Skip to main content

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!

Expansion…

… no not my waistline.

Straightpoint has Expanded
To be exact, we’ve expanded our head office and taken on additional staff!  The last few months have been extremely busy and our export sales in particular have been very strong.  In addition, we launched our hire division, introduced an ‘offshore’ arm, and taken on several major distributors, which have all added to the increased demand (whilst still keeping our speedy service!).  As a result, we’ve doubled our head office space and have recently added two members of staff, under a government-backed apprentice scheme.  Jess Hill and Josh Young are our Business and Engineering Apprentices, respectively.  I would like to welcome them to the growing Straightpoint team and I’m sure you’ll be speaking to them soon!

John Molidor as a technical sales engineer with Mr LoadlinkStraightpoint, Inc are pleased to announce the appointment of John Molidor as a technical sales engineer. David Ayling, director, said “John has a wealth of experience in technical sales, customer support and engineering roles and his broad experience will be invaluable as Straightpoint, Inc increase their North American market presence”.

Travels
As part of the Straightpoint global ‘roadshow’(!), I’ve visited a couple of our distributors recently – Rigmarine in Azerbaijan (who also represent Kazakstan) and Wolfgang from Pfeifer in Germany, showing them our new catalogue, products and desktop controller software.  If you have a business proposition and would like me to visit you, please do get in touch.

rigmarine-azerbaijanMr Loadlink with Nighyar Taghiyeva – Sales and Business Development Manager, Rigmarine

Insight into a UK Weighing Federation Board of Directors UK weighing federationMeeting. As I’m on the Board of Directors, I attended a recent meeting at the UK Weighing Federation, the UK’s national weighing industry trade association.  The meetings are great networking opportunities and everyone’s committed to providing the best weighing standards.  Amongst other items discussed, we talked about calibration code of conduct, and new EU directives which would improve EMC protection, affecting loadcells.  If you’d like any further information on the UKWF or the new EU directives, feel free to get in touch with me…

New Reference Loadcell
Loadcell Test MachinePreviously, we employed two reference load cells for use with our 350 tonne test and calibration machine, which we interchanged, dependent upon the size of the job.  We’ve now invested in a brand new reference #loadcell which is suitable for all tests, up to 350 tonnes of compression and 350 tonnes of tension.  The reference #loadcell has been calibrated by the National Physical Laboratory against a master load cell, which is stored in London so that the load is always traceable, accurate and reliable.  We use the machine to test and calibrate all our products before being shipped to clients and distributors globally.

Have a great month!