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BSI Accreditation, new staff, more epansion and an exhibition…

As usual, there is a lot of news to update you on from gaining a new accreditation to expansion (we welcome a key new addition to our team as well as expansion of our head office building); and what to expect when you visit us at Liftex in a few weeks’ time.

Straightpoint is Now BSI Accredited

In my previous Mr Loadlink, I mentioned that we’d just passed a stage 1 audit for the UKAS-accredited BSI (British Standards Institution) that will meet virtually any international, European or British standard.  I’m delighted to update you that we’ve now fully passed and achieved the ISO9001:2008 accreditation, with not one single non-conformance noted!  The accreditation confirms our quality management system for the design, manufacture and sale of force measurement, load monitoring and suspended weighing load cells, including repair, testing, calibration and hire services.  We’re delighted with this accreditation, although we’re not resting on our laurels – we’re aiming to add the 17025 UKAS calibration house accreditation to our belt by this time next year, the top level and most difficult accreditation in our industry to achieve.  Watch this space!

bsi-and-ukas accreditationExpansion

Work has started on the expansion of our head office unit.  All work should be completed by 2013, which will give us more capacity for our expansion.   Our delivery times are already super-quick, but in 2013, they could be even quicker still as we’ll have more stock at-the-ready in our larger space!

straightpoint expandstraightpoint expand

In addition, we welcome Wayne Chant as Calibration Manager to the team.  He’ll play a pivotal role within the company; with his UKAS laboratory/ signatory experience, he’s superbly placed to help us work towards achieving the 17025 UKAS accreditation in 2013.  No pressure then!

straightpoint new manager

Exhibition Success

One of our distributors, Pieter van Duijn from Van Gool in the Netherlands, recently took along one of our 120t wireless loadshackles to demonstrate at an exhibition in Holland.  Pieter reported it an extremely successful exhibition with lots of interest for our loadshackle.

straightpoint  shackle-at-exhibition
And finally…

Travel-wise, I’m off to the Straightpoint US office in December for our end-of-year meeting  (incidentally, our US office has also had a record year!).  As for next year, I’m putting together my travel schedule shortly – if you’d like me to come and visit you, please do get in touch soon.

Lastly, don’t forget – if you’re coming along to the LiftEx exhibition on 29/30th November, come and visit me and some of the team on stand 54!  You’ll see a demonstration of the world’s first off-the-shelf wireless centre of gravity system of its type, plus you can pick up our free goody bag (to reserve one, please email your name and company name quoting ‘LiftEx’).

LiftEx Bag Sponsors 2012

Have a great month!

A mixed bag this month…

I’ve a real mixed bag to update you on again this month – a visit to China, video, off-road car experiment and our new product that’s causing a stir in the trade press!

Visit to China
I’ve just returned from a visit to our partners in China, General Lifting Co (GLE) to conduct sales training with their sales team. I visited their offices in Beijing, Zhangjiakou, Tianjin and Shanghai. GLE are one of China’s largest suppliers of lifting equipment (including loadcells) and manufacture their own range of wire rope slings.
I used the amazing bullet train system to travel across China at speeds of 308km/h. It’s a fantastic system – smooth, comfortable and on time (unlike the UK train system!).

bullet-train-system

Bullet train system in China

General-Lifting-Co-(GLE)-sales-team

General-Lifting-Co-(GLE)-sales-team

Straightpoint Loadcell Tested to destruction
We are totally committed to testing all of our products rigorously to ensure the quality and safety of everything we sell/ hire. We recently took this video of a test on the 35te load cell – it finally yielded to a massive force of 177te – over 5 times its working load. This just goes to prove how important loadcells are for determining how much force can safely be applied at any time, whether it is pulling, lifting or offloading and that all Straightpoint loadcells can be relied on for all your projects.

Finnish Line
Thanks to Kaarlo Koivisto, from our Finnish distributor VKT-Tuotanto, who sent in these images. A test was set up by Finnish off road magazine (4 x 4 Maailma) to work out the tension of an off-road car, using a winch, rope and Straightpoint’s loadlink load cell.

tension-of-an-off-road-car

Loadcell tension test if a off road car

Wireless Centre of Gravity System Causing a Stir!
Our newly launched wireless centre of gravity system, which we believe is the first off-the-shelf system of its type in the world, is getting a lot of interest from trade press, especially those specialising in offshore markets. The system measures the weight and centre of gravity of large structures or items with an uneven weight distribution. Click here to read one of the articles already written in the press.

Wireless Centre of Gravity

If you have any photos of our system in use (particularly in the offshore market), please do get in touch with me…