Citizen Machinery UK is to open a new regional office, applications engineering and machine showroom in the West Midlands to enhance its customer service offer and “provide users with a significant machine preparation service to support the growing number of high-value, automated turnkey solutions” being handled by the company.

The circa £2m investment on a 1.1-acre site at the Hurst Business Park in Brierley Hill, near Birmingham, will include a 600 sq m showroom. Construction is scheduled to start in early 2018 and the new facility is expected to be officially opened late next year.
The existing headquarters/showroom, where the majority of office-based staff are located, was designed for the traditional Citizen sliding-head business, but now additional showroom space is required to support increasing demand for the company’s 51 and 64 mm bar capacity turning centres.
For further information www.citizenmachinery.co.uk

One of the world’s largest papermaking machinery manufacturers has installed a Turbex aqueous cleaning machine to remove grease and oil from more than 30 different components during refurbishment.

The machine is also assisting the renovation of selected parts from rolling mills. With the company’s previous aqueous washer, it was awkward to load components as they had to be lowered in from the top. Additionally, larger parts were arriving to be processed which did not fit in the washing machine at all, so it was time for a replacement. The refurbishment centre eventually decided in favour of a Turbex AC 1.7 two-stage industrial cleaning machine, which is able to support parts weighing up to 2 tonnes.
For further information www.turbex.co.uk

The Southern Manufacturing Show will mark its 20th anniversary in 2018 with a move to a new permanent venue at Farnborough. The UK’s longest-running annual industrial technology show will be the first major exhibition to be held at the brand new £30m conference and exhibition centre at Farnborough International in Hampshire.

The 20,000 sq m facility is the largest new exhibition venue to be built in the UK for two decades, offering easy access, panoramic runway level views, Wi-Fi throughout and 3500 free onsite car parking spaces. Southern Manufacturing 2018 will be staged on 6-8 February. The 2017 show attracted around 800 exhibitors and nearly 9000 visitors from all over the world.
For further information www.industrysouth.co.uk

Tewkesbury-based Helander Precision Engineering has been selected for Sharing in Growth (SiG), the government-backed supply chain competitiveness programme.

The company applied to join SiG as part of a strategy to grow its aerospace activities into a key strategic market, alongside nuclear and oil and gas. With SiG’s support, Helander now plans to expand its turnover in aerospace, with a strategy to secure 100 local jobs by taking turnover to £22m by 2022. The intense four-year £250m SiG training and development programme focuses on leadership, culture and strategy. Helander’s initial priorities on the SiG programme will include designing a new factory layout to increase efficiency.
For further information www.sig-uk.org