Category: May 2014

As usual, there’s lots going on in the world of Straightpoint! Read about my travels, meet our new staff, find out about our products being used on the UK’s highways, and read Straightpoint’s front cover story in Lift and Hoist International magazine!

Travels

I’ve just got back from my travels.
Firstly, I visited the Far East, including China,Singapore and Thailand. I’ve also just attended the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) in Houston, Texas, US with John Molidor from our US office, where several key USA Straightpoint distributors were in attendance including Bishop Lifting and Delta Rigging.
After the show, John and I provided a sales training workshop with the Bishop Lifting sales team to bring them up to speed with new products and to discuss the numerous applications for the Straightpoint range of loadcells.

We then visited Delta Rigging’s facility in Angleton, TX to meet with up with the Delta sales team and take a look at their ever-growing fleet of Straightpoint rental loadcells.
We are also excited to welcome Mick Cropper, Delta’s Straightpoint product specialist who will be liaising with Delta’s staff, customers and John Molidor.

Visiting customers with Intermarine, Singapore

Visiting Kyloweigh in China

New Staff in USA and UK!
I would like to introduce you to three new members of our UK and US teams.

Jenifer Wolfe joins our US office, who is working with the Western Hemisphere office as a liaison for customers and suppliers, bringing with her over ten years of customer and sales support experience.

Richard Woollett joins us as Financial Controller. Fresh from the world of commercial banking, he is well equipped to watch the numbers as the business continues to grow. Edwin Dunnell also joins our UK team as an experienced administrator, assisting with calibration reports and administration. Welcome to the growing team (more staff news to come in my next blog)!

Case Studies:
I thought I’d let you know of a few recent (and varied!) applications of our loadcells:
Radiolink Plus helps with testing phase of new product US company Bardex Corporation, producers of heavy load handling and position systems for the offshore oil & gas/shipyard industries, recently used Straightpoint’s Radiolink Plus loadcell during the test and development phase of a product to protect wire rope as it is being pulled through the ocean during the towing of semi-submersible platforms.
The Radiolink Plus was used to measure both the clamping force as well as the load required to release the clamp and cover assembly.

Here is a brief video overview of the testing:

Christian Van Den Heuvel, Mechanical Design Engineer at Bardex Corporation said “This unit has been priceless for me. It’s much lighter than I thought it would be and I couldn’t have accomplished what I needed without this unit. It worked flawlessly.”

Straightpoint Products Being Used by The Highways Agency to Clear Carriageways Quicker
I’m delighted to announce that Straightpoint’s Radiolink Plus loadcells are now being used by The Highways Agency, which is responsible for operating, maintaining and improving the strategic road network in England. Following national training, the loadcells are now being used to enable quicker clearance of carriageways in the case of an incident. Highways Agency traffic officers use the loadcell devices to monitor and record towing forces, ensuring the traffic officer vehicles do not exceed their maximum safe towing capacities.
Straightpoint was located by Pro-tect Safety Signs to help deliver a loadcell solution to The Highways Agency. Pro-tect Safety Signs‘ Account Manager, Andy Roberts, told us ‘Since the very first day of this project, Straightpoint have been 100% effective and when faced with challenges and requests for bespoke solutions for our client, they have always come up with a solution and in cases where time was against us all, they have delivered.’

Royal Connections!
Did you read Lift and Hoist International’s cover story about our Radiolink Plus loadcell being used to weigh two historic boats of note for Portsmouth Historic Dockyard recently? If you didn’t catch it, the article looked at how Straightpoint’s loadcell played a key role in weighing Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s Royal Barge as well as a WWII rescue boat. Richard Hellyer, a volunteer from the Portsmouth Naval Base Property Trust, said ‘primarily we needed to know exactly how much these two boats weigh so they could be safely lifted or transported by road. In addition, we are putting new engines and new propellers into one of the boats, so we needed all the correct measurements and weights to fit the right propeller.’  Click here to read the full article

If you have an application for one of our products you’re able to share with us (text and images or video), I’d love to hear from you, too… (if so, a Straightpoint goody bag awaits!)

And Finally…
Our partners Van Gool in the Netherlands have been carrying out some extra tests on our 200t Radiolink!!!

Quiz Night
Straightpoint UK recently entered two teams into a charity quiz night, organised by our company accountants, Moore Stephens, as part of their annual charity fundraising. Over £1500 was raised at the quiz night, which is being donated to Chestnut Tree House, a brilliant children’s charity that provides hospice care for sick children as well as support for their families, whose aim is ‘to make every day count. The good days, the bad days and the last days.’ It was a great evening and the questions were varied and difficult. ‘Straightpoint Strollers’ had a healthy mid table finish (I won’t mention where ‘Straightpoint 6’ came!!!) Andrew Henshaw, Managing Partner at Moore Stephens told us ‘We could not have done this without the fabulous support of our clients and business friends, who have been more generous than we could have hoped for. But it is for a terrific cause!’ I look forward to supporting your charity quiz again next year with some more Straightpoint teams!

LiftEx 2014
The Straightpoint team were part of  the LiftEx exhibition in London’s ExCel where I gave a presentation on a new model of our Radiolink Plus in the Innovation Theatre.
Straightpoint were runners up in LEEA 2014 innovative product award after showing their new model of the best selling Radiolink plus.
But more about this next time….