Enabling UK organisations across all industrial sectors to innovate and compete
NPL is creating value and impact across the UK through the measurement infrastructure. We enable enterprises to maximise productivity, accelerate growth, acquire capability and talent for future markets and improve performance through innovation.
We verify and validate incremental and radical changes of products, processes, services and technologies to help provide tangible impact for industry. These can be measured in several ways:
- Increased profit – reducing the amount spent realising a product, process or service for the enterprise value chain
- Improved agility – enabling companies to move quickly and easily to respond to new assurance needs for products, processes and services
- Enhanced competitiveness - optimising assurance in the end-to-end industrial system to be as good as, or better than others, of a comparable nature
- Increased productivity – identifying the effectiveness of productive effort as measured in terms of the rate of output per unit of input
- Safeguarding resilience – the ability to rapidly adapt and respond to all involuntary interventions in the industrial ecosystem
- Empowering sustainability – helping to create products and services through economically sound processes that minimise negative environmental impacts while conserving energy and natural resources
Industrial enterprises make a significant contribution to maintaining and growing national prosperity, and there is a global challenge to improve productivity and competitiveness to ensure long term economic growth. NPL's priorities are determined through the government strategy, investment in target areas, the innovation required to deliver change and industry readiness for industrial opportunities.
Advanced materials metrology strategy
Discover how we are identifying how critical drivers of change, including the energy and the digital transitions, require innovation in measurement capability and a new approach to delivering the UK materials metrology infrastructure.
Helping industry transition to net zero
Innovation accelerated by measurement science and technology
Find out moreSustainable manufacturing through resource conservation
Energy and resource efficiency in industry and manufacturing
Find out moreAdvanced technologies to support healthcare manufacturing
Providing the metrology for innovative medicines and healthcare manufacturing
Find out moreProductivity and competitiveness
Boosting performance for all industries and technologies
Find out moreManufacturer Measurement Network
Manufacturer Measurement Network is a community of SMEs working with us to increase efficiency, reduce waste and improve product quality.
Find out moreDeveloping in-line quality control of advanced materials for net-zero applications
NPL worked with Thomas Swan & Co to demonstrate the use of Raman spectroscopy in quality control of graphene and related 2D materials
Find out moreOur metrology is making a difference
We work with industry to improve productivity and resilience in an agile, competitive and sustainable way. Providing excellence in measurement science and innovation, we cover all aspects of the product lifecycle:
- Design - supporting the designer through ‘know how’
- Test - meeting the regulatory needs of products or services
- Make - assurance through data acquisition and analysis of process or product
- Use - qualify process/product for thorough life capability management
Manufacturing industry has a long-standing acceptance and understanding of the benefits of metrology, particularly for physical measurement. Standards, operating procedures, protocols and artefacts are widely used, which will facilitate the progression of metrology to support the acquisition and use of data to enhance industrial prosperity.
NPL is supporting manufacturers to:
- meet existing regulatory or legislative requirements
- provide the capability that underpins a broad range of research areas
- sustain core metrology capability for UK business within existing laboratories
- realise and maintain the SI units and primary measurement scales at existing scope and uncertainty levels
Contact us to find out more about our work in prosperity and learn more of the expertise available through collaboration with our experts.
Working with NPL
Our researchers are at the forefront of new innovations that promise to deliver new solutions to enhance prosperity. We play a vital role in providing reliable data for to develop the standards and assurance to accelerate new products to market. Learn more about our research areas and working with our experts.
If you have a research collaboration where our expertise can help, please contact the team and discuss your challenge.
Optimising the mechanical properties of nanocomposites
Using polymer composites in offshore environments with confidence
Validating magnetic sensors for the oil and gas industry
Measurement training improves efficiency for Lockheed Martin
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Find out more about the range of work we do in advanced manufacturing.
Contact us
Our research and measurement solutions support innovation and product development. We work with companies to deliver business advantage and commercial success.
Contact our Customer Services team on +44 20 8943 7070