We’re ventilator-ready
ENGINEERING specialists PP Control & Automation (PP C&A) is ready to go if it gets the Government’s green light to build ventilators.
“We have the skills and capacity and have added our name to the list,” says Tony Hague, chief executive and co-owner of the he West Midlands -based manufacturer.
“We would have to work around constraints because this is highly regulated medical equipment, but we are familiar with that and it is do-able. It has to be because otherwise people will die.”
Few outside the world of business will have heard of PP C&A, though its work in sectors from food processing and medical to power generation and printing has made a multitude of functions possible.
It is a maker of entire machines as well as parts, tools and control systems for other ones, these variously ensure that cows are milked, sticky labels go on fruit, mobile phones have a waterproof coating and packets are filled with crisps.
The company has been supplying manufacturing services since 1967, but following growth and then investment in 2018 from Canadian private equity firm Ardenton, turnover now stands at £26million and the workforce at 230. “We don’t simply sell product, we design solutions, so we can identify value at the earliest stage,” says Hague, below.
“Our customers are predominantly in the UK but the machines we build will be used all over the world.” With £2million invested in automation and three factory extensions, PP C&A recently set up a £100,000 electrostatic discharge area for more complex builds too. “This could lead to £2million of new work,” says Hague, a social media convert – especially to LinkedIn – who thinks increased awareness of the company via the channels has gained it a further £2million. Its potential work on ventilators could be in collaboration with other members of the Manufacturing Assembly Network (MAN), a collective of nine makers and three associates that PP C&A co-founded in 2003 offering every engineering discipline imaginable.
“MAN gives us strength in numbers, so essential at the moment. As it stands we are making ourselves available and two other MAN members are looking to produce some form of ventilator product from scratch so they can understand what is required if called upon,” says Hague, an apprentice-trained engineer.
“Current ventilators are complex but if another, more functional, mechanical version using available components is asked for, getting an agreed design and manufacture is certainly possible. Robots would not be available in time, so we are looking at hand-built machines.”
Having weathered recession and Brexit uncertainties, the current turbulence is “off the scale, though we thought we had seen everything”, he adds. Plans for further acquisitions and setting up additional manufacturing in North America however remain in place.