Member Article

Acorn Starilifts’ double success in manufacturing awards

A unique engineering solution which is helping fuel a boom in overseas sales has earned two prestigious awards for Acorn Stairlifts.

It won both the Innovation Award and the Export Award when the North East, Yorkshire and Humber regional winners were announced in the EEF Future Manufacturing Awards 2016. Now the Steeton-based company will progress to the national finals stage of the awards, to be presented in London at the end of January.

The Innovation Award recognises Acorn Stairlifts’ unique FastTrack® system, which has given it industry-leading response times for installing curved stairlifts. Developed in-house, FastTrack® means Acorn’s engineers can build and fit a bespoke curved stairlift in just a few hours by assembling a range of prefabricated stair rail sections on site to precisely follow the contours of a customer’s staircase.

Because the rail sections are stocked on installer vans, a curved stairlift can be fitted within a few days of an order being taken, even next day if required. This contrasts starkly with the conventional method of designing and manufacturing a one-off curved rail in a factory, which typically takes up to six weeks from order to installation.

The pioneering FastTrack® system has helped Acorn expand its business overseas, especially in America where it has become the established market leader for stairlifts. It now builds more than 60,000 stairlifts per year at its factories in West Yorkshire and Scotland and exports to 84 countries worldwide.

Around two-thirds of its near £150M. annual turnover comes from export sales, helping Acorn to win the EEF regional Export Award for the second year running. Last year it also went on to win the national EEF award for Outstanding Exports and the overall Winner of Winners title at the awards ceremony in London.

Nick Wilson, Acorn Stairlifts’ senior operations director, accepted the 2016 regional awards at a dinner held in Harrogate and hosted by BBC presenter Wendy Gibson.

“We were absolutely delighted to win both categories that we were entered in,” he said. “These awards are a credit to all the team at Acorn, both here in the UK and in our growing operations overseas.”

Formerly known as the Engineering Employers’ Federation, EEF is the UK’s largest employer’s organisation and has supported and championed its manufacturing and engineering businesses for 120 years. Its annual Future Manufacturing Awards recognise and highlight the UK’s most successful makers and are highly respected throughout the manufacturing sector.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Duncan Smith .