Press Release

A NEW WAY OF THINKING IN MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY

March 2005

Four high-technology manufacturing businesses - Chiron Werke UK, Turning Technologies, Hyfore and Hyformation - have come together to create The Engineering Technology Group Ltd. This new Group has adopted a new and radically different philosophy that gives customers the opportunity to take full advantage of highly productive machine tools and compete in global markets.

The Engineering Technology Group’s approach combines what smaller companies do best – provide specialised expertise and focus – with the strong resources infrastructure and market knowledge of a larger organisation. Each of the four members of the Group will operate as an individual business, with its own dedicated team of skilled, factory-trained engineers, but be part of a unified structure that allows them to share common central resources, services and information.

Paul Rhodes, Chairman of The Engineering Technology Group, explains the challenge facing UK engineering.

“To compete with low labour cost manufacturers in China, India and Eastern Europe we must think harder and act faster to develop a competitive edge. This not only means investing in faster, more accurate, more reliable, higher technology, and more flexible machine tools, it also means applying them to create the very best World Class manufacturing processes, ” he says.

“But the problem with the UK machine tool industry has been that small niche companies often lacked the resources to meet these challenges, while larger companies distributing a wide range of machine tool types did not seem to have the
in-depth expertise or desire to handle turnkey applications and develop leading edge processes.

“The Engineering Technology Group has developed a truly unique response to this urgent need and brings together the very best in high technology machine tools and the cream of skilled engineering support to apply the technology in a business-winning manner,” he says.

The creation of the new Group has seen a number of senior management appointments. Paul Rhodes himself steps up from Managing Director of Chiron Werke UK, the high-productivity machining centre specialist, to become Chairman of the Group with additional responsibility for core services.

Richard Blake joins the Group from DMG to take over from Paul as Managing Director of Chiron Werke UK.

Mick Webster joins the Group from Toyoda Machine Tools as General Manager of Hyformation, a new business focusing on Flexible Manufacturing Systems.

The Managing Directors of the other two group members remain the same: Richard Turner heads up Turning Technologies, the sole UK distributor for Nakamura-Tome’s Super High Precision Turning Centres, and Gary Dickinson runs the manufacturing automation specialist Hyfore.

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For more information please contact:

Polly Taylor
Turning Technologies
Tel: 01926 818 418
E :ptaylor@turning.biz
www.turning.biz    www.chironuk.co.uk
www.engtechgroup.com

Andy Sandford
Sticklebacks Communications Ltd
Tel: 01737 270 648
Mob: 07971 436 644
E : Andy@sticklebacks.com
www.sticklebacks.com