Member Article

North East manufacturer unveils global ambitions following successful innovation

Tyne and Wear Marine (TWM) is planning on taking its new innovation global.

The North East manufacturer has come up with a new solution for safely testing marine bollards.

Working with the Manufacturing Advisory Service (MAS) and consultant Ade Walton from Prozeus, TWM has spent the last year developing the ‘Bollard Load Test’ (BLT).

The Port of Tyne initially approached the engineering team at TWM with the idea of finding an alternative and from a rough sketch the BLT was born.

The trademark has been registered and a patent is pending, with the long-term plan to roll out the testing service to other ports in the UK and across the world.

The company will again tap into support from MAS and Prozeus for tips on lean manufacturing that it will use to leverage over £100k of funding from the GROW:OffshoreWind Flexible Enabling Fund.

Jeff Main, managing director at Tyne and Wear Marine said: “I’m really excited about the Bollard Load Test and it appears I’m not the only one…we are about to start using the service at the Port of Tyne and four more ports are asking us to test their bollards for them.

“We are proud that this product has been designed and manufactured completely in the North East and this will be the case going forward. Two people have been directly employed so far and this will increase dramatically as we look to take turnover from £1.2m to £4m by 2018.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ellen Forster .