EDITORIAL ROUNDUP

SME Employer Skills Champion named

The UK’s first Precision Tooling Academy has been recognised by a national charity dedicated to closing skills gaps in UK engineering and manufacturing. Metal pressing and tooling specialist Brandauer was named as the SME Employer Skills Champion of the Year by Enginuity for the way it has joined forces with In-Comm Training to bring the technical upskilling facility in the West Midlands to fruition. The judges were impressed by Brandauer’s role in addressing a critical shortage of toolmakers by creating a 20-week course that ensures the transfer of skills from an ageing workforce to a younger generation.

More information www.brandauer.co.uk

Zeiss partners with Artec 3D

Zeiss is co-operating with Artec 3D, a Luxemburg-based technology company that develops, manufactures and distributes handheld and portable 3D scanners. Under the agreement, Artec 3D will offer inspection software from Zeiss as an extension to its range of 3D scanning hardware. This combination allows a wider user group to benefit from a 3D solution for metrology applications.

Zeiss software permits users to analyse 3D measuring data generated from 3D scanners and create reports. For Zeiss, the goal of this partnership is to improve further the market position of the company’s metrology software. Dr Marc Wawerla, head of Zeiss industrial quality solutions, says: “We are excited to partner with Artec 3D and enable customers from all industries to benefit from our expertise in metrology software solutions.”
More information www.zeiss.co.uk/metrology

Sustainable manufacturing hub launched

The University of Sheffield’s Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) has partnered with leading metrology experts to launch a new sustainable manufacturing hub that aims to address the challenge of commercialising early-stage research within key areas of manufacturing.

The Advanced Metrology Hub for Sustainable Manufacturing aims to make manufacturing processes more sustainable by reducing waste, emissions and pollution, as well as lowering production costs. It will also develop ground-breaking new technologies. The hub will be led by the University of Huddersfield and supported by a consortium of partners including the AMRC and the Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC) – both part of the High Value Manufacturing (HVM) Catapult network.

More information www.amrc.co.uk

New southwest sales manager at Mazak

Yamazaki Mazak has appointed James Fell as its new area sales manager for the southwest of England. He takes over from Tim Ponter, who is retiring after more than 30 years’ service at Mazak and nearly 50 years in the manufacturing industry. Fell brings with him a wealth of experience in the machine tool industry, having trained as a CNC programmer and technical sales engineer before moving into business development roles. In his new post, Fell will assume responsibility for Mazak’s broad range of customers throughout the region, with a particular focus on the subcontract manufacturing scene.

More information www.mazakeu.co.uk

Celebrating excellence in manufacturing

Subcon has announced the winners of the inaugural Subcon Manufacturing Solutions Show
Awards. The awards celebrate and recognise outstanding achievements in the
manufacturing industry. Subcon sales manager Ben Watkins says: “This is just one of the
many initiatives we introduced to Subcon this year. Thank you to our judges for giving up
their time and expertise, and congratulations to our nominees and winners.”
Among numerous stand-out awards was UK Manufacturing Partner of the Year. The judges
declared WEC Group as the winner for the company’s significant investments in UK
manufacturing in recent months. WEC Group is planning to build Europe’s largest
subcontract heavy machining and nuclear fabrication facility in Blackburn.
More information www.subconshow.co.uk