Manufacturing and Engineering Magazine Volume 425 - January 2016 | Page 7

update GEORG UK AIMS FOR OVER £1M IN NEW SALES One of the fastest growing manufacturers in the West Midlands has opened the doors to its new design and Test Rig Centre. Georg UK, which grew 40% in 2015, held an open day in December 2015 to showcase its machine shop, electronics department and expert engineering team that has completed more than 50 bespoke test rigs for clients in the aerospace sector. Backed by a university collaboration, the company is poised to take this knowledge and experience into the rail sector and expects this combined approach to bring in over £1m of new sales over the next twelve months. Delegates from Moog, Alstom, Rail Alliance and the EEF are said to have met members of staff and given an insight into how the ‘rigs’ are putting safety critical components through their paces. The head of Manufacturing at Lloyds Bank and senior figures from Warwick Manufacturing Group were also on site to see how the firm’s capabilities could help other customers to develop and launch new products. In a statement, Neil Wyke, managing director said: “We’ve had a fantastic year and a lot of this growth has been down to our ability to design and manufacture bespoke test rigs. “To date, we’ve completed over 50 special purpose rigs, ranging from £200,000 to £2m depending on the complexity and the size. These have been used to test thousands of components on civil and military aircraft, including door opening systems, rudder actuators, thrust reversers and elevators… we now believe there’s a fantastic opportunity to apply this knowledge in rail.” Established in 1987,