Morgan Partnership
- Client: Morgan Motor Company
The Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) was lucky enough to recruit an Associate, Matthew Humphries, who had already worked at Morgan on a student placement, proving his credentials by designing a concept car, the AeroMax (which was well received at the 2005 Geneva Motor Show).
The Aeromax cost £2m in development and was built on an existing platform. This highly-effective KTP project provided Morgan with a proactive, controlled design process, facilitating the creation of innovative concept and production vehicles to stimulate the market and attract new customers to the brand.
The new design process has helped to ensure that design details are cost-effective and fully appropriate for the Morgan production processes. Its efficacy was proven in taking the AeroMax from concept prototype to low volume production, delivering a vehicle that offers a major leap forward for the company in terms of quality and design detail. All 100 of the cars were pre-sold, which generated £9m revenues and £2million profits representing a 24% return on investment.
Being able to render ideas more quickly has enabled key decisions to be made before committing to expensive model-making, whilst improved build accuracy has reduced rework and vehicle revisions, minimising costs. Morgan’s enhanced design capabilities have also impacted on its existing vehicles, increasing their customer appeal and boosting sales, with over £4.2 million turnover attributed to KTP work.
The Client
Morgan Motor Company Ltd is a legendary car manufacturer, operating on a global scale, now 100 years old and still in the hands of the same family. The company specialises in the design, manufacture and distribution of exclusive sports cars into the high-value performance market sectors.
To compete in today’s challenging economic climate, it was vital that Morgan had an efficient and innovative operation. Building on the success of earlier collaborations, this Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) with Birmingham City University was initiated to improve an in-house capability for concept design, visualisation and refinement to enable the rapid development of new vehicle designs.
I was extremely
excited by the prospect of this third KTP to help enhance Morgan’s capabilities
in concept design. The
stunning LIFECar is a living example of
what can be achieved through such collaboration
Charles Morgan – Morgan Motor Company
Results
The Awards keep on coming for this powerful collaboration as during
2010, the value of a decade of knowledge transfer
programmes between Morgan and Birmingham City University was recognised as regional winner for ‘Best Partnership – North
West’, at the KTP Awards
Prior to this, Morgan had already gained a Lord Stafford Award for Achievement in Innovation during 2007. The conclusion of their third Government-supported KTP saw the
national panel recently award this programme its topmost ‘Outstanding’ grade,
matching similar recognition given to their first KTP, concluded two years earlier.
The second, longer KTP programme, which successfully increased the efficiency
of Morgan’s manufacturing processes, had also been highly rated.
The launch of the
LIFECar has now led onto a fourth KTP which
seeks to turn the concept into a road-going reality. This double
graduate-associate KTP-programme is seeing Birmingham City University
co-ordinate a multi-universityprogramme through collaboration with Oxford and
Cranfield universities, to develop Morgan’s LIFECar over a three-year period.
Benefits
- More efficient and higher quality design
process in place.
- New customers attracted to Morgan brand at a
more exclusive price.
- Marked change in attitude, work practices and
culture, with the need for good design now well understood.
- Enhanced design capabilities fed into company
communications, improving customer image.
- Company participation in Government LIFECar
project, generating further positive publicity and future design ideas.
Back to the previous page