A UK designer and manufacturer of cooling and HVAC products to the transport sector has sealed a string of new contract wins that has seen it take sales past pre-Covid levels. Birmingham-based Grayson Thermal Systems has bounced back from the pandemic after securing more than £8m of orders from customers including ABB, Solaris, Skoda and Wrightbus. Group turnover has now risen to £32m supported by the creation of more than 40 new jobs.

The company’s new Battery Thermal Management System (BTMS) is proving extremely popular with its core bus and coach market, as well as other customers in the off-highway commercial vehicle and rail sectors. This ‘plug and play’ technology helps to regulate the temperature of electric vehicle batteries.

For further information www.graysonts.com

Members of the House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee visited the Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC) to hear about how research and innovation is creating new jobs and boosting economic growth across the West Midlands. The committee met with Clive Hickman, chief executive of the Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC), Andy Street, Mayor of the West Midlands, and Katherine Bennett CBE, CEO of the High Value Manufacturing Catapult. The group toured the MTC’s Antsy Park campus to see first-hand the advanced research and development work taking place across the site.

For further information www.the-mtc.org

Walter Ewag UK, the Warwick-based source of Walter and Ewag tool and insert grinding/erosion/laser processing machines, as well as Walter tool measuring machines, has promoted Matthew Redfern to customer care co-ordinator. Redfern has been with Walter Ewag UK for almost 10 years as a service technician, after an apprenticeship with a specialist tooling supplier that led to various roles, including machinery maintenance. He says his new position interacting with an extensive UK-wide customer base “will complement my enthusiasm for getting hands on and solving customer problems”.

For further information
www.walter-machines.com

Businesses across Yorkshire and Humber are set to benefit from £1.5m of funding towards industrial digitalisation, from the Made Smarter programme. The programme aims to improve digital adoption among SMEs in Yorkshire and Humber, and includes intensive one-to-one advice and support delivered through growth hubs in South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, Hull and east Yorkshire, northeast Lincolnshire, York and North Yorkshire. Through the programme, South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority expects to be able to fund and support around 500 Yorkshire and Humber manufacturers.

For further information
https://is.gd/piqude

Rolls-Royce has delivered its 1000th Trent XWB–84, achieving another key milestone for the engine programme. The engine, which will power an Airbus A350-900, was built at the company’s production test facility in Derby. Following its entry into service in 2015, the Trent XWB-84 quickly became the fastest selling large engine of all time. It has now achieved more than 8 million engine flying hours in service with more than 30 operators, demonstrating its versatility and capability by flying a range of different routes, from short-range segments to ultra-long-range flights of more than 18 hours.

For further information www.rolls-royce.com