UK Engineering is not Standing Still
Defining what a business actually does can be problematic for many organisations. Take , an engineering firm from the North East of England. When I originally spoke with Brian Palmer the Group’s Managing Director, he explained things in basic terms, “we’re posh metal benders Pete”. Coming from an engineering background I sort of understood what he meant. The problem is you cannot effectively tag yourself to the worldwide market as posh Geordie metal benders.
Eventually Brian and his team came up with the concept of (Original Engineering Design and Manufacture) at first I was a little confused, however when looking at it closely I realised it was ingenious. Tharsus had actually managed to fit something fairly complex and diverse into one box.
Already customers from around the world are recognising the benefits of working with Tharsus and their OEDM platform. So much so the organisation recently developed a new state of the art factory.
The next task is to take OEDM and present it to the worldwide audience, I do wonder how many will attempt replication?
It really is refreshing to see home grown talent standing up and being counted. At one time the UK lead the way in the engineering field, sadly these days have long since departed.
There’s a lesson here for many organisations, especially those that supply an array of generic services. Sitting back and saying, we can do everything, is hardly a marketable product. Only by having a definable business model can one effectively push forward.
Generally speaking we’re seeing a lot of innovation in the technological arena, understandable as it is relatively new. So it’s nice to see boundaries being pushed in the traditional field. Maybe in a few years time OEDM will become a common element within global engineering.
By Peter Arkwright
Date Written: Sat, Feb 8th 2014