NEWS
Engineers hail Made Smarter impact during Minister for Industry visit A
n engineering business has hailed the ‘tremendous’ impact of adopting new technology and digital skills during a visit from Minister for Industry Lee Rowley. BEP Surface Technologies, based in Radcliffe, manufactures and refurbishes chill rolls using electroplating, precision grinding and surface finishing processes.
It has been engaged with the Made Smarter adoption programme in the North West for the last three years and has reaped the benefits of fully funded impartial expert technology advice, a digital transformation workshop, two match-funded technology projects and access to a digital intern.
Mr Rowley was told about BEP’s use of virtual reality
simulation software to redesign its factory and its investment in sensor technologies to capture data from its electroplating process to improve production efficiency and reduce waste.
Andrew McClusky, Managing Director, said: “We were delighted to welcome Mr Rowley to showcase the tremendous impact Made Smarter has had on our business. What has been most remarkable is how easy the change has been to implement. Since taking Make Smarter’s digital transformation workshop, we have created a digital replica of our factory to optimise the design, layout, and workflow of our production processes, and embarked on a data capture project which will enable us to benchmark our electroplating process and drive up
Rushlift steps-up to charity challenge
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ushlift, the specialist materials handling and airport ground support equipment supplier and service provider, has taken the initiative during the COVID-19 pandemic to support three UK charities, raising a total of £6000. When COVID-19 restrictions prevented the annual companywide ‘Day of Community Service’, senior leadership and staff at Rushlift decided to launch a nationwide campaign across its six national depots to raise money for charity. Cross-branch collective action raised funds all year round through the sale of a variety of company assets, such as: phones, tablets and even a company van. Upcycling was encouraged too, resulting in further donations.
The three charities chosen for support were Dementia UK, Cancer Research UK and British Heart Foundation. The business topped up funds to enable each charity to receive a £2000 contribution. In addition, support was also offered to a local air ambulance charity. “Fundraising has changed significantly over the last two years and it’s been really interesting to see all the unique ways that people have supported Dementia UK during this time,” says, Daisy Wilson, Corporate Partnerships Lead at Dementia UK. “We are grateful to Rushlift for helping us to be there for families when they have needed expert care more than ever. Their £2,000 donation could fund a brand new dementia specialist Admiral Nurse for two weeks, so a big thank you to everyone who has helped make this possible.”
Gemma Kitching, Cancer Research UK fundraising spokesperson for Northamptonshire, said: “We are grateful to Rushlift for their dedication to the cause. Cancer Research UK has made enormous progress in the fight against the disease. However, we have only been able to do this thanks to the dedication and commitment of our volunteers and supporters, like the employees of Rushlift, without whom we would not be able to fund our vital work.”
Carl Whyment, Managing Director at Rushlift said: “Supporting the communities in which we work is a very important part of our Corporate Identity and is ingrained in our culture. So when government guidelines on COVID-19 made it difficult to carry out our Day of Community Service – which is a company wide initiative to encourage all employees to take a day out of their work schedule to participate in community service – we had to find another creative and impactful way for the company to serve local communities.”
He continued: “Working together across our national sites, from Bishop Auckland to Southampton, we have successfully found a way for everyone in the business to help support three important charities.”
efficiency and production capacity while reducing energy consumption and waste. The icing on the cake is Made Smarter has paired us up with a digital intern who has brought new skills into the business.”
Steve Cleaver, Lead Digital Transformation Specialist at Made Smarter, said: “Our ambition is to continue to spread the word to SME manufacturers in every sector that they too can reap the rewards of intensive support, including expert technology advice and digital transformation workshops. We help manufacturers take their first steps to transform their business through grant funding, as well as supporting them to embed vital skills in their organisations from the top floor to the shopfloor.”
A2E gears up for 20th anniversary with appointment of three new key hires
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2E, one of the UK’s leading product design and development companies, has made three new key hires as it gears up to celebrate 20 years in business.
The Livingston-based firm, which says its recent growth is down to a surge in demand for product development, has appointed Gary Cheng as project manager and Georgios Sidiropoulos as consulting electronics engineer. In addition, Mark Sansom has been promoted to director of engineering. Celebrating 20 years in business in April 2022, A2E has worked on many innovative projects over the past two decades with a particular focus on the oil, gas, and utilities sectors.
Gary Cheng started with A2E in January and will be responsible for project management, resources, and development planning as well as its execution. Previously he was the team lead for Philips Electronics in Hong Kong, and has been working in product development in consumer electronics for over 15 years. Mark Sansom is an experienced engineering manager working with multidisciplinary teams to develop rugged and portable instrumentation and sensing devices. Previously, as a project manager, he worked in both UK Government roles and private industry.
Georgios Sidiropoulos has a PhD focused on Contemporary Electronic Technologies for Physics Applications from the University of Ioannina, and is highly skilled in electronic systems design, FPGA prototyping, microcontrollers and various programming languages.
David Ross, managing director at A2E, comments: “Celebrating 20 years in business is a huge milestone for us, and these three new key hires will enable us to continue to grow and hopefully be at the forefront of product development for many years to come. We are really seeing a boom in product development just now as companies get back on track after putting things on the back-burner during the pandemic. A2E now has a multidisciplinary team of 15 highly experienced engineers and project managers, and we are still looking to expand and aim to have a team of 20 in place by the end of 2022.” To date A2E has worked on 400 projects for 120 customers. This has ranged from intrinsically safe solutions for the oil and gas sector to smart metering technologies for utilities. In 2019 the company became part of Kansas-based Pivot International offering access to an additional 105 development engineers worldwide as well as Pivot’s global manufacturing capabilities. Together with its sister company in the Pivot group, Glasgow-based Wideblue, the two companies can provide a complete end-to-end product solution from concept and prototyping to full commercialisation and manufacture.
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