Picture to be supplied 2 English.pdf · Critical Precision Hydronic The IMI Newsletter Issue 2...

Critical Precision Hydronic

The IMI Newsletter Issue 2 February 2015

Picture to be supplied

EngineeringGREAT the IMI Way Mark Selway reports on

IMI’s 2014 full-year resultsPage 3

IMI welcomes Bopp & Reuther to the Group Page 5

IMI Hydronic in Slovenia celebrates two great achievements Page 6

‘FIX8’ on improvement in Precision Page 8

The new IMI brand is proudly displayed around the world at a series of exhibitions

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IMI Hydronic Engineering launch their ERP project, GENESIS

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Hydronic set to help deliver a green hospital in Australia

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IMI Critical Engineering’s new facility in Texas welcomes customers to its opening ceremony

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Read how Norgren Express is improving the customer experience

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Royal visit to Precision’s n-psl business in Gateshead UKP22

IMI CCI win large Oil & Gas order in China

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IMI welcomes new Finance Director, Daniel Shook

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Our graduates encourage students to study science, technology, engineering and mathematics

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Highlights

2 The IMI Newsletter Issue 1

IMI announces its preliminary results for 2014

On an organic basis Group revenues increased by 2% to £1,692m and segmental operating profit decreased slightly by 1% to £298m. The Group’s operating margin was 17.7% (2013: 18.4%) reflecting our investment in a range of growth initiatives. Adjusted earnings per share increased by 7% to 78.0p (2013: 72.6p) principally as a result of the share consolidation in the first quarter of the year.

During the first half of 2014 we initiated a detailed review of all aspects of the Group’s business. The findings of this review together with the Group’s new strategic plan were announced in August at the time of the interim results. The opportunities we have are significant and that is reflected in our ambition to double the Group’s 2014 operating profits over the next five years, while retaining our financial discipline.

In IMI Critical Engineering full year order intake at £686m (2013: £742m) was flat on an organic basis. In the second half order intake increased 16% on an organic basis. The Oil & Gas sector, where we have a significant position in the LNG market, continued to be strong with orders up 3% despite order intake in the prior year including a £40m contract for a high integrity pressure protection system (HIPPS). Despite slower new order activity in China, Fossil Power orders were up 4% on the prior year. In the Petrochemical sector, orders were down 12% mainly due to lower project activity in China. As anticipated, Nuclear orders were down 27% reflecting ongoing weakness in the market post Fukushima. Aftermarket orders were up 9% compared to 2013 and excluding the nuclear aftermarket were up 16%.

On an organic basis revenues increased 2% to £692m (2013: £716m), operating profit grew 10% to £120m, while margins increased to 17.3% from 16.3% in 2013. This growth in profitability and margins reflects the benefits of ongoing improvements in project execution.

During the second half the division made solid progress on a number of its

growth initiatives including the acquisition of Bopp & Reuther, the division wide adoption of lean manufacturing and the start of a project to introduce a new ERP system across the IMI CCI business.

In IMI Precision Engineering, on an organic basis revenues increased 4% to £710m. Industrial automation revenues were up 5%, driven by increased activity levels in North America (up 4%) and the Asia Pacific region (up 22%) but partially offset by weaker second half European markets, most notably in Germany. Commercial vehicle sales increased 4% in the year with 17% growth in Europe and a strong North American market which was impacted to some degree by the conclusion of a large contract during 2013 and lower truck production in Brazil. Food & Beverage was up 5%, Rail was up 28% while Oil & Gas reduced 6% and Life Sciences was down 1%.

Operating profit at £126m (2013: £141m) was 3% lower on an organic basis. Operating margins improved in the second half (H1 2014:17.7% v H2 2014: 17.9%) while in the full year operating margins at 17.8% were lower reflecting an adverse sales mix and the increased investment to support long-term growth.

The division focused on a number of strategic activities during the second half including simplifying the organisational structure, improving operational performance through the application of lean manufacturing, upgrading IT systems, addressing supply chain complexities, introducing standard costing and increasing investment in new product development.

Our review of the industrial automation market confirmed that we have excellent market positions, with a valuable installed base and access to a high margin aftermarket. We are now developing detailed product roadmaps in each of the key geographies which will underpin our plans for growth.

In IMI Hydronic Engineering, revenues were 1% lower on an organic basis at £284m. Second half activity in many of our core European markets was

impacted by abnormally high autumn temperatures and weak construction activity. Following our decision in early 2014 to scale back our interests in less profitable countries and focus on those offering the best growth prospects, we delivered good growth in the emerging markets which were up 10%. Our North American business was down 4% reflecting a poor, weather related, first half performance.

Operating profit at £52m was 15% lower on an organic basis. This reflected the additional investment in new product development and the costs associated with the withdrawal from a number of less profitable emerging markets. While operating margins showed their normal second half seasonal improvement to 19.7%, full year margins at 18.3% were lower compared to last year.

During the year we continued to invest in new product development and successfully launched 14 new products which delivered revenues of around £13m. A good pipeline of additional launches is scheduled for 2015 and is expected to underpin our growth ambitions for the division. During the second half of the year good progress was also made on a number of other key strategic initiatives including the implementation of lean and the commencement of a project to replace the ERP systems within the division.

2015 Group Outlook

In 2015, based on current market conditions and excluding the impact of exchange rate movements, we expect the Group to deliver modest organic revenue growth weighted towards the second half with margins slightly lower than in 2014 reflecting the impact of the disposal of Eley and acquisition of Bopp & Reuther by the Critical Engineering division and the ongoing investments we are making in all our businesses as we ready them for accelerated long-term growth.

Results overview 2014 was a year of good progress for the Group. We delivered results in line with market expectations and our new strategic plan is embedded across the organisation and we are already seeing early signs of tangible benefits.

IMI CEO Mark Selway


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business improvement

2014 saw the development and launch of IMI’s new global intranet and by the end of the year, over 9,000 employees had access. This outcome was achieved as a result of excellent collaboration between the functional area owners and their teams who developed the content and the IT teams who provided access to local users.

The global intranet contains an abundance of IMI tools and information that promote efficiency, consistency, communication and value to management and employees world-wide. To ensure that the content is always relevant and up-to-date, a staged approach has been adopted and in 2015 we will see the start of phase 2, where additional content will be uploaded across all the functional areas.

We have two live benchmarking tools: Lean, which is now approaching the conclusion of second round assessments and the Internal Control Declaration which will complete its second round by the end of March.

These benchmarks provide local business leaders with absolute transparency of where best practice resides across the entirety of IMI and every business is required to approach these best practice businesses to learn their processes and procedures with a view to improving their own scores going forward.

We have also launched the Finance Core Process reporting calendar which streamlines communications with Business Units and allows businesses to seamlessly upload their monthly results commentaries.

IMI global intranet is a hitThe Core Process calendar will be enhanced this year to add other functions, including HR and Risk.

There are eleven functional areas which contain reference and training materials, Standard Operating Procedures and videos. The intranet received nearly half a million ‘hits’ during 2014 and this number is expected to rise considerably now that the majority of our employees who have a PC, have access. In the first half of December 2014 alone, there were 130,000 hits.

To get to this stage within a few short months has been a great achievement and our thanks go to all the people who have contributed content or IT assistance and we look forward to building on this great foundation in 2015.

WRITTEN BY Julie Minnell Corporate Projects Manager, IMI plc

Norgren Express ‘on-line’ for success

The Precision Engineering Norgren Express (NEX) business goes from strength to strength. It’s becoming ever easier for customers to view our extensive offer, check product information and ‘click’ to order. This business is really making its contribution in making us a GREAT business with lots more to come.

New functionality has been added to the web-store:

l Predictive product searchl Competitor conversion functionality

where 5000 competitor part numbers can be converted to IMI Norgren items

l Visibility of distributor stock levelsl Enhanced flow through site with much

improved help area and customer signposting

l Detailed cross-sell information on every Norgren Express product page plus video content.

The Norgren Express team recently hosted two webex calls to directly engage with the global NEX managers and sales teams from across 25 countries to explain these exciting new developments. Jez Ashton demonstrated the new webstore functionality and Chris Goldson

updated the team on email marketing which includes emails triggered by events such as ordering, registering, abandoned baskets, and account lapsing. New emails allowing us to inform customers when goods are shipped, on the van for delivery, plus new customer survey emails are being tested too.

We are proud of what the team is delivering. Early customer feedback has been hugely positive and I am keen we continue to help the regional sales team wherever we can to meet their growth targets. Our on-line offer is one of the best and it’s great to see the fruits of our hard work to become a GREAT supplier to do business with.

WRITTEN BY Ciaran Crowley General Manager , Norgren Express IMI Precision Engineering

www.store.norgren.com

Our lean journey is continuing and each of our sites now has a lean champion who is responsible for training and coaching to facilitate the improvement process.

We have now completed the second round assessments and most companies have made good progress and reached the targets they established following their first round improvement plans. Check out the Lean benchmarking app to see where your company sits in the table. This app gives us all the information we need on where best practice resides within the organisation and where our performance needs improvement and shows us where to go for guidance. In addition, take a look at the storyboards which are good examples of Lean processes, and also the Lean gallery where you will find snippets following Lean events which are taking place around the organisation.

Lean updateWRITTEN BY Julie Minnell Corporate Projects Manager, IMI plc


IMI Critical Engineering acquires Bopp & Reuther“Brings together two fantastic companies to create the world’s leading control & safety valve company for critical applications” commented Roy Twite, Divisional Managing Director.

On 2 January 2015 IMI Critical Engineering successfully completed the acquisition of B&R Holdings GmbH, the holding company of Bopp & Reuther – we now welcome all of the employees of IMI Bopp & Reuther!

IMI Bopp & Reuther is an important addition, completely aligned to IMI Critical’s portfolio, especially the IMI CCI business. Its products, markets and customers are very well understood across the IMI CCI business. It enables IMI Critical to achieve a critical mass in the Power sector (both fossil and Nuclear) and with our global sales and distribution, we can grow the business geographically supporting both businesses growth ambitions.

IMI Bopp & Reuther is located in Mannheim, Germany, the heartland of the German power industry. As a leading control valve manufacturer, it focuses on control and safety valves for the power generation and process industries. With over 400 employees, over 320 are based at Mannheim which is the HQ and manufacturing plant.

The management team of IMI Bopp & Reuther, led by Bernhard Engel, CEO,

have joined IMI Critical Engineering and are working as part of the leadership team to grow the business and deliver the synergies on both sides – as can be seen below.

The strategy for Critical Engineering division is all about focus and growth and this acquisition provides a meaningful addition to our capabilities. Its product portfolio includes both configured and

semi-severe valve technologies and in recent years it has extended its geographic reach and has a large customer base across China, India and Korea, giving us increased exposure to these faster growing geographies. It also expands our product portfolio, enabling us to offer customers complete valve packages, and Bopp & Reuther’s existing installed base gives us access to a bigger aftermarket opportunity.

An excellent strategic fit, this latest acquisition will:

l Enhance focus and provide a strong platform for accelerated growth

l Broaden IMI’s product portfolio in power and process industries

l Increase exposure to attractive emerging markets and aftermarket opportunities.

A cross-divisional project team led by IMI Hydronic Engineering has been working hard throughout 2014 to look at the way new product innovation is managed within the group. The result is the brand new Advanced Product Quality Planning (APQP) manual specifically adapted and tailored to our business and already implemented by IMI Hydronic Engineering, which is now in the process of adaptation for IMI’s Critical and Precision divisions.

APQP (originally developed by Ford Automotive Corporation and now standard in the motor industry) replaces

the existing methods and methodologies of managing new product development and introduction, within the Group. It is essentially a guideline for the project teams, to ensure that the process of new product development and introduction is efficient and brings added value to the customer and includes:

l Incorporation of a customer focused approach

l Advanced concept of product quality planning dedicated to new product introduction

l References to the key specifics of the project management process

Managing product innovationThis methodology covers the key

activities in product development and industrialisation which require systematic planning, execution and closure. It is expected to further enhance group activities in new product innovation reflecting an increasingly dynamic market, where products as a response to high customer demands should mature even faster. Now the voice of the customer can be reflected in full in the product innovation process, also allowing us to monitor satisfaction.

WRITTEN BY Kieran Griffin

Head of Engineering, IMI Hydronic Engineering

WRITTEN BY Mike Semens-Flanagan Director Strategic Planning IMI Critical Engineering

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Critical Precision Hydronicbusiness improvement

Slovenian site celebrates achievements!

October 2014 was a great month for the Hydronic manufacturing plant at Brežice in Slovenia. Our team was proud to celebrate five years without any lost-time accidents (LTA).

The commitment of all our employees to health and safety is a great example and it’s no wonder that Slovenia was also recognised for this outstanding achievement with an award at the Hydronic Management Conference earlier in the year.

WRITTEN BY Andrej Mavsar

Plant Manager, Brežice, IMI Hydronic Engineering

Vigilance, implementation of the principles of lean, creating better visibility throughout the factory have also allowed Slovenia to consistently score in the top three of all divisional manufacturing sites in the lean benchmarking assessments.

27 October 2014 however marked an additional achievement, when the site was honoured with an award by the Municipality of Brežice for its outstanding business achievements and significant contribution to the development of mechanical engineering, innovative activities and social responsibility within the local community. The mayor of Brežice, who presented the award, was once a design engineer at IMI Hydronic and when he started his career he reported to our Senior Engineer Slavko Lah (who has now been with the company for 31 years!).

Congratulations to the team for these excellent results and their continued hard work, both inside the factory and outside in the community.

The Slovenian team gather to mark their achievement

A key element of IMI Precision Engineering’s operational lean improvement approach is value stream mapping (VSM). This is a method of analysing the way we currently work, creating a vision of the ideal state and then designing that future state (which we can achieve in 12 to 18 months) to improve processes and ultimately, our customer offer.

VSM slashes order lead time at IMI Norgren’s Alpen plantWRITTEN BY Ian Morris

Global Supply Chain Director IMI Hydronic Engineering

At our Alpen facility in Germany, the operations team was keen to improve the efficiency of the Quick Response Cell (QRC) for actuator orders – reducing the order lead time by 25% would really improve customer service. QRC offers a service where customers can place an order and it’s manufactured and delivered within 24 hours. The customers for this service are varied – original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), distributors and end-users.

The team mapped the current state and operational steps were recorded and data gathered. This analysis really started to show where ‘waste’ in the process existed, after which the team started to define their vision for the operation – what do they think it will look like in five years? Brainstorming and grouping ideas helped develop an ideal state map – defining key attributes to build into the future state map. This map depicts what can be practically achieved from the ideas captured in their

long-term vision. Considerable improvement opportunities were identified in the non-value adding steps and flow time – reducing it from 1307 to 608 minutes!

In a business like ours, it’s important we share and collaborate to learn from each other – colleagues from Buschjost and the UK were also involved so we can all benefit.

Whilst the business benefit of doing something like this is very clear, it’s great for team-building too; learning from each other and helping us work more effectively when we’re back doing our everyday operational jobs.

It’s clear that we should all focus on ‘just do it’ projects – we shouldn’t wait for leaders to push this, it should be part of our everyday culture to fundamentally review how we work and all engage in improving the business.

WRITTEN BY Tobias Schornstein Assembly Manager, IMI Norgren Alpen IMI Precision Engineering

It’s great fun too!

The Alpen value stream mapping team



On Thursday 12 February 2015 we celebrated the opening of our brand new IMI Critical Engineering facility in Houston, Texas.

After just over one year, 13,000 man hours of construction work and 6,000 tons of concrete and steel we finally have a fantastic facility that we can all be very, very proud of. The new 120,000 square-foot headquarters building is on the Kennedy Greens Business Park – a 150-acre Class A, heavy manufacturing development site in the East Aldine District of Houston. The new state-of-the-art facility is triple the size of the previous operation and is purpose built to suit our expansion needs.

The facility was initially conceived as a new base for IMI Z&J Houston as well as a base for IMI Remosa in the Americas. We took the opportunity to also consolidate IMI CCI Houston onto the same site.

Key to the success of this project were: Daniele Cecchelli, who moved his whole family to Houston to lead the IMI Z&J Houston business; Jeff Lumsden, who produced the business case, won the approval of IMI and supported the team throughout; and IMI Z&J Houston project manager Steve Smith, who played a major role in delivering this facility.

Move to new Houston facility successfully completed

Our thanks also go to the IMI Remosa team in Sardinia for their assistance, with Andrea Contu providing excellent support during the selection of the new machines, and Guiseppe Buscemi who supported the whole project. IMI’s facilities expert Martyn Goodwin also provided tremendous construction advice throughout the project.

We have invested in the latest technology including plasma cutting and water-jet cutting, as well as many very large CNC machining centres and plasma arc equipment to ensure we can provide the most rapid service and the highest quality products to our customers.

The IMI Z&J, IMI Remosa and IMI CCI teams, along with the IMI Critical Engineering Board, were delighted so many of our customers – 80 in all, were able to join us in marking the occasion. With representatives from UOP (Honeywell), Technip, Bechtel, ExxonMobil, CB&I and Foster Wheeler, it was fantastic to see so many take the time out to attend and tour the new facility.

The response was overwhelmingly positive, with great feedback for all our team at Houston which was exemplified by the operators leading the tours and demonstrating how much knowledge and passion they had for the business and the new facility.

“As an innovative and growing company, we are constantly striving to deliver best-in-class highly engineered solutions featuring technologically-advanced products and services. This new state-of-the-art facility will not only enhance our manufacturing capabilities, but it will also provide our employees with a great work environment and help better service our customers.” said Daniele Cecchelli, President IMI Z&J.

As the facility was being opened by Divisional Managing Director Roy Twite, he commented “I also want to thank our customers for taking time out and coming to our celebration. Your business is the reason that we have been able to invest here in Houston and we really appreciate that.”

WRITTEN BY Mike Semens-Flanagan Director Strategic Planning IMI Critical Engineering

Major customers join Critical Engineering colleagues at the official opening of the new Houston facility

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Along with the other two divisions, during 2014 IMI Critical Engineering undertook a comprehensive strategic planning process, resulting in a 5-year strategy plan for the division.

As part of this review we identified business areas that were non-core, and despite being fantastic businesses, were not part of the future plans.

As a result, work commenced to find the right partner to sell Eley to. We wanted a partner that would help support Eley’s growth ambitions in the future and in

IMI sells Eley WRITTEN BY Mike Semens-Flanagan Director Strategic Planning IMI Critical Engineering

Following the success of IMI Hydronic’s sister site in Ljung, Füllinsdorf in Switzerland is currently trialling the industrial software AviX. AviX is an industrial software package created to aid productivity by reducing waste and helping design lean production areas. Videos were created at each stage of the Statico 140L Vessel production line. Working with the operators and the line managers, key operations were highlighted and the data was added into the AviX tool.

After inputting the data and working with the production teams, three quick and obvious changes were highlighted. The outcome of these would deliver an18% production increase and remove the bottle neck from the deep draw press, currently the line’s least flexible machine.

To work alongside the new software, Füllinsdorf have purchased three GoPro cameras. Due to the nature of the GoPro being designed for the rough outdoors, they are suitable for filming the automated processes in the production facility. They work perfectly when analysing machines over long periods of time and so far have highlighted several opportunities for us to further reduce waste.

We are all looking forward to using the software around the rest of the factory and expect to find many more ways to ensure leaner production.

Füllinsdorf GoPro-duction with AviX WRITTEN BY James Malin Lean Coordinator IMI Hydronic Engineering

Cameras in the production areas collect data

The IMI Precision Engineering business is firmly focused on its Fix, Focus & Grow strategic agenda to guide us on our journey of transformation from being a good company to a GREAT one.

IMI Precision has developed a ‘Fix8’ agenda; strategic improvement objectives for this year. Our 2015 goal is simple - we have to “Fix” the basics to improve competitiveness and provide a platform for growth. The Precision executive team identified 8 key areas of priority that will provide that platform for growth:

T – Target: Introduce business-specific growth plans for every IMI Precision business

O – Optimise: Establish accurate and reliable sales and financial forecast planning

G – Generate: Introduce more new products and a responsive Application Engineering function

E – Evolve: Build a more dynamic and Lean organisation to better compete and respond to market potential

T – Transform: Implement quality process and Lean best practise to improve customer responsiveness

H – Highlight: Realign IMI Norgren position in its regional markets to reflect new dynamism and focus

E – Enhance: Develop a new IT strategy to build competitive advantage and support future growth

R – Rationalise: Reduce significantly and standardise our product portfolio.

I have assigned executives to each of the 8 priorities and they’ll be working with their teams to deliver. Julie Minnell as programme manager is tracking progress with regular matrix reporting to make sure we stay on track. The leadership team is committed to this programme to make sure we fix the fundamentals. Updates on the division’s progress will be communicated regularly and will be integrated very visibly into the new Precision Engineering intranet.

We need to FIX the basics – we’re determined to succeed. We all have an important role to play – join in and make IMI Precision Engineering a GREAT business to work for, and to do business with.

FIX8 on improvement in Precision EngineeringWRITTEN BY Mark Selway Group Chief Executive and Interim Divisional Managing Director, IMI Precision Engineering

October 2014, the sale to LDC completed.Eley is world renowned for its

0.22 ammunition – the winner of many Olympic medals, setting records at both Beijing 2008 and London 2012.

The disposal of this non-core business further sharpens our focus on our core specialist flow control activities.Our strategic plan, to double the Group’s 2014 operating profits over the next five years, is now being executed and the proceeds from this sale will be utilised to exploit some of the great growth opportunities available to us.

TOGETHER, we can improve our competitiveness and build a strong platform for future growth


The IMI Precision Engineering Norgren business in Norway was nominated by the country’s leading financial newspaper – Dagens Næringsliv as a ‘Gazelle-company’ – identifying it as one of the fastest growing companies in Norway. To qualify for this award the business had to demonstrate sustained profitable growth for the past four years. It is a true recognition to even be nominated – only the elite make the grade each year. The awards ceremony took place on 9 December 2014 in Oslo and the team were delighted to win the award.

During the spring and summer of 2014 the executive teams in IMI’s three divisions were busy setting out the strategy of the Group at divisional level. The strategic plans have been signed off by the Group’s Board of Directors and this critical milestone sets the foundation for the deployment of the strategy throughout each division.

Prestigious business award win for Norgren Nordic team

Getting a grip on policy deployment

WRITTEN BY Glenn Bijomen Sales Director Nordic Region IMI Precision Engineering

WRITTEN BY Ian Morris Global Supply Chain Director IMI Hydronic Engineering

This success has been part of a longer term growth strategy for the business that began in 2005. Targetting the right customers, in the right market – moving from an area sales approach to a key account manager aligned one, focused on a few large offshore rig customers has enable us to really grow our business in a buoyant sector.

When the business realised the potential in offshore drilling, we decided to focus on the big players to maximise the long-term opportunities. This has really paid off – we are listening to our customers’ needs and offering technical

On 3 November 2014 the Hydronic Engineering Executive team met in Eysins to discuss the division’s specific 2015 objectives. A leader from the executive team was then assigned to each project team and is now busy documenting action plans to ensure each project delivers its targets. These are being reviewed in detail each month by the executive team to ensure targets will be realised. The whole exercise has been captured on the policy deployment matrix.

solutions that can withstand the harsh offshore environments. By growing our installed base we are benefitting from the aftermarket service opportunities too.

This success shows great collaboration across the Nordic region – our products being manufactured in Copenhagen and working with the Norwegian team to deliver a great customer offer. I am very proud of what the Nordic team has done and it’s great when people want to come and work for you because they know they’re joining a great business like ours.

Following this event, a further six policy deployment days were carried out involving cross functional teams, centred around the factory footprint, between the 13 November and 4 December 2014. Each team was given the opportunity to review and critically feedback observations concerning the executive teams, divisional targets, objectives for 2015, the key projects identified and the improvement targets. The teams then went on to review the additional projects in each business area, which would contribute to delivering the strategy. These additional projects were also assigned a project leader and actions are under way to deliver these.

The next stage of the process has been to deploy the projects to each department within the business, in order to set the department objectives for 2015, and then finally cascade to each individual as part of the personal objective process – completed by the end of January. This will ensure that every person will be aligned to the division’s and the Group’s strategy demonstrated through the personal objective process.

The Precision team in Norway are proud to collect their award

Members of the Hydronic team working through the details

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WRITTEN BY Katrina Feeney Communications & Investor Relations IMI plc

In January this year, we were pleased to welcome a group of investors to the newly opened IMI Precision Engineering site at Fradley, UK. The group of 20 investors were on their annual tour of the Midlands and asked if they could visit our manufacturing facility whilst they were in the area. The purpose of the visit was to demonstrate the opportunities provided by lean manufacturing, an area that Chief Executive Mark Selway has highlighted to the market as a key enabler for our success.

Mark opened the presentations with a reminder of the strategy announced in August 2014 before the local Precision Engineering team took over with

information about Fradley itself – the benefits of the move from Lichfield, the logistics of the move, products that are manufactured there and information about the site’s lean journey. The Fradley team had had a busy week – only the day before the investor visit, they had their third lean assessment and were proud to receive a score of 40.1%, a great improvement from their first assessment.

The investors were then given a tour of the site, with short presentations delivered by employees. The group were particularly impressed by the improvements resulting from a SMED workshop that delivered OEE in shapes machining of

65%. A visit to the UK Technical Centre also allowed them to see an impressive demonstration on the AMT dryers.

One of the visitors commented that “the task being undertaken in lean manufacturing – and therefore the opportunity – is greater than some had realised, especially given the high regard in which the company had already been held. A clear understanding of what it takes to deliver stated headline targets – and the progress already made always bears repetition.”

Thanks go to all the presenters and colleagues behind the scenes who made the visit a success.

Mark Salway welcomes investors to the Fradley site

Investors visit Fradley facility

Precision Engineering’s European Distribution Centre (EDC) in Alpen Germany is the mainland European hub from which customer orders for the majority of our standard products are fulfilled. The EDC team has been working hard to improve the on-time delivery of products from an average of 83% in 2014 – it’s not an easy task but an important one so our customers get a better service.

The Precision Engineering executive team recognised the opportunity to reduce supply chain complexity to simplify the business for our Precision Engineering customers. A pan European business team from senior management, manufacturing, logistics, sales, Norgren Express and Lean was formed, to undertake a Value Stream Mapping (VSM) exercise to look at the end-to-end process from customer quotation and sales order receipt through to customer invoice payment. The team started by reviewing and mapping the current state and their findings highlighted delivery lateness; lack of procedures and standardisation; best practice not being shared; lack of coherent sales & operations planning and poor management of change.

The team then focused on the ‘ideal state’ – which identifies where would we aspire to be followed by the ‘future map’ – what we’re aiming for which balances where we’re at now versus what we can aim to improve and deliver.

Mapping a better future for customer delivery at AlpenWRITTEN BY Sonja Janssen, EDC Project Manager IMI Precision Engineering

The team defined the following improvement actions:

l Develop an improved sales & operations planning processl Develop clearer product data and classificationl Reduce product complexity and reduce product numbers – we

need to have more demand on fewer productsl Improve the multi-site pull system l Decision process and procedures for Change Management

plants, products, suppliersl Improve the process where bespoke products are shipped

directly to the customer from the manufacturing business l Implement a just-in time warehouse for our overseas suppliersl Develop and sustain plant operational excellence.

As a result of the VSM workshop, three 2015 divisional priorities have been kicked off as separate projects:

l Direct shipments from factories to the customer (drop ship and physically bypass EDC)

l Sales and operations planningl Part number rationalisation.

Pan European participation in improvement


Following her first visit to Hydronic’s HQ in Eysins, Switzerland in 2013, Group non-executive director Birgit Nørgaard returned in October 2014 to see some of the changes that have been implemented.

In particular Stefan Seitz and Peter Korcsog (both Product Category Directors) enjoyed taking Birgit through our brand new product innovation space which features 14 new products launched since her last visit. Innovation had been identified by Birgit as a key area for improvement during her last visit – and with only five new products to show during the previous five years, IMI Hydronic has now stepped up its game considerably.

IMI director welcomed back to IMI Hydronic’s Headquarters in Switzerland

The current new products are future proof, addressing changing market requirements and help IMI Hydronic to enter into new markets (both regionally and adjacent segments). With a healthy new product pipeline, we are also addressing market trends towards integrated and communicating devices within a ‘smart grid /smart home’ – an opportunity highlighted by Birgit during her previous visit. This type of connectivity in our products opens up new opportunities for partnering and for growth in fast developing markets.

Additionally Birgit was pleased to see the Headquarters already sporting the new IMI Hydronic visual identity. We very much appreciated Birgit’s visit with her important viewpoint as well as her most encouraging speech to the IMI Hydronic management team over dinner – thank you very much.

WRITTEN BY Stefan Seitz Product Category Director IMI Hydronic Engineering

During Mark Selway’s recent visit to our headquarters in Switzerland and the presentation of our 14 new products launched within the last 12 months, he encouraged us to take the next step towards the implementation of an innovation culture – fostering innovation.

We engaged with the well-known and experienced consultant Dennis Sherwood who will help us to implement a “Silver Bullet Machine”. In January we held our first workshop where we learnt that innovative ideas are not necessarily “born” in windowless basements by ingenious R&D engineers but are created in an open and collaborative culture in all areas of the company. 25 employees from around the globe from many different functions were present, practicing how to apply methodologies to ask the right questions and to challenge what is sometimes taken for granted. We went through thought experiments such as ‘what if in the future

there is no electricity available for our electrical actuators’. This challenging condition leads to a completely new set of solutions using the ‘power of the water’ flowing through the valve.

All in all the workshop was a great experience, motivating the teams at IMI Hydronic to apply a range of new

methodologies in our daily working lives, helping to create an innovation culture and leading to a lot of innovation in every area of our business.

Mid -February, a follow-up workshop took place where we more specifically created innovative ideas around two technology areas.

WRITTEN BY Stefan Seitz Product Category Director IMI Hydronic Engineering

Innovation at the heart of IMI Hydronic Engineering

The first of many innovation workshops

Birgit commented “I have been very encouraged by the enthusiasm of the Hydronic team. Since my last visit in July 2013, there has been a good deal of improvement on some of the operational issues and I am particularly impressed with the progress made on innovation with regards to new product development over the last few months”.

11



The relocation of the IMI Precision Engineering Norgren business from Lichfield to Fradley in the UK was a long time coming – the original intention to move was announced in 2011. Various new site options were considered and visited and the team finally settling on the Fradley site in 2013, recognising however, that there were lots of building work needed prior to the move.

The consultation with the employees started early and included visits to the site before we moved so they could see first-hand what it would be like. There was lots of communication about the move, which was well received.

Detailed plans required the business team to work as one, agreeing what equipment was moving to Fradley and planning this into a fairly tight schedule. Once kit was dismantled, moved and re-commissioned, it was important our finished products were still of the required

Keeping the team safe in the big move!WRITTEN BY Richard Palmer HS&E Manager IMI Precision Engineering

quality – this involved revalidation of the product characteristics by some of our customers. Health and safety focus was at the top of everyone’s agenda during changing times. It was important that dynamic risk assessments were part of the mix during the move – involving people all the way, which made it work well. We used regular all-employee ‘town-hall’ meetings to keep everyone updated, these were great for reminding the teams on the health, safety and environmental aspects to keep them fresh in people’s minds.

Now we have moved in, the health

and safety culture is well embedded in Fradley – employees raise ‘Safers’ as a proactive way to identify potential hazards. We have had over a thousand Safers raised by over 200 different people which is great – there is no recognition for this, employees do it because it’s the right thing to do!

The move to Fradley was finally completed in October 2014 - yes it had its challenges, as you would expect on a project of this magnitude, but it’s great the team and environment were kept safe throughout it all.

IMI Norgren’s purpose-built facility at Fradley in the West Midlands UK

IMI Critical Engineering has responded to growing demand for its high-performance actuators with a major investment in an expanded manufacturing facility for its Italian-based IMI STI business.

The new facility of IMI STI at Levate, near Bergamo is 12,000m², around double the size of its previous site.

Founded in 1960, IMI STI had operated from the previous site for the last four decades and was acquired by IMI in 1997. The new facility is just 15km from the previous site and enables IMI STI to retain the services of all of its dedicated 110-strong workforce.

The new factory is where the acclaimed FasTrak and QuikTrak linear actuators are engineered and produced, as well as the newly launched quarter-turn actuator range. Designed to work with a wide range of valves, in all pressure classes, the RT Series of pneumatic and hydraulic quarter turn actuators can withstand the most hostile conditions in both onshore and offshore applications.

The new factory also boasts a demonstration area, conference room and

Italian investment confirms Critical’s commitment to growth

WRITTEN BY Mattia Tami Sales & Marketing, IMI STI IMI Critical Engineering

training room for customers to help them get the best out of IMI STI products. It is part of a significant investment over the next six years for IMI Critical Engineering and further demonstrates the company’s commitment to growth and innovation. The IMI STI business is planning to deliver growth of over 40% over the next three years.

Ernesto Bertoli, Managing Director of IMI STI, explained: “Our expansion has been rapid since the company joined IMI and we had simply outgrown our previous site. We were keen to stay in the same area as we have developed a truly world-class team in all functions and were committed to keeping them together.

The new factory enables us to increase production immediately to meet existing demand with the option to expand further, putting us in an ideal position for growth in both the short and long term”.

The new IMI STI facility at Levate doubles actuator production area


A continuous improvement culture is well established at Norgren’s Kloehn business in Las Vegas USA. The Kloehn team identified the need to review its syringe manufacturing process with the goal of reducing both manufacturing floor space ‘footprint’ and the lead time from raw glass to final glass barrel, plus lowering scrap levels, work-in-progress and inventory.

Mike Vinski, VP Operations for Core Americas, supported by a cross-functional team, worked through the value stream mapping (VSM) approach to improvement. Operational employees were involved along the way to make sure any suggested changes were the right ones and would improve the process.

The team worked hard over a three-week period to focus on the material flow aspects using cardboard layouts and ‘spaghetti’ diagrams to work through the improvement ideas. It highlighted the opportunity to bring similar work activity stations closer together and to develop an operational flow order to avoid ‘back and forwards’ motion. All unnecessary furniture and stations had to be removed, allowing for health and safety requirements too.

Value stream mapping – Vegas styleWRITTEN BY Ian Kinskey, Senior Business Analyst IMI Precision Engineering

Operators helped develop a new design – a ‘U’ shaped layout which reduced motion waste by over 50%! Footprint space was reduced by 15% too.

The team looked at for opportunities to group manufacturing processes together to better balance the line. Changing the number of operators for each process helped reduce the manufacturing time and also by adding in changeover specialists, made sure the material flow activities were more effective. After the changes were implemented, the improvements experienced were remarkable:

l Daily average throughput increased by 15%l Lead times improved by 79%l Work-in-progress and inventory reduced by 97%l Scrap reduced by 48%.

Norgren Kloehn is rightly proud of this achievement and it restates its passion to develop the business to effectively anticipate customer needs to create competitive advantage – a key factor in personal development, organisational efficiency and economic growth.

Tuesday 2 December 2014 was a significant day for IMI Hydronic Engineering, with the official kick-off meeting of their ERP project GENESIS, which will implement the leading JD Edwards ERP application across the whole organisation.

Around 40 people were present at Erwitte in Germany, with key note speeches given by Peter Spencer (Divisional Managing Director), Winston North (Hydronic Finance Director) and Paul Rushton (IMI Group IT Director), as well as senior management from the chosen implementation partner, KPIT, including the CEO Kishor Patil, who travelled from India to attend.

There are many reasons why this project is vital. Firstly, separate stand-alone IT platforms do not support

Hydronic launches ERP Project

global, standardised practices and there is no ‘single version’ of the truth from a data or information perspective. Enabling greater visibility on key information in areas such as margins, inventory, lead times and waste is key to improving the bottom line of IMI Hydronic Engineering.

Standardising and harmonising processes will be key to reducing costs and improving the consistency and quality of information. Also, a common ERP platform will enable future hard cost savings projects such as shared services or new business integration. ERP will improve the areas of capacity planning,

reduction planning and supply and inventory planning. In addition it will provide value by optimising lead times - from order to manufacturing process and the subsequent manufacturing responsiveness. It is also clear that integration of any future acquisitions (a key part of our growth strategy over the coming years) would be fundamentally more challenging without the global and harmonised processes a common ERP will provide. For more information or to ask the project team a question, please contact [email protected]

The team attended a one day kick-off meeting at Erwitte, Germany

WRITTEN BY David Cockram ERP Project Manager IMI Hydronic Engineering

13


With the introduction of the new branding in August 2014, all divisions have been working hard to get their brand roll out coordinated in time for some of our largest exhibitions.

An early adopter of the new visual identity, Hydronic Engineering were proud to have their first exhibition stand ready for customers at the beginning of September 2014 at ISH Shanghai & CIHE. As one of the most important HVAC exhibitions in Asia, hundreds of customers visited the stand which showed off a range of innovative solutions.

Crossing to South America, saw the combined launch of Critical and Precision’s brand at the Rio Oil & Gas Expo a few weeks later. Exhibiting for the first time together, the joint IMI stand had a great

Around the world with IMI!

WRITTEN BY Katrina Feeney Communications & Investor Relations, IMI plc

impact, showing the strength and breadth of the Group. Over a thousand customers visited the stand and met with colleagues representing key Critical and Precision brands.

Final stop of the quarter was Valve World in Düsseldorf, Germany where Critical and Precision presented again, this time under their own steam. For the first time in the division’s history, every IMI Critical brand was represented by products, which impressed customers who, before the new branding, hadn’t appreciated the full range and breadth of products on offer. IMI Precision were proud to showcase some of their key energy sector products such as the new ICO4-SIS smart solenoid valve and came away with a number of good leads.

Alignment of the brands allows IMI’s divisions to attend shows jointly and leverage the Group scale

The IMI Hydronic Engineering booth at the Shanghai Exhibition proudly sported the new brand

customer focus


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The working demo of the smart solenoid valve was impressive


15

customer focus

IMI Critical Engineering, has expanded its high-specification product range for the oil and gas sector with the introduction of an innovative butterfly valve for gas turbo-expander applications by IMI Remosa.

The new valve, launched to great acclaim at the 2014 Rio Oil & Gas Expo, is specifically designed to reduce refinery infrastructure costs while working in harsh environments at temperatures of up to 950°C.

Most importantly, the new product allows the customer’s processes to keep running during maintenance, radically cutting downtime. Developed by IMI Remosa in conjunction with IMI Orton, the new product provides a highly reliable and cost-effective solution for both new plants and upgrades.

A lightweight, compact product, it overcomes the issues associated with some existing products whose dimensions and weight make them awkward to install into existing systems without costly and extensive layout modification.

Luca Mambrini of Managing Director of IMI Remosa said “The development of the valve shows how IMI Critical Engineering responds to market needs with

IMI Remosa launches new product at Rio Oil & Gas 2014

the introduction of innovative, high-specification solutions – in this case a product which adds measurable value by eliminating the need to halt processing during routine maintenance”.

“Robust and versatile enough to cope with the unique demands of gas

processing facilities, the new valves attracted strong interest at the Rio event and we anticipate that their unique attributes will see them rapidly become the product of choice for specifiers and designers.”

Collaboration is one of IMI’s values, and it’s great when you find collaborative examples that are really making a difference to the business. IMI Precision Engineering’s Bristol-based Webber business has some high profile customers in the automotive sector including Perkins, a well-known leader in diesel engines, as well as Jaguar Land Rover.

Collaborating for long-term successWRITTEN BY Richard Knowles, Head of Sales, IMI Webber IMI Precision Engineering

WRITTEN BY Fulvio Menini Sales & Marketing Director IMI Remosa

Our IMI KIP business based in the USA has been a long-time supplier to Perkins, supplying tier 3 turbo valves. A strategic decision was taken by IMI a few years ago to move production of new tier 4 engine turbo valves from KIP to Bristol – local manufacturing in the local market to serve a major UK-based customer. We have a strong culture of collaboration with customers and other IMI businesses like KIP. It’s vital we satisfy customers’ needs and we’ve focused much effort on improving product availability and quality. Lean continuous improvement is something we’re working hard at and this has clearly helped us achieve a recent record of 100% on-time delivery and zero quality returns. Our product quality is now amongst the best, but we still have some work to do if it is to be world-class – I am confident the team will get there. We work with our customers at all levels – team work is very strong. We are keen that employees understand customers’ needs and understanding how

our products are being used really motivates them to excel.

The business has identified many more opportunities for its products in the broader engine market which it is keen to grow. Developing relationships with major brands like Perkins and Jaguar Land Rover really shows how great collaboration is something that adds tremendous value to employees, partners, other IMI businesses and most importantly, customers.

Utilising IMI Orton’s extensive experience in triple eccentric valves, the new product makes refineries more flexible in maintenance outages

IMI Webber’s production cell focuses on the manufacture of the Perkins valve


TA-FUS1ON set to help deliver a green hospital

Our sales team in China started pursuing this project at a very early stage and quoted a proposal to two potential engineering procurement companies. China Offshore Oil Engineering Co. (COOEC) won the order for a total of four platforms which required 72 choke valves.

In order to win the critical project, IMI CCI had to prove to COOEC that our technology was the best choice in industry. Collaboration between the IMI Critical Engineering China team in Shanghai, IMI CCI Korea Engineering and the IMI CCI Asia sales team in Singapore was key. There were more than a dozen meetings with the customer located in Tianjin and discussions /seminars with the end user over technical issues. As a result, against internationally-recognised competition, the IMI China team convinced COOEC that its solution best met the technical requirement, resulting in IMI CCI winning an order for 72 choke valves, worth over 2 million US dollars.

This large order from this key player in the oil and gas sector is the first to have been received since 2009!

WRITTEN BY Richard Yu Commercial & Operations DirectorIMI Critical Engineering Greater China

The new hospital will be Australia’s most advanced hospital incorporating the requirements of experienced medical professionals and also innovations from hospitals around the world

IMI Hydronic Engineering has recently won a new hospital project in Australia with the revolutionary TA-FUS1ON valves. The New Royal Adelaide Hospital is the largest health project to be constructed in Australia and has stringent requirements to achieve the 4-star green star health design.

IMI Hydronic Engineering working with the consultant, BMS installer and the commissioning team are using IMI Hydronic Engineering pressure independent balancing & control valves. The ease of use, ability to pre-set the exact KV and technical and practical training and on-site support assisted in winning this project. The TA-FUS1ON valves allow the

flexibility of adjusting the valves during the commissioning stage and the ability to verify the flow without having to install any other products.

The project is due to be completed in 2016 and is set to make South Australia renowned as the health centre of Australia once it is up and running.

WRITTEN BY Peter Frew, Managing Director, Australia, IMI Hydronic Engineering

For the second year running, IMI Hydronic in the Middle East was awarded the Hydronic System Manufacturer of the Year award at the prestigious Climate control Awards 2014. Run by Control (the leading HVACR publication in the Middle East) the ceremony aims to acknowledge companies for their success and contribution to the development of the Middle East. Pipping one of our competitor’s to the post, the team proudly collected the award on 19 November 2014 - the second consecutive acknowledgment for the high quality innovation and the extensive technical support that IMI Hydronic Engineering provides to the market.

The theme of the 2014 ceremony – Responding to the Nascent Economic Upturn - was very much focused on integrity in engineering – seen as a crucial factor in “achieving engineering excellence, in terms of energy efficiency, reliability and resource conservation” (Climate Control ME).

Middle East wins Climate Control Award!

Biren Patel, Managing Director in the Middle East noted “It is a step forward for the industry to take cognizance regarding the importance of hydronics and how it relates to the efficiency of the chilled water network. At IMI Hydronic Engineering we continue to take the route of being a hydronic partner through strength, capabilities, and resources that provide a wide range of balancing, control, pressurisation, air and dirt separation components and solutions. Clearly this not only benefits the MEP contractors but all stakeholders on the project”.

Congratulations to the team for their hard work!

WRITTEN BY Mohamed Youssef Graduate IMI Hydronic Engineering

The Hydronic Engineering Middle East team collect their award

China Offshore Oil awards IMI CCI $2m order

17

Critical Precision Hydroniccustomer focus

customer focus

Founded in 1948, Japan’s Transport Engineering Company (J-TREC) is a well-established heavy rail car manufacturer with major customers across the region. It has earnt an enviable reputation for quality and sets high standards for all its suppliers.

IMI Norgren compression fittings chosen for Thai metro carriages

WRITTEN BY Hiroaki Naruse Key Account Manager, IMI Precision Engineering

J-TREC won the contract to provide new rolling-stock for the Purple Line Metro in Thailand – the line linking the northwestern suburb of Bangkok, and southern area of Thonburi in Rat Burana District.

For this contract, J-TREC needed EN standard air-piping connections which would fit under the floor of their carriages. In environments like this where there’ll be lots of vibration, it’s important the connections don’t leak and if required, connections can be easily and reliably remade without damaging the connecting tubes.

IMI Norgren’s 82 series compression fitting is our well trusted offering in this market and we won the contract which was great news for the team. The IMI Norgren fitting exceeded the performance of the competitor fittings during customer trials with excellent workability and no leaks experienced after several times being disconnected and re-assembled several times.

Deliveries started late last year, continuing in early 2015 – it’s great our offer really did fit the bill on this prestigious contract.

IMI doing well in sustainability leagues

WRITTEN BY Duggie Brooks Group Health, Safety & Environment Advisor, IMI plc

The FTSE4Good Index is designed to measure the performance of companies demonstrating strong Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) practices. IMI is very proud to have been included within that group of businesses for over 10 years now.

In 2014, doing well in the Index was made even more challenging through the increase in breadth and depth of its review process. It now looks at 14 key sustainability themes and IMI has to

provide evidence to demonstrate that we meet the index’s criteria on these issues:

l Environment: Climate Change, Pollution and Resources, Water, Biodiversity, and Environmental Supply Chain

l Social: Labour Standards, Human Rights and Community, Health and Safety, Customer Responsibility, and Social Supply Chain

l Governance: Corporate Governance, Risk Management, Anti-Corruption, and Tax Transparency.

The criteria and scoring are becoming ever more exacting and it’s great that we are keeping pace with developments. In the latest review, climate change and corporate governance were our best scores. That said, it’s imperative to continually improve, so our work on these and the other topics must take us to greater things. On climate change specifically, our score in another index, the annual CDP (Carbon Disclosure Project), also improved to 83% which puts us on a par with Rolls Royce.

But what is it that we are doing to achieve this performance? All the work on the IMI Way and our work across the Divisions on energy efficiency- both with our products and the efficiency of our production facilities are highly valued by those who judge us. From IMI Heimeier’s thermostatic heads to Precision Engineering’s commercial vehicle products we contribute to our customers’ CO2 efficiency and our improvements. We have significantly reduced our own CO2 emissions over the last few years thanks to the hard work of the site energy teams; especially those in our Project 20:20 energy efficiency group. Projects such as lighting improvements, new compressors, voltage optimisation, and high speed doors to cut heating losses have all make a terrific impact. IMI CCI Brno completed a project to re-use heat from compressors to reduce heating energy saving some 12 tonnes of CO2 and £3.5k annually. We are just crunching the numbers for 2014 and it is looking good for another year of very healthy CO2 results; check out the Annual Report in April for the final results.


IMI Hydronic Engineering’s new pioneering pressure independent balancing and control valve, TA-Compact-P, has been welcomed in Turkey’s growing dynamic balancing valve market. Even before the start of full-scale production of the new valve, the first project order had been received. As the benefits of the valve became increasingly apparent to customers, further orders were won with the result that over 21,000 valves were sold in the first six months of TA-Compact-P’s launch in the market. And the success looks set to continue as IMI Hydronic Engineering works together with five selected partners who act as hydronic system integrators in Turkey.

The first order was for the new leukemia hospital for children as part of the “City for Children with Leukemia” in Ankara. The building complex of more than 90,000 square metres consists of a multi-disciplinary hospital,

A large boost for a Compact solution in TurkeyWRITTEN BY Volkan Gerdan Managing Director, Turkey IMI Hydronic Engineering

a hotel for families and a training centre. TA-Compact-P has the largest flow rates for each valve size in the industry, allowing smaller valves to be used to achieve the required flow rates, giving IMI Hydronic Engineering the competitive advantage. Today there are over 2,000 TA-Compact-Ps installed in the hospital complex.

Turkey’s large hotel and tourism conglomerate, Dedeman, invested in two new hotels in 2014, both in Istanbul. The project, Dedeman Levent, includes

240 rooms located right in the heart of the European side of Istanbul. IMI Hydronic Engineering has been awarded the project supplying the full portfolio of balancing and control valves from TA-Compact-P to TA-FUS1ON along with other standard control valves. Our approach as a total solution provider has been a major advantage, together with growing customer relationships, we have our contracted partners as the leading hydronic system integrators.

At IMI our purpose is to deliver great solutions for our customers tackling the world’s most demanding engineering challenges.

Our business has a strong heritage and pedigree of doing exactly that – talented engineers developing customer-valued solutions. To explain the engineering approach of supporting the business to ‘Fix, Focus & Grow’ on our journey from good to GREAT; we’ve always offered customers good platform technologies – core products that can be tailored to suit their individual needs, but we’re now looking at investing in and updating our platforms offering customers a broader choice. This is of particular importance as we look to focus more on the industrial automation sector.

We’re simplifying the organisation so we can be clearer on what we want

the technical centres to do – which regions they each serve and what products they support. This will enable us to focus on fewer projects at a time and be faster in their time to market – making us much more effective. Our new platform strategy will offer customers more innovative products – optimising regional engineering resource being a key enabler for growth.

WRITTEN BY Chris Prince President European Flow Control Group IMI Precision Engineering

The latest breakthrough technology - the IMI Norgren AMT rail dryer system

IMI CCI has successfully completed an extensive qualification programme for a large range of its control valves and pneumatic actuators. The latest nuclear qualification specifications, authorised by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, were used.

The qualification meets ASME QME-1 2007, Qualification of Active Mechanical Equipment used in nuclear power plants. The testing included shaker table, steam, imposed loads and radiation.

Valve sizes up to 20 inch (500 mm) and larger are qualified. Our products have been qualified for seismic events and vibration for an incredible 60-year life, radiation exposure based on accident conditions, and mechanical ageing through valve operation. This qualification opens up some good market opportunities for the IMI CCI Nuclear team.

IMI CCI nuclear valves and actuators qualified for extreme environmentsWRITTEN BY Crystal Sebring Sales & Marketing CoordinatorIMI CCI RSM

Introducing GREAT new Precision Engineering products – faster!

19

Critical Precision Hydroniccustomer focus

customer focus

SBM Offshore is the market leader in the FPSO (Floating Production Storage & Offloading) sector. To maintain this market position the division’s intention is to remain the technology leader delivering both increased productivity and increased safety.

Over the last 20 years the complexity of FPSOs has increased dramatically resulting in additional topside weight and many extra electrical cables, trunking and pipework.

Smart Valve technology offers reliability to the FPSO sectorWRITTEN BY Mark Stevens Global Marketing Director, IMI Precision Engineering

SBM Offshore has used IMI Precision Engineering’s products on many FPSOs in various locations around the world where they have proven to be reliable and high quality. Therefore IMI Precision Engineering was chosen to develop the next generation of valves to meet SBM Offshore’s requirements.

IMI Precision Engineering and SBM Offshore worked together to develop the specification for three new manifold solutions - two pneumatic and one hydraulic.

The manifolds consist of standard IMI Maxseal ICO4S solenoid valves and a new ICO4-SIS smart solenoid valve which has integrated electronics. This enables the user to carry out partial stroke testing of control valves without the need for a positioner system. This greatly increases both safety and productivity and can be operated via cable or wireless control.

By manifold mounting the solenoid valves SBM Offshore benefit from a more compact installation, lower weight as well as reduced cables and pipework.

In the summer of 2011, Contugas, a Peruvian company that supplies natural gas to the Ica region wanted to expand their residential pipeline system into nearby cities such as Pisco, Ica, Nazca and Marcona; which required the construction of the Humay City Gate station. A system was designed that required 11 pressure regulation systems that would operate from 1,450 to 2,175psig and utilise pipeline gas for actuation.

IMI CCI solves Peruvian gas distribution problems

WRITTEN BY Warren Ferguson Marketing Director IMI CCI Americas

The IMI CCI team realised that transitioning from the pipeline network to the local distribution system would cause both noise and temperature problems if the kinetic energy was not properly addressed.

The system also needed to accommodate further expansion potential so the valves needed to be capable of handling a very wide range of flow. These design factors led to a split valve approach; one valve would handle the low flow condition and a second valve would

address the high flow scenario. Additionally, the very large pressure drop meant a heater was needed for each valve to prevent the actuator from freezing. After many reviews the order was received in June 2012.

Delivery of the system, the configuration of which is easy to maintain and extremely efficient, was made late in 2012. Installation started in September 2013 and operation for part of the system began in February 2014 the last valve was started up in June 2014.

IMI CCI has recently qualified a 6 inch globe valve to API (American Petroleum Institute) Fire Safe Standard. This standard certifies the performance of valves in simulated fire conditions and tests the capability of the valve to isolate the pressure inside the upstream pipeline from the downstream pipeline.

DRAG valve qualified to US Fire Safe StandardWRITTEN BY Fabio Giove R&D Director, IMI CCI Europe

The results of the test recognised the DRAG valve as extremely safe, with no external leakage during exposure to fire. The qualification allows IMI CCI to issue fire-safety certification of these valves for pressures ranging between 6,000 psi and 10,000 psi on a range of valves between 6 and 12 inch diameter.


IMI’s European Communication Forum (ECF) is a forum that enables employee and management representatives to come together to discuss matters that may impact on IMI’s businesses across European countries.

The twelfth annual meeting of the ECF was held on the 24/25 September 2014 in the UK, near IMI’s headquarters in central Birmingham. Fourteen employee representatives from Austria, Belgium, the

European Communications Forum

WRITTEN BY Ruth Davies, HR Business Partner, IMI plc

Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden and the UK all actively participated in the event to make 2014’s annual meeting a great success.

The Forum were delighted to welcome Chief Executive Mark Selway, who attended the ECF and outlined his strategy to the Group, along with leaders from Group Finance, Human Resources, Business Development, and HS&E who also presented their strategies for 2014/2015.

Employee representatives used this meeting to ask questions and discuss matters impacting on IMI’s businesses from their respected countries and sites. Key areas for discussion included the Global Intranet, IMI Way Day, IMI’s future growth plans, Lean initiatives, global benchmarking and core process reporting, and IMI’s investment in manufacturing sites, new product development, and IT infrastructure.

The next ECF annual meeting will be held later in 2015.

Mark Selway addresses the 2014 ECF

IMI graduates were invited by a consortium of schools in Birmingham, UK to attend an event in November 2014 being held to promote careers in engineering. The schools were looking to encourage students aged 14-15 years, who are due to be making decisions about their next choice of subjects, to study science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM subjects) in order to open up careers in science and engineering. IMI was one of a number of local companies invited to prepare an informative and interactive workshop to groups of 10 students.

Our group of three IMI graduates, Andrew Tuffnell, Georgios Perikos and Robert Legon, was undertaking placements in Lean, Purchasing and Development. It picked the VP12 valve – a miniature proportional valve used in the automotive industry that is manufactured by IMI Precision Engineering in Leeds,

STEM graduate event WRITTEN BY Robert Legion, Georgios Perikos and Andrew Tuffnell. IMI Graduates

and created an experiment to represent the role that it plays in wind tunnels.

By adapting the real world application of the VP12, a workshop event was designed to demonstrate the basics of aerodynamics through differing vehicle shapes. A set of three different-shaped toy cars were placed, one at a time, at the end of a cardboard tube modelled to work as a wind tunnel.

The student would then blow down the opposite end of the tube and measure how far the toy car had been displaced from its original position. Through this, the pupils were able to gain an understanding that the larger the surface area subject to wind, the further the car was displaced, and therefore the basics of race car design.

It was hoped that, through this simple but effective experiment, the students would gain an appreciation of the real-world application of STEM subjects, and therefore gain an even greater awareness of their importance.

From left to right: Andrew, Georgios and Robert demonstrate the experiment to the students

Following the announcement in September 2014 of the retirement of Douglas Hurt, Finance Director, we are pleased to welcome Daniel Shook to IMI. Dan has over 20 years’ financial management experience and deep knowledge of complex process manufacturing across a range of industrial sectors. He also brings a strong international perspective, having worked in a number of key geographies during his time with Borealis AF and The BOC Group plc.

Having joined us on 5 January 2015 as Finance Director designate, Dan has spent the last few weeks getting to know the business and our people, visiting sites in the UK, Europe and the USA. He will succeed Douglas as Finance Director on 1 March.

Dan commented “I am extremely pleased to be joining IMI. As I have undertaken my induction it has been great to see how committed and passionate people are about the Company and its future. There is quite a lot for me to learn about the drivers of our businesses, so I am planning to visit as much of the organisation as possible during my initial phase.

It is clear that we really have a great foundation with which to grow and I look forward to working with everyone to achieve the longer term mission that Mark and the Executive team have set out.

I would personally like to thank Douglas both for his support during the initial months and for handing me such a strong and dedicated finance and IT organisation”.

Although Douglas handed over the reins to Dan after the 2014 results were announced, he will continue as a non-executive director of the Board until the Annual General Meeting in May 2015.

When asked about his time at IMI, Douglas said “I have thoroughly enjoyed my nearly nine years with the company and am proud of all the progress that the Group has made over this time. I should like to thank my finance colleagues and everyone with whom I have worked over this time for their support, commitment and friendship. I wish Mark, Dan and each of you all the very best for the future”.

Good luck in your new role Dan, and we wish you Douglas a long and happy retirement.

Meet the Group’s new Finance Director

WRITTEN BY Katrina Feeney Communications & Investor Relations, IMI plc

Daniel Shook

21

Critical Precision Hydronicpeople

people

The Duke of Kent recently paid a visit to the IMI Precision Engineering nano-porous solutions (n-psl) business in Gateshead UK. This visit was an opportunity for the Duke to check on progress since he first met with the n-psl team back in 2009.

Over recent years n-psl has become a leader in technological advancement and has plans to grow employee numbers and turnover.

The company provides a range of innovative technology filtration and purification systems. Its highly-skilled team of design and development engineers works closely with customers to create a range of bespoke air treatment products. Such is the innovation of the technology that a number of international patents have been awarded. Most notably this has been for the energy- efficient Adsorption Media Tube (AMT). Applications of AMT include drying compressed air in the rail industry to operate braking systems and door opening, and nitrogen generation for applications in food packaging and laser cutting.

Royal seal of approval for IMI Precision Engineering’s nano-porous solutionsWRITTEN BY Phil HuddyBusiness Development Director IMI Precision Engineering

The Duke was welcomed by managing director Colin Billiet, prior to being given a tour of n-psl’s site.

Colin commented: “It has been a real honour to demonstrate the progress we have made as a company since our first meeting with the Duke back in 2009. In particular, we are very proud the Duke was able to witness the successful

commercialisation of AMT technology and to see how it’s making a real difference across a range of industry sectors, aiding productivity and business growth.

We are delighted with the progress we have made as a business which is very much down to the talents and dedication of our team here at nano-porous solutions”.

Colin Billiet, Managing Director (left), and John Pearson, R&D Manager (right), show HRH The Duke of Kent around the AMT production line

From 2015, IMI’s Graduate Programme will focus on recruiting graduates into the engineering talent pipelines. The graduates will gain a detailed understanding of the division they join, its technologies and the markets in which it operates. This approach has been developed by a Steering Group which includes representatives from the three divisions with a specific objective to facilitate global collaboration.

While each division has varying requirements, the core processes such as recruitment, reward and development will be consistent across the divisions, as will the initial extended induction programme. IMI Precision will take a ‘first among equals’

Launch of IMI’s NEW Graduate ProgrammeWRITTEN BY Mari Docker, Global Graduate Development Manager, IMI Precision Engineering

role to ensure consistency, with the move of the corporate graduate administration team to IMI Precision Engineering in January 2015.

The existing leadership programme will continue until the current graduates have concluded their two-year programme.

Our 2013 graduate intake at their workshop in our Birmingham headquarters


people

Our Valve Doctors® differentiate us because they have:

l Decades of experience in the valve marketl Commissioned IMI Critical Engineering equipment at plants and as a result

have detailed insightsl Integral valve/plant knowledge to troubleshoot and solve customer problems.

WRITTEN BY Christopher Petersen Director, Global Knowledge ManagementIMI Critical Engineering

Seven engineers completed their final-year assignments in 2014 and are now qualified as Valve Doctors®. The Valve Doctor® programme typically takes seven years to complete and is the highest level of application engineering recognised in the Severe Service industry.

Engineers graduate from Critical’s globally-recognised Valve Doctor Programme

Combined, these individuals contribute another 100 years of outstanding industry experience towards our philosophy of Engineering GREAT

Our congratulations to

Yixin Chen Application Technical Manager Beijing, China Mary Loftus Senior Development Engineer, Vienna, Austria Marco d’Onofrio Senior Manager Quality Montelupo, Italy Elmer Orban Technical Services Engineer Saffle, Sweden

Georg Felber Application Engineer Vienna, Austria

Soren Viktorsson Area Sales Manager Saffle, Sweden Volker Bamberger Senior Engineer Vienna, Austria

At IMI Precision Engineering in Brazil, we have a focus week each year on health, safety & environment (HSE). Part of our focus during the 2014 HSE week was the environment, and we decided to try something a bit different.

We wanted employees to think about the environmental impact, first at home, and then to bring that experience back into their work environment. In the weeks leading up to the work-based focus week, many employees involved their families.

Eleven families got involved in looking at how they could protect the environment developing very visual, colourful displays of their ideas. The results were fantastic! There were eleven projects, each highlighting their ideas using recyclable waste from their home. The mock-ups were displayed in a mini exhibition for all employees and visitors to see. It was a good opportunity for everybody to learn more and see how everyone can get involved in reducing our environmental impact.

It has been great to see how enthusiastic families became and what we learnt about recycling, water, waste and energy reduction. Everyone learned together and the approach proved very successful and motivational – I am very proud of their efforts.

The environmental learning has been outstanding and this approach is worth trying across the whole business!

Home-based models really bring employee environmental ideas to life

HS&E week in BrazilWRITTEN BY Ricardo Rodrigues President IMI Precision Engineering Brazil & Latin America

23


Group: Katrina Feeney [email protected]

IMI Critical Engineering: Sarah Harris [email protected]

Group Head Office IMI plc Lakeside, Solihull Parkway Birmingham Business Park Birmingham B37 7XZ United Kingdom Tel: +44 121 717 3700 www.imiplc.com

Next Edition August 2015 Do you have any articles for the EYE? Please submit your story ideas, copy and images to:

IMI Precision Engineering: Jack Winters [email protected]

IMI Hydronic Engineering: Natalie Zeranska [email protected]

people

IMI graduates are encouraged to take part in one responsible business project during their time on the programme and are given the opportunity to spend half a day per week or 10 days paid leave with this project. I am on my third placement and have been Sales and Operations Analyst at IMI Precision Engineering in Queretaro, Mexico for six months. I decided that I wanted to become involved with the local community and whilst investigating possible projects, the Casa Hogar house for children really jumped out at me as somewhere I could help.

The house was opened by a lady called Tia Jose as a refuge for children who have either been orphaned or abandoned in this relatively poor area. Unlike other orphanages, the house doesn’t receive any regular financial support from the government or any other sources so it relies on food donations from supermarkets and other ad hoc contributions. At the start of each month, they never know if they will have enough funds to pay for medicines or other basic expenses, but they do not turn away new children in need.

I spend time at the house once a week. Activities typically start at 3pm where I might be teaching the alphabet to the youngest children, helping older children with their reading and writing or teaching English to the teenagers. After the lessons have finished, we go outside to

Volunteering at an orphanage in MexicoWRITTEN BY Patrice Salameh Sales and Operations Analyst, IMI Precision Engineering, Queretaro, Mexico

play football, have musical jam-sessions with the children who enjoy singing and dancing or we arrange fun activities such as juggling. A typical evening would end at 10pm once I’ve finished chatting or playing board games with the older residents.

Just before Christmas, we organised a collection and raised enough money to hold a ‘posada’, a typical Mexican party where the children enjoyed a piñata, had a good meal and were given a small gift. The children really enjoyed this and it was very special.

I am so pleased to have been able to give my time to such a worthwhile local cause – it’s great to see the children’s smiling faces and help to give them a chance for a better future.

Responsibility

“The way we impact”

Children at the Casa Hogar house in Queretaro

Patrice Salameh on one of his weekly visits to the orphanage

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