♦  Vacon is supplying more than 200 HVAC drives for Europe’s tallest building, the 310m-tall Shard, due to be completed next to London Bridge stationin  May 2012. The IP54-rated Vacon 100 drives will help to ensure the comfort of the occupants of the 72–floor, glass-clad building, which will include offices, a luxury hotel, three floors of restaurants, 13 floors of residences, and a public viewing gallery.

♦  OEM Automatic has acquired Echobeach, the Somerset-based distributor of Contaclip connection systems in the UK. The business has been transferred to OEM’s Leicester premises.

♦  The German flexible coupling manufacturer Inkoma Maschienenbau has appointed the Croydon-based power transmission division of Francis and Francis as its new main dealer for the UK and Ireland.

♦  Grant Wood has been appointed managing director of Rotork Controls, the electric valve actuation division of the Rotork Group. Wood joined Rotork in 2006 as director of site services, where he has been responsible for expanding the global after-sales and engineering projects business.

♦  Magnomatics, the Sheffield-based specialist in magnetic power transmission systems and compact motors and generators, has appointed the former president of Rolls Royce Gas Turbine Operations, Dr Michael Lloyd, as chairman. Lloyd is a Fellow of the Institute of Engineering & Technology, the Institute of Mechanical Engineers, the Royal Aeronautical Society and the Royal Academy of Engineers.

♦  After four years as managing director of the Bournemouth-based geared motor manufacturer Parvalux, Justine Levine has left “to pursue other interests”. He has handed leadership back to Parvalux’s owner and chief executive, Steven Clark.

♦  A new two-day regional trade show called Sensors and Systems for Control and Instrumentation will make its debut at the Five venue in Farnborough on 14 and 15 September, 2011.

♦  The controls specialist .steute has signed an agreement with Alcatraz Interlocks to sell the Dutch company’s patented interlock systems in the UK and Ireland. The agreement covers a range of heavy-duty control devices as well as key exchange and valve-interlocking systems.