Process roundup: Endress+Hauser, TÜV SÜD, Unibloc, Siemens, MTC

March will be the last opportunity for businesses to take advantage of the tax deduction enabling companies to claim a 130% capital allowance on qualifying plant and machinery investments, along with a 50% first-year allowance for qualifying special rate assets. Over the last two years, the super-deduction has allowed businesses to cut their taxes by up to 25p for every £1 invested. Most tangible capital assets a business uses can be considered plant and machinery to claim capital allowances. Qualifying assets include solar panels, computer equipment, commercial vehicles, power tools, office furniture and refrigeration units. For more details about investment eligibility check the GOV.UK website.

STATS Group (STATS) is aiding owner of the Northern Irish Kilroot power station EPUK Investments in converting a coal-fired power station to gas. The power station, located on the shores of Belfast Lough, once supplied one-third of Northern Ireland’s electricity but faced closure next year because it could not meet low-carbon environmental standards. EPUK Investments committed to a major project which would transform Kilroot into a more environmentally friendly energy producer.

International seismic technology and processing company. STRYDE has sold an additional 18,000 onshore seismic sensors to global seismic acquisition contractor and technology company Explor in a seven-figure deal. Over three years of using the sensors Explor has acquired high-resolution seismic for over 15 clients spanning carbon capture and storage (CCS), oil and gas, mining, helium exploration, civil engineering, and geothermal.  

Schaeffler has announced the acquisition of 100 per cent of the shares in ECO-Adapt SAS. Which provides condition monitoring solutions based on electrical signal analysis and systems for the optimisation of energy consumption.The acquisition expands the Industrial division’s portfolio of lifetime solutions and strengthens its position in the field of digitally-based predictive maintenance.

National Manufacturing Institute Scotland (NMIS), which is due to open the doors to its new facility in Renfrewshire later this year, has appointed Jacqui Murray as new COO and Stephen Fitzpatrick  as director of NMIS Digital Factory. Murray is current Chair of Smart Nano NI, a large-scale investment programme into advanced manufacturing in Northern Ireland; an advisor to a range of government and industry bodies and is also a Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professor. Fitzpatrick will head what is one of the five specialist centres within the NMIS Group,

Endress+Hauser has announced the opening of a new 48,000-square-foot Indianapolis, Indiana-based regional logistics hub, marking a further milestone in the Group’s project to boost the fulfilment of customer orders and satisfaction on a local and global scale. “This new regional logistics hub will allow us to move products through a global network regardless of where they’re produced and where they need to be shipped,” said Steve Demaree, North America regional supply chain manager.

Huntsman’s Rotterdam and Wilton, UK manufacturing facilities have achieved the International Sustainability & Carbon Certification (ISCC PLUS) for mass balance following audits by Bureau Veritas. ISCC PLUS is a global sustainability certification system that makes it possible to track the amount and sustainability characteristics of circular and/or bio-based content in the value chain and attribute it via the mass balance approach based on verifiable bookkeeping. Huntsman can now offer its customers methylene diphenyl diisocyanate (MDI) that has been manufactured based on mass balance principles, which can help reduce the attributed carbon footprint of customers’ products.

S&A Transform Group is investing a further £1 million in its own professional training and apprenticeships academies to create a pipeline of talent to plug the UK’s professional skills gap crisis. S&A Academy will have three specialised academies: Technology & Digital, Science & Laboratory, and Business & Leadership. Each providing personalised professional training and apprenticeships as well as bespoke course creation and certification programmes for corporate client

Yorkshire Water is using cutting edge modelling grade technology to complete surveys of hard-to-reach manholes – a UK water industry first – as part of its smart wastewater network pilot projects in Holbeck and Ilkley. It aims to map and examine the condition of the sewer network, with the information and data being used to prevent and identify sewer blockages and tackle them before they become a problem. Subterra’s VScout has been specifically designed to enable surveys of hard-to-reach manholes, pumping stations and shafts without the need for man entry, making it much safer that traditional surveying techniques. Surveys can take just two minutes to complete and can provide detailed 3D measurements of manholes and shafts and interactive 360-degree video of the inspection which can viewed remotely. 

TÜV SÜD Machinery division has appointed Ian Wright as its new Chief Engineer. Wright has more than 30 years’ experience in the machinery industry, first starting his career with Pioneer Electronics as a machinery technician. Ian is also a technical certifier for accreditation body TÜV SÜD BABT, providing certification support for UKCA and CE marking.

American Unibloc Hygienic Technologies, provider of hygienic positive displacement pumps, air-operated double diaphragm (AODD) pumps, drum pumps, and other flow control products, today announced the acquisition of UK firm Metaltech Precision Engineers Ltd. The British firm has a nearly 50-year operating history as a critical supply chain partner to the hygienic flow control industry, Including providing machining for a wide range of UHT’s hygienic pumps serving the food, and beverage, pharmaceutical and transportation markets. UHT said acquisition of Metaltech allowed it to further vertically integrate its supply chain, shortening product lead times to Unibloc customers and adding capacity to support global growth. 

Coventry-based centre for advanced manufacturing technologies, the Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC) has appointed Dr Graham Hoare OBE to succeed Dr Clive Hickman as its new CEO. Hoare brings more than 35 years' top-level industrial and commercial experience to the role. Hickman will retire as CEO of the MTC on March 31 and, as announced last year he will become chair of the MTC board with effect from April. Hoare is a former Chair of Ford of Britain, and previously was Ford’s director of powertrain research and advanced engineering at its US headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan.

Energy services specialist Well Services Group (WSG) has made a £1 million investment in new premises in the UK. The firm said this followed increased demand for WSG’s products and technical expertise from clients in the petrochemical, refining, pharmaceutical, alternative, power and energy services sectors in the north of England. Double the size of WSG’s previous Cramlington, Northumberland base, the new 1,100 sq m facility includes offices, workshop space, storage and test bay provision, and class rooms for training purposes, and can accommodate more than 40 staff.

Made Smarter has launched a new fast-track leadership programme to help SME manufacturers accelerate their digital transformation. The three month Leading Digital Transformation programme has been designed by Made Smarter’s North West Adoption Programme, the government-funded industry-led initiative to increase technology adoption among SME manufacturers, and Manchester Metropolitan University. Manufacturing businesses with less than 250 employees, a turnover less than £36 million or balance sheet less than £18 million, and a significant part of their operations based in the North West are eligible to apply.

The University of Sheffield has unveiled new state-of-the-art learning facility The Digital Innovation Zone (DIZ), developed in partnership with Siemens and run by an undergraduate team for thousands of student engineers. Providing opportunity learn to use cutting-edge technologies, from edge computing to digital twin simulation, it will include a digital twin of the University’s Diamond Pilot Plant – a continuous powder processing facility that is the first of its kind in any UK university giving  students the chance to learn how to run and maintain a real industrial plant virtually.

Advantech, a global leader in Industrial IoT, has launched four donation initiatives for disaster relief in order to assist in Turkey's and Syria’s post-earthquake reconstruction.

Pics: clockwise from top left: Sheffield DIZ, Jacqui Murray of NMIS, STRYDE sensors, STATS at Kilroot power station