View from the Mill - December 2009 Archive

Sir John Rose, Chief Executive of Rolls-Royce plc recently gave an interesting speech to the UK’s Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, in which he presented the case for a more balanced economy in the UK based on high-value advanced manufacturing. Noting the overdependence on the financial services sector, he reminded listeners that there are only three ways to create wealth – “dig it up, grow it or convert something in order to add value. Anything else is just moving it about.” (This photograph is reproduced with the permission of Rolls-Royce plc, copyright © Rolls-Royce plc 2009.)

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Inspiration for blogs comes from many sources – the Renishaw company notice board is one such source. Recently one employee notice caught the eye – ‘Hamsters for sale’; but not just any hamsters; 'Syrian hamsters'!

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The great thing about working in a company like Renishaw, is the sheer breadth of technologies and applications with which we are involved. From motorsports, such as Formula 1 and NASCAR, through to aerospace engineering, LCD TV manufacture, and digital printing, Renishaw products are making a real contribution.

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In many nations we take access to dental treatment for granted, and even in those countries where treatments are charged, there is almost always free professional help available for emergency cases.

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The desire to both learn more about the past and preserve its legacies has in the past often resulted in irreversible damage to the very art and artefacts to which attempts were being made to afford ‘protection’.  However, a new generation of scientific analysis tools are now eliminating such risks, meaning that restoration projects can be undertaken by truly well informed conservators and the research work of art historians no longer requires the finely honed skills of a surgeon.

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There probably aren’t too many engineering companies that have internal vacancies for a ‘Molecular Biologist’, but that’s exactly what was recently seen on Renishaw notice boards. In 2007 we invested in a start-up company, D3 Technologies Limited, which is now a world leader in molecular diagnostics for human infectious diseases and the exploitation of Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (otherwise known as SERS).

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As well as supplying companies throughout the world with products that enhance machine performance, improve processes, and raise product quality – anything from aircraft parts and semiconductors, to brain surgery - Renishaw is also a major manufacturer itself. The advantage is that in an age when many product suppliers subcontract much of their production, we are really able to share experiences with our engineering customers – and many of our products result from needing solutions to our own daily challenges.

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The year is 1991 and as well as being noteworthy for being formed from a palindromic number, was a year that witnessed many notable events, some of which still resonate today. An economic recession caused by a crisis in the financial sector gripped large parts of the world, military forces from the US, UK and their allies were fighting in the Gulf, the Soviet Union collapsed leading to the formal dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, and Tim Berners Lee announced his World Wide Web project to the outside world. 

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In a recent article by Chris Koepfer, Editor-in-Chief of the US-based ‘Production Machining’ magazine, entitled ‘Time for Some Rational Optimism’, he compares recessions to mass extinctions of species, arguing that all industries have ‘dinosaurs’ and that through events beyond their control, just like their prehistoric equivalents, some of the modern day dinosaurs will be wiped out due to their ‘heavy, slow and mediocre’ nature.

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