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28 March, 2024

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Brammer Buck & Hickman becomes Rubix

01 September, 2022

The UK industrial supplies specialist Brammer Buck & Hickman is changing its name to Rubix – the group that has owned it since 2018. Brammer Buck & Hickman was formed in 2011 when the MRO distributor Brammer merged with Buck & Hickman, a supplier of tools and health and safety products. It currently has more than 1,100 employees working at more than 40 branches across the UK.


Baker Hughes buys Brush machinery arm to extend portfolio

12 August, 2022

The US energy technology company Baker Hughes is buying the Power Generation division of Brush Group from its private equity owner, One Equity Partners, for an undisclosed sum. Baker Hughes says that the division – which manufactures synchronous motors as well as generators, condensers and control systems – will enhance its turbomachinery portfolio, as well as optimising its supply chain using Brush Power Generation’s manufacturing base and expanding its capacity for projects in both the industrial and energy sectors.


£13m extension will offer robotics training to apprentices

01 August, 2022

Construction has started on a £13m extension to the Oxfordshire Advanced Skills (OAS) training centre which will be used for new apprenticeship programmes in areas including robotics, data science, cybersecurity, energy storage, power engineering and space. The OAS team is also developing a curriculum for a new automation and controls level 4 apprenticeship programme, which it expects to deliver from September 2023.


Talking Industry Webinars are now available as podcasts

18 July, 2022

The Talking Industry series of online panel discussions are now available in a convenient podcast format. As well as audio recordings of the Webinars, DFA Manufacturing Media – which organises the online discussions and publishes Drives & Controls – is also planning to publish original podcasts both as one-off editions such as interviews with industry personalities, and as series of related programmes.


Siemens UK VSD plant will be carbon-neutral 8 years early

14 July, 2022

Siemens’ variable-speed drives factory in Cheshire, UK, is on track to achieve carbon neutrality this year – eight years ahead of its original target. The Congleton site, which manufactures more than 1.2m controls and drives every year, has achieved this goal by deploying a range of sustainable technologies for energy generation and demand, including generating 75kW of renewable energy from a hydro-electric plant on the nearby river Dane, and using carbon-neutral biogas to power an on-site gas engine. These measures alone are saving the company £250,000 a year and have taken the 80% power-independent factory off the grid.


Entries are about to close for 2022/23 Buyer’s Guide

12 July, 2022

The July/August edition of Drives & Controls magazine will contain our annual Buyer’s Guide for Drives, Automation, Power Transmission and Motion Control. For more than 35 years, this has been an essential tool for buyers and users of these products, offering easy-to access information on who makes and sells what, and how to contact them. There is nothing else like it in the UK market.


Project slashes cost of OT cybersecurity for UK SMEs

11 July, 2022

A Welsh cybersecurity software developer has joined forces with Siemens to offer a low-cost OT (operational technology) security system for manufacturing SMEs (small and medium sized enterprises) in the UK. They say that the managed security system will protect any networked, Internet-connected technology with pricetags starting from £10,000, rather than the hundreds of thousands of pounds normally needed to set up and maintain security operations centres.


Control Techniques co-founder Trevor Wheatley dies at 79

04 July, 2022

Trevor Wheatley, the co-founder and former chairman of Control Techniques, and a pioneer in the variable-speed drives industry, has died at the age of 79.


Transformer maker expands in response to growing demand

01 July, 2022

The Stoke-on-Trent transformer manufacturer Electro-Wind has expanded its manufacturing premises across two sites and taken on extra staff in response to a growing demand for both its standard and custom-built products over the past couple of years.


Siemens appoints Black-Smith to run Motion Controls

23 June, 2022

Siemens has appointed Sarah Black-Smith as general manager of its Motion Control business in the UK. She was previously as head of factory operations at Siemens’ drives factory in Congleton, Cheshire, where she was responsible for producing more than one million drives and controls per year.


Government reveals plans to simplify move to UKCA mark

21 June, 2022

The UK Government has announced a series of changes intended to make it easier for British businesses to apply the new UKCA (UK Conformity Assessed) mark for products placed on the market in England, Scotland and Wales.


Course will top up HNCs/HNDs to a manufacturing degree

14 June, 2022

Siemens has teamed up with Liverpool’s John Moores University to launch a top-up degree in Manufacturing Systems Engineering, aimed at engineering professionals who want to upgrade their existing HNC/HND certificates or diplomas to gain new skills and experience, and to study to a degree level.


Dyson seeks 700 robotics engineers for £2.75bn expansion

26 May, 2022

Dyson, the domestic appliances giant, says it wants to recruit 700 robotics engineers over the next five years as it expands its newly-revealed robotics division, which already includes 250 robotics experts working across disciplines such as computer vision, machine learning, sensors and mechatronics. Following ten years of secretive work on robots, Dyson is now revealing and accelerating its development of autonomous devices capable of household chores and other tasks.


Old kit is more of a hindrance than Brexit, say UK firms

24 May, 2022

More UK manufacturers believe that their continuing reliance on ageing technologies is having a bigger negative effect of their businesses than Brexit, according to a survey of more than 400 manufacturing executives in the UK and US. The survey was conducted by iBASEt, a Californian company that simplifies how complex products are built and maintained, in conjunction with the UK’s Manufacturing Technology Centre. The 403 respondents were split almost evenly between the US and UK.


D&C Show brings face-to-face meetings back to the NEC

24 May, 2022

The Drives & Controls Show and its co-located manufacturing industry events – Smart Industry Expo, Plant and Asset Management, Fluid Power & Systems and Air-Tech – returned to the Birmingham National Exhibition Centre last month after a four-year Covid-enforced absence. 


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