HWM Wins Manufacturing Excellence Award

Following significant improvements to several areas of its manufacturing process, multi-utility monitoring and telemetry specialist HWM (UK) has won a coveted award from parent company Halma. In Halma’s words, the Manufacturing Excellence Award for 2016 “recognises companies where major changes in manufacturing have resulted in sustainable, improved business performance.”

Beating off competition from more than 40 other subsidiaries, HWM took the award thanks to right-first-time pass rates above 98 per cent and on-time deliveries over 95 per cent. The company has standardised product design platforms to reduce work in progress and increase throughput. It has improved its design process, developing novel design validation tests and online test and calibration systems. Achieving ATEX certification has allowed HWM to move into two new markets.

Operations Director Mick Bolton explained: “The whole operation is engaged with continuous improvement – it is now embedded in our daily routine.”

In a separate development, HWM has also received the Halma Innovation Award for 2016 for the PermaNet+ remote leak noise monitoring system. A vote among more than 200 of Halma’s senior executives returned HWM as the winner.

PermaNet+ senses vibration in water distribution networks caused by leaky pipes. The system analyses the acoustic wave signature form produced by the leak sound, decides whether a leak is present and reports the status to a remote user over the GSM network. The remote user can ask for the leak sound file to be transmitted over the network. By listening to and correlating the leak sound a remote expert can conclude whether there is a leak present, exclude the potential for false positives and prioritise field resources.

If two or more PermaNET+ sensors are in leak mode the remote user can request noise waveforms from both sensors and perform remote correlation to conclude that there is a leak and to pinpoint the leak between the two sensor locations.

PermaNet+ is the only system to provide this capability via entirely below-ground architecture, offering customers asset security and the ability to move assets easily.