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Strategic Report
Business Overview Lucy Controls
Lucy Controls comprises Lucy Zodion, the Group’s leading street-lighting controls business, and Lawson Fuses, a longestablished specialist in low voltage fuses and fuse holders.
Vision To be the market leader in low voltage fuses and fuse holders Lawson Fuses is a widely recognised and respected brand with a portfolio of high quality HRC fuse products and established international markets and customer base. The strategy has been to develop profitable sales within existing and new markets by strengthening the management, broadening the product range, and improving production processes and efficiencies, with support from and collaboration with Lucy Zodion and Lucy Electric to identify market opportunities and supply chain benefits both in the UK and overseas.
Creation of a firm foundation Throughout 2021 significant steps were taken to continue the turnaround and transformation of Lawson Fuses both in India and the UK which resulted in a successful year of sales growth notwithstanding the continued presence of Covid-19 and the UK site at Ponteland suffering extensive smoke damage following a fire in May. Whilst this potentially created a
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Annual Report and Accounts
major disruption to our operational activities and noting that there is recovery and repair work still outstanding, the business, due to the outstanding commitment of our people, continued on a largely uninterrupted basis. With increased focus on product development, continued investment to strengthen the management team, including recognition of the need for appointments to commercial, financial and technical roles, and, significantly, ASTA product certification for our Indian manufacturing unit we have made good progress to create a firm base from which to grow the Lawson Fuses’ business. Projects have been undertaken to identify and deliver ongoing plant and process improvements; there has been significant investment in automated manufacturing processes and further engineering projects are planned to continue into 2022 to realise additional production efficiencies and support long-term sustainable value.
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Product development for future growth In recognition of the clear and substantial commercial opportunities available for products supporting renewable energy, sustainability and increasing carbon-neutral requirements, we have identified a new range of products to be added to our development pipeline and taken action to review and supplement our engineering team’s skillset and expertise to support successful development and delivery. These products will be key to the business’ future growth, and both support global plans for electricity infrastructure and electrification and attain benefits from evolving markets including those for electric vehicles.
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The transformation of Lawson Fuses continues in line with our plans despite disruption during the year from the Covid-19 pandemic and smoke damage sustained at Ponteland. We firmly believe that the actions taken in 2021 will create a firm foundation for long-term value realisation and will provide a further update on progress in next year’s Annual Report.
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Fuse production in Lawson Fuses’ Ponteland facility David Hood, General Manager, Lawson Fuses Ltd.
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400/415 Industrial Fuse-Links, Type N&T New Lawson Lucy India Private Limited management team
