forming and even glass processing at 850° C with a third wave of research projects aimed at 2018 with applications running 1000° C to allow us to superplastic form Titanium. JCM: Is it essential to develop a licence system to win over industrial big players? Are there equally efficient other leverage factors to impose your technical solutions? B. H. : Different industries and products have a historical preference for different business models so I think flexibility here is the key. Don't fight the system but of course if you can improve on it then this is a brilliant opportunity to leverage your technical advantage with a commercial one as well. Licensing models have a certain attraction not least scalability and as a small agile start up one of the greatest challenges is to engage meaningfully with large established multinationals. Licensing pieces of intellectual property is a natural part of this and something we already undertake in conjunction with supporting know-how. JCM: From the beginning as a start-up to the opening of new production sites in Asia, what were the milestones of your Injection moulding trials development? B. H. : There have been a series of developments over the past six years which have been key to our success. Looking back the catalyst for the demonstration centres was an enquiry three years ago from a major materials supplier asking if we could run our 'slow' aerospace 11 minute PEEK cycles any faster for consumer electronics. 1 month later once we shown that we could do this and use 75% less pressure in the process we really had something to offer the market. The second thing that really transformed the business was our ability two years ago to operate in the injection moulding market with technology that maintained the advantages of PtFS but totally transformed the way injection moulding works. JCM: What motivates the opening of your new sites in Taiwan and Rutland? What potential have you identified on this geographic area? B. H. : In 2008 the global financial crisis hit us hard as we were predominantly focused on North American and European markets. Since this time we worked to diversify globally across multiple sectors and geographic regions and today are Surface Generation engineer manufacturing a mould tool focused on Consumer Electronics in Asia and North America, Automotive in Europe and North America Aerospace globally. This is an over simplification as we also work in Energy, Academia and Medical but gives an idea of how we have spread our risk and can now expand through the development centres in Taiwan and the UK and a soon to be opened demonstration facility in North America. JCM: Fund raising is often a limit to the development of companies. How did you manage to overcome this critical aspect? Does the UK/EU political decisions provide support? B. H. : As a technology start-up running deep dive development programs across a number of areas seeking to protect its intellectual property using patents etc, it is of course important to raise funds to cover this lossmaking phase of business. To do this, it is essential to have a clear understanding of the market opportunity to allow you to not only talked to the customer but also investors. In that respect fund raising is no different to selling and in any case one cannot exist without the other. In terms of UK and EU policy, the most important thing is conNo98 July - August 2015 / sistency so we and our investors can plan particularly with regard to tax regimes and recruitment. Clear concise rules which have a light touch give us a competitive advantage in every respect but when legislation is ambiguous, applied retrospectively or when certain elements of the economy are not functioning smoothly (e.g. banking) this of course is an immediate disadvantage. The UK's tenancy to focus on the service sector does give us a shorter term view when compared to say Germany or France but this is something we factor in from the outset. JCM: What are the next contracts and partnerships you plan to finalise within automotive sector? B. H. : We are currently work- ing with interiors and exteriors groups in North America and Europe to bring the first injection moulding applications to market in 2016. Our business strategy is to bring a new production application on-stream every six months as we continue to develop technology particularly for injection, compression, transfer moulding and metal applications. n More information: www.surface-generation.com jec composites magazine 5http://www.surface-generation.com