About us – Cheshire and Warrington 4.0

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CW4.0 was a fully-funded programme of support for manufacturers in Cheshire & Warrington to help SMEs explore and adopt industrial digital technologies.

Part funded by the European Regional Development Fund, CW4.0 brought together the combined expertise and capabilities of the Virtual Engineering Centre (University of Liverpool), Liverpool John Moores University, the Science and Technology Facilities Council and the Northern Automotive Alliance.

Track record

CW4.0 was delivered by a group of expert partners with over a decade of experience helping manufacturing businesses to explore, adapt to and adopt new technology.

CW4.0 brought together the same partners that delivered the highly successful LCR4.0 project in the Liverpool City Region. That project delivered support to over 300 companies and was widely recognised as a national example of best practice.

- 86% received support to develop a new product
- 71% reduced their time to market
- 36% increased their productivity
- 29% increased their turnover

SMEs on the project implemented new processes and innovations in their business, brought 57 new products to market and created 125 new jobs. We also helped 248 manufacturing SMEs enter into R&D collaborations with universities, many for the first time.

Bespoke support for Cheshire & Warrington

CW4.0 was the first project of its kind that was tailored specifically to the manufacturing sector in Cheshire & Warrington and delivered by organisations based in the North West.

We covered the full manufacturing sector, from general engineering and fabrication to automotive, renewables, pharmaceutical and medical devices.

Building on our decade long experience of supporting SMEs, CW4.0 combined technical expertise and best practice from the aerospace, automotive and energy sectors.

The project helped manufacturing SMEs adapt to a changing world and exploit new opportunities to remain competitive in a post COVID and Brexit world, ensuring the strong legacy of manufacturing in Cheshire & Warrington has a bright, digitally-enabled future.

Partner capabilities

The project was delivered by the University of Liverpool’s Virtual Engineering Centre, Liverpool John Moores University Faculty of Engineering and Technology (FET), the Science & Engineering Facilities Council and the Northern Automotive Alliance.