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

A UK specialist in digital twin technology, Simsol, has joined Siemens Xcelerator – an open digital business platform designed to speed up the digital transformation of industry in the UK and overseas. Simsol provides digital twin solutions based on Siemens Plant Simulation and Process Simulate software to simulate factory automation, enabling the integration of robotics, control, motion and safety for automated and human operators to drive productive, safe and efficient operations. Manufacturers will now be able to access Simsol services from the global Siemens Xcelerator marketplace.

More information www.xcelerator.siemens.com

Open Mind Technologies UK has employed three new applications engineers – Gareth Clarke, Matthew Brill and Victor Fapohunda – and restructured its application engineering team to bolster the company’s pre-and post-sales departments. Managing director Adrian Smith says: “We’ve divided our applications team into pre-sales and post-sales engineers, giving our engineers greater autonomy with customers, and allowing dedicated experts to maximise their skill set to the advantage of the end user. This will deliver an even better customer experience, making our team more dynamic and responsive than ever before.”More information www.openmind-tech.com