Darren Hudson has been appointed managing director of the Bradford-based couplings specialist, Centa Transmissions, following the retirement of Bob Arnott after 17 years with the firm.
Mitsubishi Electric and Brook Crompton are getting together to offer matched and tested packages of inverter drives and motors to help UK users to comply with tightening energy efficiency regulations.
With just under a year to go to the next Drives & Controls Show, more than twice as many stands have been booked, compared to the same stage before the previous event in 2014. As a result, around 40% more floorspace has beAir-Tech, en allocated to the show than at the 2014 event.
The Engineering and Machinery Alliance (Eama) – the umbrella group for 13 UK trade associations including Gambica, the MTA, Bara, the BFPA, BCAS, the PPMA and Ukiva – has announced plans for an industrial strategy for the machinery and allied components (MAC) sector. Eama believes its initiative will increase the ability of MAC companies, particularly SMEs, to benefit from the wide variety of schemes available to help them compete.
One of the UK’s most successful – but least-known – motor manufacturers, the servomotor specialist SEM, is moving to new purpose-built premises in Kent that will double its manufacturing capacity. The company is investing “tens of millions” of pounds in the move from its existing 5,000m2 premises in Orpington to the new 12,000m2 site at The Bridge Technology Park in Dartford.
Emerson Industrial Automation has appointed Gloria Stucchi to be general manager of its UK and Ireland drives and motors operation, which includes the Control Techniques and Leroy-Somer brands.
The British Compressed Air Society (BCAS) and the British Fluid Power Association (BFPA), which incorporates the British Fluid Power Distributors Association (BFPDA), have agreed to form an alliance aimed at providing their members with a stronger, more consolidated voice.
EEF, the UK manufacturers' organisation, has launched a skills manifesto urging the British Government to set a target for 75% of jobs to be medium- or high-skilled by 2020. The target is part of a policy blueprint aimed at meeting the UK manufacturing sector's increasing demand for skills.
Britain's manufacturers have drawn up four key priorities that, they say, the next UK government will have to build on to create the better-balanced economy that the UK needs to secure its economic recovery.
Britain is on the cusp of a technology-driven fourth industrial revolution, with eight in ten manufacturers (80%) saying it will become a business reality by 2025. However 58% fear that the UK is in danger of being left behind.
Torin-Sifan, which manufactures energy-efficient fan technologies for the European air movement industry, has opened a new UK factory dedicated to producing EC (electronically commutated) motors, fans and blower products. It has invested more than £2m in the new plant in Swindon, and has created 25 new jobs at the site, which will employ a total of around 90 people.
ABB in the UK has announced a scheme that offers step-by-step help to enhance the performance of motor-driven applications using variable-speed drives (VSDs) and high-efficiency motors. The ten-stage Energy Efficiency and Productivity Improvement Plan takes into account the often-overlooked productivity benefits that VSDs can bring.
EEF, the manufacturers’ organisation, is launching a version of its “lean academy” that will allow mid-sized companies and SMEs to learn “game-changing” methods to boost their efficiency and growth at a relatively low cost. Until now the best-practice training system has been available only to larger organisations.
HMK Automation & Drives, which claims to be the UK’s largest independent supplier of motion products, has completed a £1m refurbishment of its head office in Congleton, Cheshire, including a new 7,000ft2 (650m2) logistics centre that has more than doubled the company’s office space.
ABB in the UK has issued a clarification of how the recent European minimum energy performance standard (EU MEPS) will affect users of IE2 efficiency motors.
