Amada UK has been crowned ‘Large Employer of the Year 2017’ at the Worcestershire Apprenticeships Awards, where 300 people were in attendance. The award is seen as recognition for the company’s successful apprenticeship programme, which has been in place since 2006.

At present, Amada employs 17 apprentices, mostly in engineering, but also in accountancy and business administration schemes. The programme supports Amada UK’s mantra of “growing our own talent pool”, providing management candidates of the future with Amada ‘DNA’.
For further information www.amada.co.uk

Dawson Shanahan has further boosted its capabilities in cold forming by investing in a high-throughput Formax machine. The move takes the company’s investment in new machinery to £500,000 for the third year in a row.

Additional investments have been made in Dawson Shanahan’s turning, milling and grinding capabilities, as well as in metrology and cleaning systems. The Formax FX54M is a four-die, high-speed cold former that will extend the company’s capability in two ways: its increased size will allow Dawson Shanahan to make larger cold-formed parts; and its throughput of up to 190 pieces per minute will help raise overall production capacity.
For further information www.dawson-shanahan.co.uk

Industrial Tooling Corporation (ITC) has invested well over £1m in the latest tool grinding equipment to extend its product ranges and enhance manufacturing capacity, productivity and quality standards. The investment includes two Rollomatic grinding centres, a centralised Vomat micro-filtration coolant system, a Haimer balancing machine and a wheel dressing machine from Action Super Abrasives (ASA).

The Rollomatic models include the new ShapeSmart NP5 blanking machine, ITC’s third Rollomatic cylindrical grinder. Suitable for preparing tool blanks, the NP5 has an integrated three-axis robot loader for the automated and lights-out blanking of rotary tool shanks from 0.025 to 25 mm. Alongside the ShapeSmart NP5 is the new Rollomatic GrindSmart Nano 6, the UK’s first Nano 6 installation. This six-axis grinding centre has been designed for producing micro-tools in the diameter range between 0.03 and 2.0 mm.
For further information www.itc-ltd.co.uk

Sally Thorley, who has been employed by Precision Products for nearly 30 years, has taken over the position of managing director from Brian Owen, who remains on the board of directors as chairman. Located in Rustington, West Sussex, Precision Products is a subcontract manufacturer of turned parts.

Further senior appointments are Ian Jenkins, who has moved across from production to become commercial manager, and Jason Bullen, who joined the company at the start of 2018 as production manager. In other news, the firm has become accredited to the AS9100 Rev D quality standard.
For further information www.precisionproducts.co.uk