Jeff Lowe, Owner of Dr. Air Brake, explains how support from SDIPs has helped them build a process to develop products and get them to market quickly.
Company Overview
Dr. Air Brake is an award-winning technology and innovation business that develops a range of test equipment for automotive vehicles. For example, they help develop technology for maintenance operations to help repair vehicles, test brakes and lights, and more. Dr. Air Brake also builds a range of safety products fitted to vehicles to help monitor all the vehicles’ processes using machine learning algorithms.
Funded Business Support
Dr. Air Brake accessed the 'Staffordshire Digital Innovation Partnerships' (SDIPs) programme.
After creating a working prototype, support and guidance from the SDIPs programme have brought the opportunity to move their concept forward quickly. Dr. Air Brake’s project was time-sensitive, so the focused attention from Staffordshire University’s academic team and their intern has helped bring their product to market quickly.
Project Outcome
With the guidance and expertise from Staffordshire University, Dr. Air Brake achieved targets that were set far in advance in a much quicker timeframe, pushing their product to market before their competitors overseas. Dr. Air Brake is now at the forefront of the market, which wouldn’t have been possible without the support from the SDIPs project.
Staffordshire Digital Innovation Partnerships (SDIPs) is a collaborative project between Staffordshire University and Staffordshire County Council; funded by Staffordshire University, Staffordshire County Council and the European Regional Development Fund 2014-2020.
It [SDIPs] has benefited us because, rather than sitting on our roles and not going on developing new products, it’s now given us a leg-up in terms of the time to market. This [project] could’ve gone on for years and years, by which time it could’ve been taken over by other people or other countries. By doing it this way, we are at least now at the forefront and have the ability to get to market much quicker than if we’d not had that support.