Robotics firm is looking to future
5 things we learned yesterday
1 A has turnover leading revealed after roboticsa bringing67% companyhike in in over £20m last year.
Tharsus Group, which is headquartered in Blyth, saw turnover rise from £12.3m in 2015 to £20.6m last year.
The North East engineers are at the cutting edge of the UK’s robotic sector and have designed machines used for clients such as BT.
Tharsus is best known for designing the robots used by delivery firm Ocado to pick groceries within its warehouse. The Ocado Smart Platform stacks goods within a grid structure before they are received by a “swarm of autonomous robots”.
2 A hoping graduatesNorth to East keepin the student talentedregion is by launching a company that fixes up top undergraduates with jobs at local businesses. Smart Student Recruitment acts for businesses who are looking to hire students in a range of parttime roles and freelance positions. For those who have finished their studies, the business also aims to connect applicants with graduate schemes and internships.
The start-up was launched by Hasan Hamid, a final-year student studying corporate business management leadershipat and Northumbria University. The business was launched after Mr Hamid spotted a gap in the market after helping a friend find staff for his business.
3 A growing holiday firm based in the North East has added to its portfolio with the acquisition of a 43-acre caravan park in Northumberland. Maguires Country Parks, which operates five caravan sites in Northumberland, County Durham and The North Kaims Yorkshire,at Bamburgh, has which bought was on the market for £5.5m. The company is now planning to invest around £1.25m in the site to improve services and add new pitches.
Work will start soon to add 48 new pitches to the park, which is two miles outside of Bamburgh, bringing its number of pitches close to 300.
4 Team Valley technology firm Petards has sealed a £4.3m deal with a Swiss train manufacturer that is building trains for new UK services. AIM-listed Petards creates advanced security and surveillance systems for defence, rail and emergency services, and recent years have seen the firm target the new-build train sector, in tandem with the introduction of new franchises and new train fleets.
That strategy has continued to bear fruit, with a significant amount of new business secured with manufacturers such as Bombardier Transportation and Hitachi Rail Europe.
Now Petards has announced a deal that will see it supply two of its systems – its market-leading eyeTrain CCTV and Automatic Selective Door Opening (ASDO) systems – to Stadler Bussnang AG.
5 A North East firm has come to the aid of an inventor trying to reduce the amount of waste from paper cups.
Andrew Brooks raised more than £100,000 through crowdfunding to develop pokito, a reusable travel cup which is adjusted to match the size of the user’s drink and which collapses when finished with for ease of storage and portability.
After looking around the world for manufacturers, Mr Brooks has now teamed up with Washington-based Omega Plastics to make the product.