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product and service factfinders AIR CONTROL INDUSTRIES Ltd Silver Street, Chard, Somerset TA20 2AE www.air-con.co.uk ACI Airknife Drying Systems ACI has produced a new set of literature outlining Total Drying Solutions, based upon Airknife Technology. These individual data sheets, along with a detailed technical CD, are inserted into our new-look ‘Drying System’ folder, providing you with a fully customised information pack, tailored to your specific surface/component drying needs. If you would like a copy, or a FREE DEMO, please visit www.air-con.co.uk igus 51 Caswell Road, Brackmills Industrial Estate, Northampton NN4 7PW e-mail: sales_uk@igus.co.uk www.igus.co.uk New Cable Catalogue The Chainflex cable catalogue is now available from igus. igus has manufactured its own cables since 1989. The high-flex cables withstand the stress of tight bending radii in moving applications and have been tested over millions of cycles. They include control cables, robot cables, motor cables, data cables and servo cables. Request yours today. More details: Write in 560 on the free information card More details: Write in 564 on the free information card ANDANTEX Ltd Rowley Drive, Baginton, Coventry CV3 4LS e-mail: sales@andantex.co.uk www.andantex.co.uk Precision Industrial Gearboxes Widest range of precision low backlash industrial gearboxes: • Spiral Bevel Gearboxes 10 to 2100Nm • Reducers and multipliers up to 220Kw • Single Position Jaw Clutches up to 2400Nm • Epicyclic differential gearbox for speed balancing, speed adjustment and input-output phasing • Differential phase shifters – the heart of a registration control system - In line and bevel right angle versions - Full electronic system for automatic error correction More details: Write in 561 on the free information card MACHINE BUILDING SYSTEMS Ltd Heage Road Industrial Estate, Ripley, Derbyshire DE5 3GH e-mail: sales@mbsitem.co.uk www.mbsitem.co.uk Machine Construction System The item MB System is a modular aluminium extrusionbased system for machine construction. The item range encompasses machine frames, machine guarding, linear slides, work benches, conveyors, jigs and fixtures. Machine Building Systems is the sole distributor in the UK and Ireland for the item MB System. With an online catalogue, CAD downloads and regular new-product updates, the website is well worth a visit. More details: Write in 565 on the free information card BALDOR UK Ltd Mint Motion Centre, 6 Bristol Distribution Park, Hawkley Drive, Bristol BS32 0BF e-mail: sales.uk@baldor.com www.baldormotion.com/br1202 Motion Control Catalogues Build Into Complete Library for Machine Builders Baldor’s series of motion control product catalogues are designed to make life easier for OEMs and machine builders implementing automation systems. Comprising nine separate publications, each is dedicated to a specific area of motion control such as Ethernet motion, servo motors, servo drives, motion controllers and accessories. The series builds into a comprehensive and accessible library of up-to-date system building information. More details: Write in 562 on the free information card SANDVIK MATERIALS TECHNOLOGY UK Manor Way, Halesowen, West Midlands B62 8QZ e-mail: sales.smtuk@sandvik.com www.smt.sandvik.com/uk Sandvik Stainless Steel Stock Programme at a Glance Sandvik’s S:110 brochure contains 28 pages of product information on pipe, tube, bar and hollow bar, showing the extensive stock range of products and provides detailed information on the standard stainless steel programme as well as listing all the relevant material grades. It also provides detailed information on material grade composition, testing, tolerances, a guide to typical applications and Sandvik sales and service contacts. More details: Write in 566 on the free information card COTEL MOULDINGS JG Coates (Burnley) Ltd, Trafalgar Street, Burnley, Lancashire BB11 1TH e-mail: sales@cotel.co.uk www.cotelmouldings.com New Cotel Mouldings Industrial Components Catalogue The new Cotel Mouldings Catalogue is the definitive buyer’s guide for industrial components and includes: • 100s of new products • Extended ranges • Colour photos, technical drawings and material information For our extensive range of stock components including Knobs, Handles and Handwheels, Adjustable Feet, Tube End Fittings, Hinges, Plungers, Plastic and Metal Fittings, Fixings and Fasteners, Cable Management Products and much more please request your free 100 page catalogue today. More details: Write in 563 on the free information card .steute Maylite Business Centre, Martley, Worcestershire WR6 6PQ e-mail: infouk@steute.com www.steute.co.uk New Explosion Protection Safety Switchgear Product Overview • Europe’s largest manufacturer of EEx foot controls, safety switches, emergency grab wire switches and limit switches. • EEx safety magnetic sensors with matching safety relay, standard magnetic sensors with various switching distances. • EEx inductive sensors designed for use in Gas Zone 0, and Dust Zone 20. .steute Safe Switchgear for Complex and Critical Applications More details: Write in 567 on the free information card 56 INDUSTRIAL TECHNOLOGY • May 2008
John Richardson’s ENGINEERING DIARY When my journeying around the UK’s manufacturing heartlands took me to the North West recently, I was lucky enough to spend a very pleasant day in the company of the chaps from Eriks Sealing Technology. Among other things, we talked about the history of the region itself, which was one of the focal points of the industrial revolution in the 1700s. In particular, we could argue that it was in and around Manchester where we really learned how to take raw materials and, on an industrial scale, turn them into an end product. And in the region, that product was cotton. So successful was Manchester’s cotton industry that by around 1850, it was supplying two thirds of the world’s spun cotton. In the early days, the merchants who brought the cotton from Liverpool sold it to small-time masters in Manchester, who then passed it to the spinners working in the cottages. But the 1770s saw the invention of spinning machines from the likes of Samuel Crompton and James Hargreaves, which completely changed the way cotton goods were produced, and were instrumental in the shift to true industrialisation. The machines in the first textile factories – Manchester’s spinning mills – were driven by waterpower, so the mills grew up alongside rivers. Then, in 1783, long before the world saw the steam train, inventor Richard Arkwright realised the potential of James Watt’s Rotary Steam Engine as a source of power, and began using the machine in his Cromford factory. Others followed his lead, meaning that factories no longer had to be built close to fast-flowing rivers; instead they could be built wherever there were good supplies of coal and cheap labour. Manchester and Marxism And so it was that the slums of Manchester grew up, housing workers in the most appalling conditions, who themselves were treated as little better that products, to be hired when needed and simply discarded during slow periods. Perhaps it should come as no surprise to find the region also spawned the origins of communism. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were regular visitors to Manchester, where Engels family had cotton spinning interests. In 1844 Marx wrote: “The worker becomes all the poorer the more wealth he produces, the more his production increases in power and range. The worker becomes an ever cheaper commodity the more commodities he creates. With the increasing value of the world of things proceeds in direct proportion to the devaluation of the world of men. Labour produces not only commodities; it produces itself and the worker as a commodity – and does so in the proportion in which it produces commodities generally.” In 1847, Marx and Engels collaborated to write ‘The Communist Manifesto’. Scarcely was it published when a wave of revolutions broke out in Europe. Perhaps it is interesting to draw links between industrialisation and communism, and to look at where things are going in China at the moment. Certainly there are parallels. But if the North West can indeed be seen as a mirror for where China might head, what has happened to Manchester’s indigenous manufacturing in the last couple of hundred years? Surely it has been decimated. Well, we come back to Eriks Sealing Technologies. It can trace its origins back to 1958, when Charles Weston started manufacturing seals near Salford. By the 1970s, Charles Weston was a global brand, and when JH Fenner bought the company in 1976, and merged it with the Pioneer Oil Sealing Company to form Pioneer Weston, it formed a company that employed over 600 people across three manufacturing sites. Through the 1980s, JH Fenner invested in developing global manufacturing, so successfully that the company became an attractive acquisition for Wyko, which itself was then acquired by Eriks Group in 2006. And so, earlier this year, Pioneer Weston became the UK arm of Eriks Sealing Technology. In terms of its manufacturing output, one might consider Pioneer Weston as a shadow of its former self. The uninformed spectator might view the humble seal as a low value product that cannot possibly be manufactured in the UK competitively. But what I find particularly interesting is the way the company views modern manufacturing in the UK, because it mirrors a growing realisation that our definitions of manufacturing need to change. It is no longer all about how many products are shipped through the doors – you can leave those definitions for China, India and others. Instead, successful manufacturing in the UK is all about focusing on the entire manufacturing process, from market assessment and product design through to manufacture, support and service delivery. In that light, a manufacturer can think about its operations on a global basis, with design in one country, contract manufacture in another, assembly in a third, and possibly the back-up spread world-wide. When I look at the way Eriks is investing in design and testing facilities at the Pioneer Weston Technology Centre, then I can see all of this in action, and I can see that the UK can indeed be a successful manufacturing player in the 21st Century. If our definitions of manufacturing in the UK do need to change, then perhaps the pages of this very magazine need to change also, to reflect the needs of today’s market. I’d be very interested to hear your views on the subject. feedback@itmagazine.uk.com May 2008 • INDUSTRIAL TECHNOLOGY 57
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