The Tees Valley is home to a new cutting edge research and development business, Applied Scientific Technologies, which plans to forge a niche global market in high-end technologies and robotics.
AST is led by experienced mechatronics expert Jamie Marsay, with financial backing and support from the directors of one of the Tees region’s leading automation and control experts, Stokesley’s Applied Integration.
The new business, which has visions of recruiting at least 10 staff over the next three years, will look to harness cutting edge scientific technologies to bring a range of hi-tech products to market its directors believe could revolutionise a wide range of 21st Century industries.
AST’s directors say the new company is unique in the global market, in seeking to harness new niche digital technologies such as Industry 4.0 that includes cyber-physical systems, the Internet of Things and cloud computing.
Marsay, who has previously enjoyed 17 years in senior engineering and managerial positions with Stokesley’s Labman Automation, said: “I’m absolutely elated because the potential for Applied Scientific Technologies is fantastic. It’s what I’ve wanted to do for a long time.
“We all see the potential that is there. I’ve got no doubt that this is a massive emerging market and am very confident this will be a huge business.
“There’ll initially be a need for lots of research and investment but there are huge potential rewards at the end of it. The areas in which we want to operate are emerging and growing markets, it’s where all the funding is, and it’s a sector that doesn’t have an issue in either attracting or retaining talent because it’s so cutting edge and exciting. We are at the start of the next generation of innovation and technologies.”
Describing the work AST will do as “cutting edge industrial R&D – with products”, Marsay continued: “Our aim is to be cultivating products that we can capitalise on across a wide range of global markets.
“In the interim, we’ll get the ball rolling by working within the R&D space to get a fuller understanding of the market requirements for particular industries. There are a couple of niche areas we’ve already got our eye on.
“Our ultimate ambition is not necessarily to work with technologies that already exist, but to see what the future holds, wrapping up evolving concepts of machine intelligence that become marketable perhaps three or four years down the line.
“We’re looking to capitalise on the technologies that are becoming prevalent by forecasting, developing and taking to market the products that our potential customers might need in a few years’ time.
“The products Applied Integration are designing now are not necessarily going to be utilised until 15 years’ time, so the people who are going to be operating the systems they are currently designing are still at primary school.
“Marry that kind of forward thinking with the high-end robotics and cloud-based technologies we’re going to develop and it’s a very strong, blue chip product that we have.”
Garry Lofthouse, who is joined on the new board by Marsay and fellow Applied Integration director Lee Raywood, said: “We recognised 18 months ago that robotics and science was a growth market.
“We will invest in the business, give Jamie all the assistance and infrastructure the new company needs, put the required ISO quality standards in place, and ensure the two companies work hand-in-hand to the benefit of both.
“Our two businesses will complement one another in that Applied Integration is at the cutting edge of the automation and control industry while the new business will be at the cutting edge of technology in sciences and robotics.”
Raywood added: “At Applied Integration, we’re always looking for the next technological leap forward – and this new business is all about innovation.
“We’re taking into this new arena technologies that we’ve been using for some time within our own industry, and we’re confident we’ll be able to make the company’s products sing.”
Raywood, who, as with his fellow directors, is Teesside-born, added: “We’re incredibly proud that this will be a Teesside product. We’re an inward investor in Teesside, looking to bring a minimum of 10 new high-end jobs here over the next three years, and we’ve been hugely impressed by the support we’ve received from the local councils to ensure we locate the new business in the Tees Valley.”