6 • INDUSTRYNEWS
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CUT IT OUT: 3D PRINTER
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PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
Checkatrade
Hits Bullseye
Checkatrade, the trusted
online directory of over
29,000 recommended,
vetted and monitored
tradespeople, has signed a
major deal to become a key
partner of the Professional
Darts Corporation (PDC) and
its popular series of events.
» » THE FASTEST-GROWING INDOOR
sport in the UK over the past decade,
over 500,000 spectators will attend
PDC events worldwide in 2018, with
tournaments also broadcast to over
20 million viewers in more than 110
countries worldwide including through
Sky Sports, ITV4 and BBC Sport in the
UK.
The partnership follows a successful
initial sponsorship that Checkatrade
undertook at the Unibet Masters
competition in Milton Keynes earlier
in the year, and will see Checkatrade
branding opportunities including
presence on the stage and players’
shirts during the full calendar of PDC
televised events.
Gavin Dutton, MD for Checkatrade
said: “Darts is one of the fastest-
growing and most well-loved sports
in the UK. It’s also an electrifying
experience for spectators and
viewers. Through this partnership, the
Checkatrade name and service will be
broadcast to millions of potential new
customers giving us a huge platform
to promote our traders and their
services.”
» » MILA HAS REDUCED THE TIME IT
takes to produce a precision prototype
of a new hardware design from one week
to just one day - thanks to its investment
in its own high specification 3D printer.
The hardware specialist says that this is
having a significant impact on the speed
at which it can deliver new products
from design stage to production.
Product Design and Quality Director
Paul Pearson says: “Traditionally
hardware designers work through
specialist prototyping bureaus to
produce these types of models on their
behalf, which can be time consuming
and fairly expensive.”
The new 3D printer can produce
extremely accurate, dimensionally stable
models which Mila can use to check
the working assembly of a design at
every stage in the development process.
The product design team are using the
models to analyse how even the most
complex designs can be assembled most
efficiently and are now also able to send
additional copies to the production
engineers working at Mila’s worldwide
supplier base to help them prepare for
mass production.
DON’T LOSE STAFF TO TECH-
SAVVY COMPETITORS
» » OVER TWO THIRDS OF EMPLOYEES
admit they would prefer to work for
a trade that was embracing digital
technology over one that was stuck in
the analogue past, according to a survey.
conducted by mobile data capture
service, WorkMobile.
When asked why they’d rather
work with digital technology instead
of paper, a third (33%) think it would
make documents easier to fill in
and store, especially when working
remotely, with the same number of
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people also feeling it would make
them more productive.
Just under half (46%) of employees
want their companies to invest in
email, suggesting that a large number
of businesses have not yet introduced
this most basic form of technology –
despite it being available for well over
a decade.
Colin Yates, chief support officer
at WorkMobile, said: “Investment in
mobile technology brings a wealth of
benefits for businesses, and also for
their employees. The benefits are hard to
dispute when so many companies have
already reaped the rewards of switching.
But, those remaining businesses that
still rely heavily on paper really need
to bring their processes up-to-date.
Otherwise they could find that they’re
losing some of their top talent to their
more innovative, forward-thinking
competitors.”