Queen's Awards honour UK industry

The awards are the UK's most prestigious awards for business performance and are announced to coincide with Her Majesty's birthday on 21st April. The awards are given annually to companies selected by The Queen, on the advice of the Prime Minister, who is assisted by an advisory committee that includes representatives of Government, industry and commerce, and the trade unions. Dynex Semiconductor received the Queen's Award for Enterprise in the International Trade category. This award recognises substantial growth in overseas earnings and commercial success, sustained over a three year period. Dynex has grown its overseas sales by nearly 90% over the three years to December 2008 and has a wide spread of markets worldwide. The company recently announced that it is investing £12million to enhance and expand its fabrication capacity for silicon chips and expects the project to be completed by the end of 2010. Dr Paul Taylor, president and ceo, said that it was a great honour to receive the award. He noted: "The fact that our robust overseas growth was based on a broad range of market sectors including industrial, marine and railway, and that the business was won against competition from large multinational businesses, is testimony to the strength of the Dynex business." In recognition of its engineering innovation, investment in technology and its outstanding success in European markets, Shropshire based Proto Labs was awarded the Queen's Award for Enterprise: International Trade. The manufacturer was founded five years ago and has focused on improving the economics and delivery times associated with the production of prototype and low-volume parts for manufacturers. Proto Labs has achieved sustainable year-on-year growth and its services are used by product designers and product development teams who need prototype or low-volume plastic parts delivered. John Tumelty, Proto Labs' managing director, said: "Our services allow design and development engineers, even those with very little or no experience of metal-cutting or plastic injection moulding, to order and receive precise, high quality parts more simply and faster than ever before. In just a few years Proto Labs in Europe has helped thousands of companies. Receiving this coveted Queen's Award makes us all very proud of what we have achieved in such a short period of time." Metering technology specialist, Sentec has been awarded the Queen's Award for Enterprise in the International Trade category. This was awarded in recognition of the company's growth over the last three years, over which the company more than trebled its overseas earnings to £4.3million. Sentec achieved the growth necessary to win this accolade by implementing a successful market strategy based on licensing selected partners and supporting them with product development and consultancy services. The result is that Sentec technology is now included in over 5million (or around half) of the smart electricity meters installed in the USA today. Mark England, managing director of Sentec said: "Sentec has a unique track record of turning our patented technologies into commercially successful smart metering products and we see great opportunities over the next few years in Europe and further afield, as proposals for smart metering roll outs in many countries come to fruition. That we've achieved this is down to a lot of hard work from the Sentec team, combined with a world class level of expertise, and it is wonderful to see that recognised" The awards will be presented by Her Majesty's Lord Lieutenant later in the year.