AESSEAL ready to do battle in industry 'Oscars'

Run by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE), the awards will see AESSEAL and Tadcaster-based Lambert Engineering battle it out to win the top title of best British business in the prestigious Manufacturing Excellence Awards (MX) 2010

MX is Europe's most established and recognised best practice manufacturing benchmarking scheme.  Throughout the competition a leading panel of industry experts from organisations including Manufacturing Advisory Service (MAS), PricewaterhouseCoopers, Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG), Barclays Corporate and Autodesk have been on hand to provide free business advice to entrants, worth more than £20,000.

The firms will join other finalists to take part in a two-day judging process at IMechE's London headquarters on 2-3 June. 

The final winners will then be announced at an awards ceremony at the Dorchester Hotel in London on 23 June. 

AESSEAL, a Rotherham based company, is a manufacturer of mechanical seals and support systems used in pumps and rotating equipment to protect the environment from the leakage of liquids and gases.

Growth in excess of 25% per year has allowed AESSEAL to become the only major international new entrant to the mechanical seals industry, in the last twenty years.  The company's success helped it win two Queen's Awards in 2009.

Richard Cook, Production and Personnel Director at AESSEAL said: “Participating in MX is challenging and fun, and reaching the finals is a real honour and vindication of our efforts. 

“We always enter awards with the same objective in mind; continuous improvement. As an organisation that pursues excellence at every level, benchmarking against other world-class organisations is a key element of our improvement strategy.”

“The biggest benefit of entering is the feedback report and knowing that you are being judged against industry's best - those who have similar aspirations to reach world-class performance levels,” said Mr Cook.    

Lambert Engineering manufactures automated production systems, special purpose machinery, automation systems and industrial automation to help companies work more effectively. 

Matthew Cox, Sales Director there, said: "Given this is our first time entering the awards we are thrilled to be recognised for our efforts. 

“It validates all the hard work everyone is putting in and shows us we are doing the right things. In order to be everything our customers want, we have to be the best in as may areas as possible. It is important therefore to understand where we can improve and MX is another tool to help us identify these areas.”