Fusing old with new: Autodesk is modernising traditional processes

Small Heath has seen some changes over the decades. Its location on the main road linking Coventry and Birmingham made it a key site for industry; and until the early 1970s it was the home of BSA, churning out at various times rifles, handguns, bicycles, motorbikes, cars and taxis. Television viewers will know it as the home base of the fearsome Peaky Blinders gang, whose non-illegal interests include car building and the metals trade, and a place where foundries belch smoke and flames. With changing times come changing fortunes, and much of the old BSA factory has been demolished. But part of the industrial heritage of Small Heath is now seeing a new phase for the manufacturing industry; a phase whose effects are still largely unknown.

The industrial CADCAM company Delcam began in Small Heath, and was established with a machine shop at its heart. Delcam was acquired by the American software company Autodesk in 2014, with many of its staff – and its machine shop – transferring to the new owners. Autodesk has invested heavily in the machine shop in recent years, and its official opening in mid-February revealed how the changing face of manufacturing technology is having a huge effect on companies whose direct involvement in production has traditionally been tangential.