Award-winner Husqvarna tells why it ’ s great to innovate
Aycliffe Business Make Your Mark Awards
INNOVATION AWARD
Sponsored by Cornerstone Group
FINALISTS
Husqvarna ’ s Lee Francis received the Innovation trophy from Simon Robinson and Charlotte Kemp from Maverick Language , who were presenting it on behalf of category sponsor Cornerstone Group .
Award-winner Husqvarna tells why it ’ s great to innovate
The Innovation category winner at the Make Your Mark Awards says it ’ s determined to continue its automation journey .
Husqvarna ’ s Aycliffe site has brilliantly reinvented itself in recent years , shifting focus towards increasingly complex robotic lawnmowers .
In fact , one of those very mowers – branded with the Make Your Mark logo – was one of the main prizes in the night ’ s charity auction for Mark Preston ’ s defibrillator charity Missed A Beat .
Husqvarna Aycliffe ’ s maintenance and engineering manager Lee Francis said it was “ testament to the teamwork that ’ s happened in the business – a collaboration of probably six or seven departments working together with a single goal , to develop an innovative product that ’ s automatable and technologically advanced .”
Without all those teams pulling together , he said , winning awards wouldn ’ t be possible , adding : “ This is not an individual award , it ’ s definitely a team award .”
He added : “ The mantra within the business now , our culture , is to follow those lessons learned – to understand the good practices we ’ ve implemented and roll them out over all new platforms going forward .
“ The idea is that the lessons learned and all those key improvements we ’ ve made become natural , become inherent in the culture of the business , so that every product that comes on now has that same fighting chance to be highly automated , technologically advanced , safer to operate and safer to use .”
And he said the Aycliffe site ’ s success wouldn ’ t go unnoticed back at Husqvarna ’ s Swedish HQ .
He said : “ This has been the start of the journey for us . We ’ re 65 per cent automatable but that ’ s not where we want to be – we want to be 100 per cent . We want to push the technology and the products .
“ The innovation we deliver in Newton Aycliffe inspires our teams in Sweden to go ‘ actually , they ’ re very capable of delivering this – let ’ s push more their way , let ’ s push them to go to higher technologies , to innovate even more ’. There ’ s loads more to come from us .”
TBOX TECH A leading innovator in engineering solutions , TBOX Tech is gaining recognition for its revolutionary inventory management systems .
Spearheaded by inventory technology , the firm redefines critical parts management in engineering .
These cutting-edge systems provide advanced control , customisation and unparalleled visibility , reducing errors and costs , while providing durability in harsh environments and streamlining reordering processes .
With a steadfast commitment to durability and reliability , TBOX Tech bosses say the firm empowers engineering operations to reach “ unprecedented levels of success ”.
EXCELPOINT Excelpoint is a software and consultancy provider implementing cutting-edge solutions for global brands and SMEs to automate business operations .
With more than two decades of experience evolving its no-code platform , it competes as a system-building nocode tool at a global level , equipping organisations across all sectors with the necessary features to develop and deploy enterprise-wide systems .
Excelpoint ’ s vision is to enable business users to create and customise systems without any coding knowledge to enhance internal operations , increase efficiency , gain better visibility into workflows and facilitate seamless collaboration across departments .
30 | Aycliffe Business