the PeoPle - OPERC - Off-highway Plant and Equipment Research ...

NEWS
Youngman invests in new
state of the art technology
Youngman Group, a leading supplier
of innovative work at height solutions,
has recently invested £2.5m in stateof-the-art,
automated manufacturing
technology at its plant in Maldon,
Essex.
Rising costs and growing competition
from Eastern Europe and China have
forced a rethink of the company’s
largely manual manufacturing methods.
This has resulted in the major
investment which has been made in
order to provide Youngman with a
viable manufacturing facility in the UK,
rather than outsource highly labour
intensive processes overseas.
Youngman’s production engineers
identified laser cutting and robotic
welding as the optimum areas
for improvement and approached
ABB, a global leader in power and
automation technologies, with the task
8
April 2011
of undertaking the turnkey project.
The new equipment, which includes
two fully-automated welding cells
complete with ABB’s IRB 1600 robots,
will enable Youngman to compete
rigorously against imports from
lower cost economies, whilst aiding
flexible production and reducing
stockholding.
Commenting on the investment,
Youngman Group’s managing director
Paul Bentley said: “We recognised
that we needed to plan for the future
as it was clear that costs were
continuing to rise and the company
was facing cheaper competition
from both European and Chinese
manufacturers. We are confident that
this initial investment will help secure
the future of both the company and its
employees, with the added benefit of
enabling the business to compete on
a global basis.”
Tarmac secures...
Tarmac has been awarded the Carbon Trust
Standard after taking action on climate change
by measuring, managing and reducing its
carbon emissions by nearly 15 per cent.
The Carbon Trust Standard is the UK’s
leading independent certification for real
carbon reduction and is based on a rigorous,
independent assessment. It provides
independent verification of the success of
Tarmac’s comprehensive carbon management
programmes and the company’s commitment
to lowering its carbon footprint across all of its
UK operations.
Tarmac has delivered the 15 per cent reduction
across all of its UK operations, including 537
UK quarries, asphalt plants, concrete plants,
lime and cement operations. As part of this, the
company has also cut CO 2 per tonne of cement
by 41 per cent over the last 10 years.
Dr Martyn Kenny, Tarmac’s Director of
Sustainability said: “Securing this independent
award recognises our long-term commitment to
reducing our environmental impact and carbon
across all of our operations.
“We run a number of carbon management
programme, which includes energy roadmaps
and energy saving targets, employee training
and awards. We’re also put in place a wide
range of initiatives, from investing £13.4 million
in a new, more energy efficient lime kiln at
Tunstead which has cut CO 2 emissions by
40% per tonne of lime produced; new SMART
metering technology that we’ve rolled out to
each UK site, which provides us with live data
to monitor and identify energy savings; and an
extensive waste-derived fuels programme at
our cement kiln. Our combined programmes
have contributed to us delivering tangible
carbon savings. We recognise that we need to
continue to develop this important work, and
the Carbon Trust Standard provides a very
effective tool to help benchmark this progress.”