Discovery Park is one of Europe’s leading business sites for science and innovation, located near Sandwich in Dover district. It provides office and laboratory space for start-ups and scale ups to leading multinationals. EKC Group have a long relationship with the park, from supporting apprenticeships to events championing STEM education and collaborative projects like this.
The challenge
- Over 1000 socket floorplate covers starting to degrade across office and laboratory spaces at Discovery Park creating health and safety
- No replacement floorplates available – replacing entire socket box including floorplate is expensive, disruptive and time-consuming
- Facilities Team asked if it was possible to extend the life of the floor plates rather than systematically replace every single plate/box
The solution
- Level 2 and T-Level Students were given a competition to design a replacement cable outlet tab using AutoDesk Inventor to model the parts and create prototype 3D printed test parts
- EKC Group manufactured ~1,100 tabs using Ultimaker S5 using Tough PLA
- Discovery Park installed these across their site saving money – plus a much lower environmental impact than replacing all plates/ boxes
Collaboration wins:
- Discovery Park: Extended the life of 100s of floorplate covers – saving time, money and reducing environmental impact “Approved quote from Disco Park about how great EKC is”
- EKC Group: Students get practical experience of problem solving in a professional environment – building their skills and their confidence.
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