Telford-based Fabweld Steel Products has returned to full operational capacity and recalled all of its staff from furlough after securing a record £500,000 of sales in just seven days.

The spike in sales – around 10 times more than what would be expected at this time of year – signals a return of confidence to the market, believes managing director Richard Hilton. “I think this is a very positive signal that confidence is beginning to return to industry, and long may it continue,” he states. The recent surge in orders has come from a mix of UK and export projects, including €275,000 from Germany for the supply of recessed access covers.
For further information www.fsp.co.uk

The Nuclear AMRC’s proposal to establish a new advanced manufacturing research centre in Derby has secured government funding.

Supported by Derby City Council and the D2N2 Local Enterprise Partnership, the proposal has been awarded £6.85m by the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government. Local partners will also invest in the proposed £20m project to create a new permanent home on Derby’s Infinity Park for Nuclear AMRC Midlands, creating 70 jobs and helping to reboot the local economy after the coronavirus crisis.
For further information www.namrc.co.uk

Following the UK launch by Hurco at the end of 2019 of a portable cobot (collaborative robot) range, the company has set up a new manufacturing cell at its High Wycombe technical centre to help potential customers across Britain and Ireland see the way in which machine-tool tending may be simply and inexpensively automated.

Hurco is keen to showcase the productivity and cost benefits that come from maximising spindle uptime. The cobot installed in the demonstration cell has a twin gripper attachment and feeds a Hurco TM8i three-axis CNC lathe.
For further information www.hurco.co.uk

Foresight Group, an independent infrastructure and private-equity investment manager, and Williams Advanced Engineering (WAE), have made a £1.45m follow-on investment from the Foresight Williams Technology EIS Fund into Inovo Robotics.

This investment will allow Inovo to grow sales internationally and brings the total invested by the fund to £2.95m, having originally invested £1.5m in October 2018 to support the company’s first product to market. Inovo is developing a competitively priced ‘cobot’, a collaborative robot designed to operate safely
within a human work environment.
For further information www.wae.com

The Manufacturing Barometer, the largest survey of SME manufacturers in England, shows that the sector is bouncing back from the worst effects of COVID-19 with a degree of increased optimism around turnover, profits, jobs and investment.

Conducted by SWMAS (South West Manufacturing Advisory Service) and the Manufacturing Growth Programme (MGP), the report reveals that 40% of those questioned are expecting future sales to increase, which is a massive improvement on the 9% who were predicting this outcome in the previous survey (in April).
For further information www.swmas.co.uk