Sector Focus
Manufacturing
JLR helps students go back to school with visor donations
Vital protection: Sally-Anne Bloom with some of the donated face visors
Jaguar Land Rover is donating reusable protective face visors to primary and secondary schools. Schools in Halewood in the North West, Warwickshire and the West Midlands, will receive 1,000 reusable face visors to provide staff with Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) as pupils return to classrooms for the start of a new term. The reusable protective face visors were designed and produced by
Jaguar Land Rover at the start of the coronavirus pandemic in response to the growing need for PPE for frontline NHS staff. Since April, Jaguar Land Rover has produced and distributed more than 160,000 visors. Each face visor can be easily dismantled and cleaned before being used
again, making it ideal for school staff who may be interacting with different groups of students every day. Holly Jago, global corporate responsibility manager at Jaguar Land Rover, said: “It’s fantastic to be able to support our communities by sharing
our resources and to help protect school staff who have been working tirelessly throughout the coronavirus crisis. As pupils return to school, providing these visors will be a step towards ensuring education resumes safely for staff and pupils. Sally-Anne Bloom, acting principal at Whitley Academy, said: “Teachers
have had to adapt very quickly to new ways of working during the pandemic. The face visors donated by Jaguar Land Rover will help ensure a smooth transition to more classroom-based learning, in a safe environment for teachers, support staff and students.”
*An ethical company founded during lockdown by three mothers has begun selling a range of sustainable PPE, including face masks. 1TcA (One Thought Changes All) is the brainchild of three socially and
environmentally conscious mothers, Raj Kumari, Laura Wiggins and Satwinder Kalsi. All profits are being donated to charitable causes.
Crowe guides visor-maker to NHS contact win
The corporate finance team in the Midlands office of financial services firm Crowe has helped a Tividale manufacturer secure a Government contract, leading to the creation of more than 500 jobs. The order is for three million visors per week
for the National Health Service (NHS), manufactured by Ramfoam Ltd, of Hainge Road, Tividale. Established in 1995, Ramfoam Ltd is a
manufacturer of polyethylene and polyurethane foam, which is used in the healthcare sector. The firm also has experience in converting
medical-grade foam products for the healthcare market in numerous applications, and when the
lockdown began it decided to use its expertise to produce personal protection equipment (PPE). Crowe corporate finance partner Andy Kay said:
“The senior team knew immediately that they wanted to support the NHS, particularly amid a growing and pressing shortage of PPE products -
64 CHAMBERLINK October 2020
so they quickly joined the ranks of the 16,000 other businesses who applied to support the Government’s request. “However, gearing up financially to
respond to the opportunity brought its own challenges. Funding the supply chain from the outset was a critical factor in enabling Ramfoam to deliver the order.” “However, gearing up financially to
respond to the opportunity brought its own challenges.” Mr Kay and his team worked with
Richard Jenkins, of Lloyds Bank, to build a funding package to enable suppliers’ credit terms to be met and manufacturing to start. Mr Kay said: “Richard Jenkins is
one of Lloyds’ ‘manufacturing ambassadors’, so he understood the challenges facing Ramfoam.
“We worked together to help Ramfoam raise
£2.5m under the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS). Ramfoam international director Tim Mulqueen said: “This contract is great importance for us as a business. We were driven by a desire to support
front-line medical staff and
are so proud to have contributed to their safety, as well as being able to create so many new jobs. “With their 100 per cent
success rate in helping business
secure CBILS loans, I knew we would be in safe hands with Crowe and we are grateful for the invaluable support and advice the team gave throughout this whole process.”
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