Donite Plastics, which specialises in the design and manufacture of custom moulded plastic parts, has collaborated with the Co-Innovate Programme.
Co-Innovate is a project supported by the European Union’s INTERREG VA Programme, managed by the Special EU Programmes Body (SEUPB).
Since its launch almost a year ago, it has run up to 500 business health checks and carried out 140 innovation assessments for small and medium size businesses across Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and Scotland.
Co-Innovate supports include workshops that demystify innovation, one-to-one business assessments for companies, mentoring, and project support to develop new products, processes or services.
Co-Innovate Director Neil Ryan (centre) visited Donite Plastics in Saintfield to see the company’s innovative vacuum forming technology. Donite is just one of the companies which has received support from the Co-Innovate Programme, supported by th...
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Furthermore 70 businesses will be matched with academic institutions for 12-month research and innovation programmes.
The company will continue to work with Co-Innovate towards a business-academic collaboration to further develop specialised thermoformed plastic panels to be used in off-road and agri-vehicles.
“We’ve always been focused on technical innovation but taking part in the Co-Innovate programme really made us think about our management structure and innovating in other ways which we hadn’t considered before,” said Michael Knight, Managing Director of Donite Plastics.
“As a result we have become much better organised in terms of our management team and strategic operations and have vastly increased our production capacity. We’d definitely encourage other businesses which are experiencing challenges to find out more about the Co-Innovate programme and see how it could help them.”