Global demand in subsea markets for oil and gas continues to help drive growth at manufacturing, assembly and testing specialist Express Engineering, which is investing in capital equipment and its workforce. TheGateshead-based international business has been enjoying buoyant growth during the past 12-18 months. The current order book stands at around £70m, with the group receiving an intake of £10m in new orders in the past month.

Chris Thompson, chair of Express Engineering Group, says: “I’m delighted to say our orderbook has reached record levels, the highest in our 50-year history, and it’s only expected to increase further across the remainder of 2024.With demand for product high, we hope to invest further in our capability this year, which will include a new CMM machine and a horizontal borer.”

More information www.express-engineering.co.uk

Apprentices from Yamazaki Mazak have raised more than £1300 for the Midlands Air Ambulance Charity (MAAC) thanks to a bank holiday car wash. Mazak apprentices washed just shy of 100 cars outside the company’s European headquarters in Worcester, with the manufacturer matching the total raised to double up the donations for the charity.MAAC provides support to residents across six Midlands counties from three different air bases, including Strensham on the Worcestershire-Gloucestershire border, and has responded to more than 75,000 missions since its inception in 1991.

More information www.mazakeu.co.uk 

Coalville-based polishing machine manufacturer Zeeko is one of only five companies this year to win two King’s Awards for Enterprise, one for international trade and the other for innovation.

Zeeko develops and produces seven-axis CNC optics polishing machines for complex, ultra-high-precision freeform applications. The 2024 award for international trade is a result of a sharp upturn in these activities, plus additional sales in the past three years of both new machine platforms and tools for mainstream industrial use.

Exports account for about 98% of production. Order intake is currently between £10m and £12m per year, compared with well below £2m during the pandemic. The King’s Award for Enterprise in the category of international trade was based on this performance.

The 2024 award for innovation stems from the chance discovery of a new process that was easy to overlook, but which turned out to be extremely effective for the polishing and finishing of metal, ceramic and carbide items such as turbine blades, orthopaedic implants, precision moulds and ball valve components. Called Shape Adaptive Grinding (SAG), the technique utilises a low-cost, robotic machining platform together with associated tools and software. It is also deployable on any CNC machine, such as a milling centre or multi-tasking lathe. Housed in a separate factory in Coalville, Zeeko Industrial is a new division that builds and markets these robotic polishing cells worldwide.

Richard Freeman, MD of Zeeko, says: “We are delighted to receive two King’s Awards this year. Our highly skilled and innovative team deserves this recognition. A high-technology manufacturing business rarely leads its competition by more than 18 months, so we are continually researching and innovating, both to grow and to protect our lead.”
More information www.zeeko.co.uk