Engineering skill and entrepreneurial management create global success.
1 min read
One of the aims of the British Engineering Excellence Awards is to show that British companies are competing on a global stage and that companies don't need to be multinational in scale in order to be successful.
The 2010 event has, once again, highlighted this fact. The winner of the Grand Prix and the winner of the Judge's Special Award have both shown that, despite being small companies, they are leading the world in their chosen fields.
Let's highlight the winners of our two main prizes. Andrew Burrows, named as the Design Engineer of the Year and winner of the Grand Prix, has developed a system that can save water on a massive scale.
Water is an increasingly precious resource and concern is rising about the amount of water being lost in the distribution network. Yet this has not been addressed from a system point of view. Burrow's elegant solution is already saving 250tonne of water per day in each of the 50 systems installed in Malaysia. A full commercial prototype system being trialled by Thames Water is likely to not only save water, but also reduce the amount of energy needed to pump water through its network by up to 30%.
Meanwhile, 13 strong Dexela is taking on four multinationals in the medical xray imaging sector. Its first to market approach, a fast moving development team and strong partnerships, have allowed it to prototype and supply a new generation of large area cmos xray detectors ahead of its competitors. And it has developed a manufacturing process in which the cmos sensors can be stitched together with a positional accuracy of a few microns and with an alignment accuracy of 0.001°.
Both companies show that engineering skill and entrepreneurial management can drive success.
I'm sure you'll join with me in congratulating our winners and thanking all companies who entered this year.
