SIR John Harvey Jones MBE and Lord Sainsbury are coming to the North-East to support an exciting new initiative for manufacturers.

The pair will be in Sunderland next week to officially launch The Regional Centre for Manufacturing Excellence (RCME), to be based at Hylton Park.

Industrialists, directors and business support personnel will meet at the event at Nissan, organised by technology transfer specialists RTC North.

Lord Sainsbury will talk about "the vital role of manufacturing" and Sir John Harvey Jones will speak on "fostering a competitive edge".

The RCME, which is funded by DTI and ONE NorthEast, will be responsible for delivering the DTI Manufacturing Advisory Service (MAS) in the region.

The RCME will provide a much-needed focal point for manufacturing in the North-East.

A team of six specialists, headed by RCME director, Cameron Ross and RTC North's Best Practice Implementation team, headed by Carol Hodgson will be delivering the MAS from the new Centre, visiting small and medium sized manufacturers to help them solve their problems.

The Centre will offer a clearly defined range of core MAS services that directly meet the needs of manufacturers.

It will also strive to simplify access by companies to a much wider range of services, grants and support facilities available from other agencies at regional and national level.

The North-East RCME will work in co-operation with other RCMEs in England and Wales and with a nationally approved register of over 200 Centres of Expertise in Manufacturing.

Cameron Ross said: "The RCME has a clear remit to deliver the MAS under its contract with One NorthEast, but, it will also afford local manufacturers an excellent opportunity to have a say in what the business support sector should offer.

"The RCME will be focused but flexible. It will be proactive whilst responding to a need, therefore, local manufacturers will be able to influence the role of the RCME in this region as well as benefiting from it."