EDITORIAL ROUNDUP

£210m machine shop set for construction

Sheffield Forgemasters has awarded a major machine shop construction project, valued at £210m, to McLaughlin & Harvey.The machine shop will sit on a 16-acre brownfield site at Weedon Street, adjacent to Sheffield Forgemasters’Brightside Lane facilities, where a 30,000 m² building will house 24 new machines, including some of the world’s largest vertical turning lathes.

McLaughlin & Harvey has already completed enabling works and is underway with piling for the building superstructure, machine foundations, and installation of site-wide drainage and storm-water attenuation tanks. Craig Fisher, programme director (recapitalisation) at Sheffield Forgemasters, says: “The machine shop main works contract will create one of Europe’s most advanced machining facilities for the defence sector.”

More information www.sheffieldforgemasters.com

Tooling supplier expands sales team in Scotland

Cutting tool supplier TaeguTec UK has named Alan Ryden as its new technical sales engineer for Scotland. The appointment represents a significant investment in building stronger customer relationships and accelerating growth across Scotland.Ryden brings over 30 years of engineering experience to TaeguTec, combining hands-on technical expertise with commercial knowledge. A time-served mechanical engineer, he has worked with TaeguTec products for 15 years, having joined ABT Machine Tools & Tooling in 2010. Progressing to managing director, Ryden ranABT until November 2024.

More information www.taegutec.com

DMG Mori Sets Open House Date

Expertise in five-axis machining, freely scalable automation and integrated manufacturing processes for high precision and productivity in every manufacturing process will be the themes of DMG Mori’s forthcoming open house in Pfronten, Germany. The event is taking place from 26 to 30 January for the German, Austrian and Swiss markets, and from 2 to 6 February for all international guests. 

DMG Mori will show over 40 machines and more than 20 automation solutions. Several world premieres will provide the focus, including the new CTX 450 4A universal turning centre and theLASERTEC 65 DED Hybridpowder nozzle additive manufacturing machine, which is also capable of machining. Asecond-generation DMU 65 H monoBLOCK five-axis horizontal machining centreis a further highlight.

More information www.dmgmori.com

£7m for tidal turbine tech

Orbital Marine Power, the Scotland-based operator of the world’s most powerful tidal turbine, has secured a multi-million pound investment to advance its international commercial projects and contribute to the wider decarbonisation of energy.The investment follows a major vote of confidence from Canada, where the Province of Nova Scotia recently awarded Orbital and Eauclaire Tidal significant new tidal energy licences through the province’s 2025 procurement process.Orbital harnesses tidal energy along the UK coast, from Orkney to the Isle of Wight, sourcing its materials and manufacturing domestically.

More information www.orbitalmarine.com

Supplychain resilience

Digital Catapult has named five start-ups that will join its accelerator programme to improve industrial supply chain resilience in the defence industry and drive the practical application of deep-tech innovation. Dataline Labs, CamyPro and Technia will work to address the Technical Data Packs (TDP)-Digital Inventory Connectors challenge, developing software solutions to extract and standardise metadata from PLM systems, whileVistory Group and Quaisr will tackle the Federated Digital Inventory challenge to develop a unified, permissioned platform to view and share technical data across the entire supply chain. 

More information www.digitalcatapult.org.uk