Filtermist International Ltd has restructured its UK business operations to ensure it delivers a single-source solution for customers seeking cleaner, safer and more productive work environments.

Following a number of acquisitions over the past three years, and in order to strengthen its market position and improve the turnkey customer experience, Filtermist will merge its current eight businesses into just two: Filtermist International and Filtermist Systems.
The restructured company will operate and manufacture from sites in Telford, Northampton, Wetherby, Dewsbury and Glasgow. In addition to oil filters, the company is also responsible for manufacturing a range of product brands, all of which are being retained, including Dustcheck, Ecogate, Fastclip, Gallito, Kerstar and XS Automation.
For further information www.filtermist.co.uk

The Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) has presented the MTC’s Advanced Manufacturing Training Centre (AMTC) with an award.

AMTC, which is supported by Lloyds Bank, has been awarded IMechE’s ‘Advanced Apprenticeship Provider of the Year’ accolade. The award was presented at a special ceremony at the IMechE headquarters in Westminster.
Chiefly, the award recognises the role that employers and educators play in encouraging young people into engineering apprenticeships, and supporting them throughout their training. The AMTC willl be taking on a further 200 apprentices in the 2020 intake, who will be trained in a variety of manufacturing disciplines, from basic engineering to using some of the most advanced manufacturing technologies in existence.
For further information https://the-amtc.co.uk/training/

Renishaw apprentice Ryan Harris recently participated in a two-week Erasmus programme in Germany, funded by the EU.

The programme gives Welsh college students first-hand experience of engineering in another country and broadens their knowledge of the industry by showing them different approaches. As part of the Erasmus programme, four students from Coleg Y Cymoedd were selected for work experience at Stadler Anglenbau GmbH, including an all-expenses paid trip to the company’s facility in Altshausen, Baden-Württemberg. Stadler Anglenbau designs and manufactures waste sorting plants and components. Says Harris. “The scheme enabled me to learn from and work with peers who have come through a different education system. I’m really glad that I got to take part in the programme because it opened my eyes to a new industry, a new country and a new approach.”
For further information www.renishaw.com

Those visiting the ITC stand at last month’s EMO 2019 exhibition in Hanover, Germany, were impressed enough with the innovations on show to place significant enquiry and order numbers. ITC was making its first ever appearance at EMO.

Although already boasting an extensive European footprint with distributors on the continent, ITC used the show as a launch pad to grow its pan-European distributor base, a goal that was achieved with a high number of reputable agents and distributors keen to have the UK brand as part of their portfolios.
The company’s latest trochoidal milling innovations proved popular among those from the aerospace, motorsport, mould and die, and general engineering industries.
Notable was the company’s Cupro-coated, harmonic-flute geometry 5021 series of five-flute end mills, as well as the newly developed 5031 series stub-length, square-end tools. From the six-flute trochoidal milling stable, ITC demonstrated its latest 6051 series of square-end or multiple corner radii tools, which were supported by the 6011-F, 6021-F and 6031-F.
Indeed, the milling tools on display included square, ball-nose and radius tools, with a wide array of dimension, geometry and coating choices. Additionally, the variety of chamfering, countersinking, thread milling, drilling and reaming products provided a balanced solution for all industry sectors.
For further information www.itc-ltd.co.uk

Ensuring the performance and accuracy of packaging machinery, particularly bottling plants, is a speciality of Belgium-based Macovak, which manufactures precision parts used to manoeuvre and position bottles during the filling process.

“The format parts in bottling plants ensure extremely accurate positioning of the bottle during filling, labelling and closing of the container,” explains managing director Didier Gillain. “Given the speed at which these machines operate – more than 60,000 bottles per hour – then the importance of accuracy is clear. At these volumes, even the smallest discrepancy in tolerance can deliver a huge price tag in lost production.”
Helping Macovak to achieve its manufacturing needs, the company has invested in machines that provide the cost-effective production of low-volume parts. The most recent machine to arrive is an XYZ Proturn SLX 425 lathe supplied by Crispyn Machines, XYZ Machine Tools’ distributor in Belgium. With just one day of training on the ProtoTRAK control, Macovak’s operators were fully in tune with its operation and had the machine on production work within hours.
“That’s the beauty and simplicity of the ProtoTrak control, and as our business revolves around problem solving for customers, we need to be able to react quickly, but in the knowledge that the parts we machine are right first time to the correct dimensions,” says Gillain.
“I wanted a machine and control that would allow our technicians the opportunity to quickly and easily program the workpieces themselves or, finish them manually on the machine. With the ProtoTRAK control, you don’t need knowledge of G or M codes to be able to create beautiful and complex parts quickly and easily.”
With a wink Didier Gillain confesses, “even I could do it”.
For further information www.xyzmachinetools.com