is the right thing to do.
The Siemens' facility at (?) unfortunately is now being closed
down, but the skill-set in the region is also very significant.
So, driving forwards off that strategic intent, the RDA has been
very keen to establish the centre and it has followed on from
that. The other point, you look at places like MIT and Harvard,
and you are very often given and pointed at those as good examples,
but having been there, the activity is within 100-mile radius
of Harvard and MIT. If you draw a 100-mile radius around Leeds,
you encompass an awful lot of the UK. I think it is very important
that we stop thinking about the UK regionally and start thinking
about the UK operating together as a whole. PETeC has a role in
the north-east of England. Chris has already mentioned OMIC in
the north-west. We have got the Cambridge IKC, we have got the
Welsh Printing Centre, we are starting to assemble a national
capability.
Q149 Chairman: Briefly, can you say
whether you feel this is a good idea? Is it good use of government
money to actually put in the PETeC centre and the Welsh Centre?
Professor Sir David King: Briefly,
yes, I do.
Q150 Chairman: You would have more
of it?
Professor Sir David King: We need
more of it. Absolutely.
Q151 Chairman: It was not a foolish
decision to put it in the north-east?
Professor Sir David King: No,
but there is a real question around that. A good decision, but
the question I have is in terms of RDA support and the different
levels of RDA support for different parts of the country. Is the
distribution the right one? I understand the political need to
see that there is a more even distribution of development around
the country, but we might lose a few development arguments around
the south-east, because the RDA is relatively poorly funded. So,
when it comes to a competition, the south-east is going to tend
to lose out.
Q152 Dr Turner: PETeC is undertaking
contract work for Samsung. Is this a harbinger of things to come?
Is the plastic electronics industry about to go big in manufacturing
in the Far East rather than in the UK? What other contract work
have you got?
Dr Taylor: I will just put it
into perspective. We are currently working with 30 institutions,
23 of whom are in the UK, at this early stage in our development.
So of companies identified active in the UK, we are working with
half of them already. The plastic electronics industry is going
to become pervasive, and you can make an analogy, I think, to
the ".com" industry. Most transactions today over the
Internet are done by supermarkets, most trading is done by the
existing players who have taken advantage of a new technology,
but at the same time it has created opportunities for new business
models to emerge, such as eBay. You can imagine that happening
in plastic electronics. Plastic electronics is on the road map
of all the big manufacturers, so they are below the surface, but
in Korea, Japan, Taiwan they have plastic electronics road maps.
They are going to incorporate plastic electronics in their products
of the future. One of the unique things about PETeC and CPI, in
competition with the Fraunhofers and the others, is we are very
commercially networked, so we are privy to the road maps of the
world's leaders. That is why we are doing business with them,
to understand their needs, and so we are working with customers
in the Far East to put UK solutions into their road map. In the
future you will see, I have no doubt, the Far East manufacturing
plastic electronics containing UK technology. You will also see
emergent new models. You will see the Plastic Logics, the CBTs
and the UK success stories. We have 23 UK initiatives and we have
seven overseas initiatives, and that is partly a sign-posting
exercise; it is partly a demonstration of our competitive strength
in the UK, that we are able to licence UK technology abroad.
Q153 Dr Turner: Does that imply that
you do not see a prospect of large-scale manufacturing in plastic
engineering in the UK?
Dr Taylor: Not at all. The advantage
of a sea-change in technology is its levels of playing field.
The people out in Asia understand silicon very well; plastic is
completely new to them. They are very pragmatic people. One reason
they succeeded in flat panel displays was their pragmatism in
incorporating UK and US technology into their devices, and they
are out doing that now and they will get the technology from wherever,
whoever is prepared to co-operate, and they will pay handsomely
for it. The UK benefits at the moment from the materials that
go into the existing chain, and we will benefit in the future,
but it does not mean to say that we cannot compete with that and
that we cannot assemble the innovation. I think that model, the
preparedness to go out there and be confident that we can compete
abroad and engage and inform the UK sector of what it needs to
do and help join that supply chain, is a winning formula.
Q154 Chairman: I am going to have
to finish there because we have literally run out of time. There
are a number of issues that we would like to write to you about,
if we could. I wonder if we can finish this session, Sir David,
by just asking you, as briefly as possible, to say what advice
would you give to our committee for a recommendation in terms
of this particular inquiry? What would you like to see us recommend?
Professor Sir David King: I think
each of the issues that we have been looking at and discussing
this morning (but you have been hearing evidence for longer) inevitably
lead to the conclusion that government needs to provide much more
focus for this range of activities. We discussed procurement,
and I would very much hope that you would look at the procurement
issue. We have discussed what other countries are doing, the Fraunhofer
Institutes, for example. I think you see a nascent Fraunhofer
emerging here, and so my interest is for you to take as a committee
plastic electronics as an exemplar of what we can do in other
areas. It is building rather well here, it could go much faster,
with more support and that procurement issue, but what are the
general issues that arise in terms of British manufacturing from
this high-tech sector?
Q155 Chairman: On that note, can
we thank you very much indeed, Sir David King, Chris Williams,
Nigel Perry and Dr Tom Taylor. Thank you very much indeed.
Dr Taylor: Chairman, could we
extend an invitation to the committee to come and see us? We would
welcome to give you written evidence, but we would be very welcome
to show you—
Chairman: We are intending to come to
see you in September, if you can fit that in.
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