About the Cheshire Innovation Network

Whether you’re looking to add a service to your business or develop a new-to-market product, our practical short course takes you through the innovation process.

You’ll learn to take your initial idea, test it, and move to the prototype stage. And, you’ll create an innovation template specific to your business.

Over two days, you’ll learn a repeatable process that allows you to improve efficiency and grow your business continuously.

Who is the Cheshire Innovation Network for?

It’s designed for small to medium-sized businesses in the engineering and manufacturing sectors. Your business needs to have a trading address in Cheshire West and Chester.

Each two-day course is limited to 15 people. This means that you’ll have individual support from our team and can develop a network with like-minded business leaders.

Costs

The Cheshire Innovation Network is fully funded by the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.

There’s no cost for small business owners or senior leaders in the manufacturing and engineering sectors with a trading address in Cheshire West and Chester.

Upskill your team

From workloads to changes in responsibilities, it’s likely that your innovation will impact your team. To help everyone navigate these changes, you’ll bring your team along to a one-day masterclass.

This session gives your team the tools and techniques to support new ideas and to look at ways they can work together to continuously improve on existing processes.

Assess your business

You’ll delve into your business and explore whether you’re ready to innovate. You’ll consider topics from production costs to your team’s skills, and you’ll look at the impact changes will bring to your business.

This helps you to decide whether you need to make changes before you begin to adopt a new process or change one of your existing services.

Create a standard operating procedure (SOP)

A SOP is a structured template that helps you with the innovation process, whether you’re developing a new product or adopting a new system.

During the workshops, you’ll develop a SOP document that’s specific to your business.

You can use your SOP each time you’d like to add in a new process, create a product or improve an existing service you provide. It helps you and your team to increase efficiency and achieve consistent results.

Develop a prototype

Whether you’re looking to create a new product or adopt a new service or process, prototyping will help you discover how your innovation will affect your business.

You’ll research your idea to see if it meets the needs of your business or the market. You’ll learn about lean methodologies and how streamlining can speed up your internal processes.

You’ll also develop a custom action plan for your proposed launch.

Make time to grow

Take the time to work on your business, not in your business, setting you on the path to growth.

Access to funding

Develop business applications for funding support through the Innovation Voucher scheme.

Who we work with

This project is funded by the UK Government through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.

What to do next

After you apply, we’ll be in touch to confirm your eligibility and discuss programme dates.

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