Hydraulics & Pneumatics January/February 2023

NEWS Industrial service provider ERIKS has invested more than £500,000 in its specialist sealing and polymer technology centre in Barnsley, increasing capacity and creating jobs. The company has invested in four new machines at its Oakwell View production operation, as well as making significant improvements to the warehouse facility. The tactical expenditure has created five new permanent jobs, taking ERIKS’ Barnsley team to 85 in total. The Mayor of Barnsley, Councillor Sarah-Jane Tattersall, visited the technology centre to look at the new equipment and hear how the business is growing. Dan Nicholson, director of sealing & polymer at ERIKS, says: “It is fantastic for our Barnsley site to be a successful technology centre within the ERIKS group and to benefit from the ongoing investment across the business. The past decade has seen year-on-year growth – and that growth has been particularly significant over the last five years. “These new machines have given us greater capacity and also increased efficiency. It means we can take on contracts that we weren’t able to before. We thank the Mayor for her interest and hope she enjoyed looking around our base.” Growth in the use of high value sheet materials Costing more than £120,000, the new Taurus 300 Steel to Steel Press has been purchased as ERIKS has seen growth in the use of high value sheet materials such as nickel reinforced graphite and silicon impregnated glass fibres. These materials require a high closure force per unit length. The new 300 tonne Taurus machine will improve finished quality and reduce running costs in comparison with the previous machine used. A £190,000 Travelling Head Press CPC- BT60 has been purchased with the primary goal of improving efficiency, safety and resilience, though it will also allow for additional sales. Long running jobs will switch to the travelling head machine from the traditional roller presses, which present health and safety risks and require tall, strong operators. Meanwhile, a new Kiss-Cut Press ABC60 will support additional sales and an Infinite 6010 CNC Router has replaced a 20-year-old machine that had no auto- tool change facility and was, therefore, rarely used. The new machine will help support increased business with a major central heating company. There has also been significant investment in the warehouse including reconfiguration of racking, lifting equipment, packing machines and LED lighting. Improved health and safety Nicholson adds: “The warehouse changes all improve health and safety while producing efficiency gains through optimisation of processes, as well as environmental and sustainability benefits.” The Barnsley expenditure is part of a £21m infrastructure investment by ERIKS spread across our technical services and product supply, headlined by a state-of- the-art fulfilment centre in Oldbury, West Midlands. The Fulfilment Centre of Expertise (FCE) has vastly improved product range supporting faster and more accurate supply of products. This facility is now fully open and operational and includes a huge 11,000m2 warehouse space backed by one of the most advanced warehouse management systems anywhere in Europe. It has 21 vertical lifts, more than 400m of high-speed conveyors, sophisticated scanning and weighing systems for every order and robust Industry 4.0 configured IT infrastructure with real-time monitoring. David Gillies, chief executive officer at ERIKS UK & Ireland, says: “We are passionate about the success of UK manufacturing and this multi-million pound investment means we are ready to set new standards for our customers and sector through our unique combination of skills, knowledge and infrastructure.” 8 HYDRAULICS & PNEUMATICS January/February 2023 www.hpmag.co.uk Major technology centre investment for ERIKS