Vision Newsletter: October 2023

The Employee Newsletter for Autocraft Solutions Group |

Issue 13

|

October 2023

Recognition of our Successes at Autocraft

Welcome from: Mike Morgan

As usual, life at Autocraft Solutions Group continues at its usual ultra-fast pace, with our unique and ground-breaking innovations showing the world how we ‘punch above our weight’ for a company of our size!

Executive Director

In this issue:

In this issue, you can read about Autocraft ‘on-the-road’ at the long anticipated REMATEC remanufacturing exhibition in Amsterdam in June, where we wowed the crowds with our unique REVIVE© EV battery solutions, for which we won the Remanufacturer of the Year award for Best Reman Business Innovation.

» Welcome to... » Recent Promotions » Quality Month at ADS » Autocraft wows at REMATEC » New Company Brochures » Summer Shutdown BBQs » Autocraft Sponsors local rugby team

» Happy Retirement to... » Wedding Congratulations!

We have also been shortlisted in two categories for the Make UK Midlands & East regional awards; for Innovation, and Business Growth and Strategy. These awards are announced on 1st November with the winners going through to the national Make UK awards in January, so we have everything crossed for our award entries!

While it’s great to get the recognition of what we have done, at Autocraft we never rest on our laurels and you’ll see lots of new developments at all 3 sites.

busy with the new layout of the TDV6 cylinder head and block machining lines.

Vertex will have exciting times ahead as we start to market our Special Purpose Machinery and ARIA™ assembly systems to selected customers outside of our sector, enabling them to experience the benefits of our ‘no-fault-forward’ capabilities.

And last but not least, since our last newsletter, Autocraft Solutions Group is now an international company!

Autocraft EV Solutions BV in Arnhem, The Netherlands, opened in July 2023 and is the hub for EV battery repair and remanufacture for mainland Europe. The 1,224m2 site is currently home to our REVIVE© Mobile EV battery repair centre, with Manuel Morais and the new team processing Hyundai Kia packs from their European dealers.

To keep up-to-date with the latest company news as it happens, make sure you follow our Facebook, X (Twitter) & LinkedIn pages!

For those at the Grantham site, you’ll notice a large extension to the assembly hall in the Top Shop to support TDV6 engine assembly, with a mezzanine floor above for the sub-assembly of the cylinder heads for this engine range.

At AMS, our machine movers and maintenance team have been kept very

Got something to shout about? Let us know!

The new Autocraft EV Solutions BV facility in the Netherlands

Send your article & photos to Lindsay Morgan - lmorgan@autocraftsg.com

Company News Welcome to...

Dave Brown Senior Account Manager

Tracy Pugh Interim Group HR Manager

Recent Promotions...

Peter Eardley

Night Shift Manager (from Cell Leader)

Liene Gulbe Cell Leader

(from Production Operative)

Bryony Foley

EV Project Manager (from Project Engineer)

Phil Ridley

Strategic Project Manager (from EV Project Manager)

New Company Brochures New Autocraft Solutions Group brochure, now available as a digital flipbook on our website: AutocraftSG.com

Quality Month at ADS! This year’s Quality Month at ADS ran between 19th June and 21st July, and focused on the theme “3 Seconds for Quality”. ADS Quality Manager Martin Conron and his team designed a poster campaign that provided education on Quality Gates and ‘Stop-ReportFix’, and ‘Spot the Issues’ competition posters had employees at Grantham scrutinising labels, work areas and parts coming in from our supply chain.

‘Toolbox Talks’ were delivered by a range of staff from the HSQE and Operations departments, and ‘Good News Bulletins’ were distributed showing where faults were caught and stopped before they became an issue, many of these were a direct result of the Toolbox Talks.

Competitions were run during the month, with both individual and team prizes being awarded, and a scratchcard prize system rewarded employees raising issues under the ‘3 Seconds for Quality’ initiative.

Autocraft is supporting #WorldQualityWeek, between the 6-10 November, so look out for further initiatives across the company.

This year’s theme is “Quality: realising your competitive potential”. This is especially poignant to Autocraft as we’ve been on a digital journey since 2015, with 8 major technological developments such as ‘No-Fault-Forward’ DC tooling, Camera Controlled Assembly (ARIA™) and Automatic Data Analysis, which all contribute to providing quality benefits to the company and our customers.

Martin Conron commented: “As Aristotle once said, “Quality is not an act, it is a habit”.

COMING SOON! New Vertex brochure for Special Purpose Machinery & ARIATM Systems.

“So it’s all about HABITS. Habit is what drives any business. From products or processes to the human resources and the whole management team, quality always plays a crucial role and is a big issue.

“Quality decides the success or failure of any business. Therefore, it becomes imperative for any company to focus on quality - not only for products but also for processes.

“There are two types of habit which decides the fate of a company... Good Habits & Bad Habits.

“Habit becomes Behaviour and group of behaviours forms Culture. Therefore, Quality is also related to the culture of the company.”

HABIT > BEHAVIOUR > CULTURE Martin continues: “Good habits may help a company to be more successful than a company where the habits or behaviour of the employees are not acceptable.

Our customers are ‘King’ and therefore if our customers are happy, it means the quality of product we are delivering meet or exceed their expectations.

“Therefore, providing quality products or services once is not enough, a company should follow standard practices and deliver quality products or services consistently.

“The basic concept of Quality Assurance and Management is to encourage the individual operators to be responsible for their own work. As a business a lot of our partnerships are based on trust, in turn, trust is based on quality.”

So how can you as an individual support our company to help maintain our competitive advantage?

Martin concludes: “In the simplest of terms, it boils down to doing the right thing even if no one is watching.”

Autocraft Electrifies the Crowds at REMATEC 2023!

After 3 years of planning and postponements due to Covid-19, the Autocraft exhibitions team were thrilled to finally see the opening of the REMATEC 2023 exhibition in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Visitors flocked to our stand, which was easily the largest at the show, to see the European launch of our REVIVE© Mobile EV Battery Repair Centre. For 3 full days from opening to closing, the EV team gave demonstrations of how we safely repair and remanufacture EV battery packs.

Also attracting a lot of footfall and interest were our engines and machined components displays, as well as our E-motor (electric drive unit) exhibit.

Sara Ridley, Engineering & Quality Director commented: “The response to our stand and our exhibits was enormous.

I can’t begin to tell you, I’ve never been so busy at a show.”

The highlight of the show was winning the Remanufacturer of the Year award for ‘Best Reman Business Innovation’, for our REVIVE© EV battery technologies. Mike Hague-Morgan received the award for our unique EV battery diagnostic testing and remanufacturing solutions.

Mike commented: “It’s an honour for us to be recognised within the industry for our dedication to maximising EV battery lifespan and performance through

Mike Hague-Morgan collects the award on behalf of everyone at Autocraft

Autocraft’s prominent position in the centre of the hall attracted a lot of visitors to the stand

sustainable repair, as we strive to promote a ‘remanufacturing-first’ mindset throughout the sector.

“This award is testament to the hard work our team has put in to deliver a truly world-class solution for EV battery testing, repair and remanufacture. To be nominated in all 3 categories at the REMATEC awards really shows what a unique company we are!”

Visitors flew in from all over the world specifically to see the REVIVE© Mobile, even from as far as Australia!

EV Project Manager Bryony Foley also backs up Sara’s comments. “Impressive!

- that’s the word we kept hearing all the way through the show. Visitors were watching the demonstrations given by Simon Warburton, Richard Wrenn and Manuel Morais, and just kept saying how impressive our technology is! It’s great to be a part of Autocraft’s EV journey, and to hear feedback like this when people see what we’ve been working on”.

REMATEC Stand Manager Lindsay Morgan concluded: “I’d like to offer my thanks to everyone who has been involved with the planning and execution of this very important exhibition for Autocraft Solutions Group. It was a long time in the making, and involved a lot of staff from across many areas of our business. And with our REVIVE© Mobile EV Battery Repair Centre on display, we really were the ‘talk of the show’!

The Autocraft exhibitions team looking very smart on day 1!

Sparky the Dog proudly displays our award! #BeMoreSparky

Your News!

Summer Family BBQs at ADS & AMS To celebrate the start of the summer shutdown, family BBQs were held at both ADS in Grantham and AMS in Wellingborough.

At ADS, staff, retired personnel and their families were invited, and all were given the opportunity to sponge the management in the stocks. Proceeds from the soakings and company raffle were combined with Steph Alexander and

Peter Collinge’s Swear Jar, and totalled £190.90 which was donated to Marie Curie Lincolnshire.

Attendees also enjoyed a hog roast, music, penalty shoot out, face painting and sweets for children. Quality Month prizes were drawn from raffle, with individual and team prizes awarded.

At AMS, plans were all but thwarted by a torrential rain forecast, but a last minute move to Old Grammarians meant that their Family Fun Day could still go ahead!

AMS attendees also enjoyed a hog roast, and bouncy castle, games and music.

Factory Tours around the Wellingborough facility were offered, with many staff showing their families what we do at Autocraft. And for the car nuts amongst us, also on show at AMS was a DBS Volante V12 Convertible on loan from Aston Martin, Phil Casey’s Aston Martin Martin Conron ‘takes one for the team’ in the stocks! Vantage and Peter Bruch’s Jaguar F-Type.

Staff and their families scrutinise the Aston Martin DBS Volante V12

AMS Site Director Peter Bruch enjoying himself on the Bouncy Castle!

Happy Retirement to...

Richard Kennedy from Maintenance, who retired in April 2023 at the age of 76 after clocking up 30 years service at Autocraft in Grantham. On his original application, Richard wrote in the additional information field: “I don’t like staying at home doing nothing”.

We were really pleased to hear that even after 30 years with us Richard was still saying the same thing!

Brian Rossington from Operations, who retired in May 2023 after completing over 20 years at Autocraft in Grantham.

We will also be saying farewell to Key Account Manager Chris Rogers, who will be retiring in November after 6 years with Autocraft.

Wishing Richard, Brian and Chris a very long and happy retirement!

Autocraft Sponsors Wellingborough RFC U14s Autocraft Machining Solutions are proud to be the main shirt sponsor for Wellingborough RFC under 14s this season. Following a request from their coach Paul Spencer-Clark and team manager Hayley for their son Freddie’s team, the Directors agreed a sponsorship which contributed to the purchase of a new kit for the boys and coaches jackets.

Unfortunately, the first outing in the shirts wasn’t a successful one as they lost to a very well drilled Biggleswade team. However, the boys played very well and represented Wellingborough and Autocraft with great dignity.

Wedding Congratulations to: Sarah Whiting (now Garner) from Material Control, who married David at Buckminster Church on 1st July.

Freddie, Hayley & Paul Spencer-Clark model the new shirts for Wellingborough RFC Under 14s!

If you are involved with a grass roots sport and would like to apply for sponsorship, please contact HR.

Artwork, copy & edited by: Lindsay Morgan Issue 13 - October 2023

Kiri Meadows from HR and Jake Parker from Engineering, who were married at Kelham House on 28th July.