Industrial Research Institute for Automation and Measurements – PIAP was established in 1965. Currently, PIAP employs about 170 people, including 20 researchers with Ph.D. degree or higher – i.e. professorship – degrees, 80 researchers with M. Sc. degrees, administrative and technical staff - 70 employees. Generally PIAP activity consists in scientific and technical research, design and small to medium scale production, as well as introducing modern control and instrumentation technologies and systems (including robotics) to industrial enterprises, especially SMEs. In particular, PIAP has significant knowledge and experience in:
• systems and devices of automation,
• robotics and robotised systems including mobile robots,
• telemetry and monitoring in industry, monitoring of industrial installations and transportation forms with the aid of satellite links,
• measuring methods, systems, technologies and equipment for industry as well for environmental protection and environmental technologies,
• industrial communication networking,
• vision systems supported by software packages, especially in SMEs.

The Department of Mechanical, Aerospace and Manufacturing Engineering (MAME) at the Unversity of Manchester has 33 members of academic staff who are all active in research with an average annual journal publication record of 4 journal papers per staff per year. Most members are involved in research activities funded by national research councils, Europe, and industry. The Manufacturing Division of the MAME Department at THE Unversity of Manchester has advanced research facilities that are related to I*PROMS scope such as a manufacturing modelling and simulation facility that includes fuzzy logic control, SCADA Systems, and PLCs; a laser processing research centre (LPRC); CAD, CAE, CAM; Special manufacturing processes facility: EDM, ECM; Metrology facilities: CMM and two laser interferometers; nano-resolution sensors facility; Robotic and computer-integrated machine tools and manufacturing systems; CNCs with open architecture control research facility; instrumentation and precision engineering facility; workstations: UNIX and Parallel processing facility; materials analysis facility: creep and fatigue; and facilities for business and industry - conference suites with AVA technology and internet access. The Division is also in the process of acquiring a Mikron high speed machine and a Faro articulated arm for reverse engineering.