The £43m Factory 2050 at Sheffield Business Park

The £43 million circular building at Sheffield Business Park has been designed as a centre of excellence for advanced manufacturing.

It aims to build on the work success of their investment in the original Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre on the Advanced Manufacturing Park across the dual-carriageway at Catcliffe.

Sheffield City Council has now approved plans for the scheme, known as Factory 2050.

The building will combine a range of technologies, including advanced robotics, flexible automation, unmanned workspace, off-line printing in virtual environments linked to plug-and-play robotics, 3D printing from flexible automated systems, man-machine interfaces, and new programming and training tools.

The state of the art development will be built by the University of Sheffield, which is behind the AMP and AMRC.

Since the first University building opened there in 2004, four further new buildings and two extensions have been added to provide a current total of around 30,000 sq. m of accommodation.

A spokesman said: “The new location, sited directly opposite the existing developments on the other side of the Parkway, will help to secure Sheffield’s place at the heart of advanced manufacturing in the UK and as a key player on the global stage.”