About: Alex Shelton

Hallam is preparing an easy-reference technical journal for customers setting out “benchmark” mechanical properties for pressure, sand and gravity castings based on current test results for a variety of castings and aluminium and zinc alloys.

Quality and Health and Safety Manager Jonathan Richardson set out the background to the initiative:-

“The idea actually came from one of our customers, via their Quality Manager, who was helping to prepare a tender document for a contract with a USA-based customer of their own. The QM commented that public domain information was fairly sparse and asked if we had anything more comprehensive. We realised that we could generate this from in-house testing results, so we have embarked on this as a project. We are exploring the possibility of working with Brunel University in preparing an authoritative document and in the meantime putting together our own information from test results.”

Technical Director Greg Hallam commented:-

“This is a really interesting idea. We can set our own test values against published information from ALFED and NADCA for example and continue to experiment to find ways of enhancing mechanical property values. This information is also relevant to related areas such as mould tool longevity, where fatigue strength values have an important effect.”  

As a member of MAKE UK’s National Economic Policy Committee (ECPOL) Hallam has been invited to comment on the Governments October 2024 Industrial Strategy green paper “Invest 2035: The UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy” as part of MAKE’s formal response on behalf of the manufacturing sector. ECPOL is meeting Department of Business and Trade officials in London on 9th January to discuss the green paper proposals.

Hallam MD Rob Pickersgill comments:
“The 2022 Cambridge University Innovation report echoes the contention in other authoritative papers that high productivity sectors like manufacturing should be funded and expanded in order to achieve “spillover” improvement to productivity in the rest of the economy. This has not happened in the past: the Cambridge report states that
“Between 1998 and 2019, the manufacturing sector had one of the highest productivity growth rates in the UK economy, but it was also the sector whose share in the economy decreased the most (from 16.1% to 9.7%) during this period.”

This is mainly because manufacturers have been starved of external investment funds. A Canon Institute paper refers to collateral (security) in bank lending criteria as overriding; lending to manufacturers, although a high productivity sector, is simply less attractive than lending to collateral-rich sectors like landholding and real estate.
The Government must recognize and redress this failure of the funding marketplace. Contraction of the manufacturing sector has led to the loss of spillover benefits for the whole economy. In terms of sector support, the Cast Metals Federation correctly stipulates that:

“There should be particular emphasis in the industrial strategy on subsectors that support multiple supply chains with the same capability, in the way the castings sector supplies defence, clean energy, advanced manufacturing, and digital sectors.”

I don’t hold out much hope for this: I think we will find support only for the “glamour” high profile sectors, reflecting so-called “moonshot” thinking, but ECPOL will do its best to try and persuade the Government to adopt a more imaginative approach to its growth mission.”

After registering with EcoVadis earlier in the year and following a rigorous assessment process Hallam has been awarded the EcoVadis bronze medal, a prestigious recognition that reflects the quality of a Company’s sustainability principles and systems. The assessment covers four themes – Environment, Labour and Human Rights, Ethics, and Sustainable Procurement.

The assessment places Hallam in the top 35% of companies globally, on a par with leading businesses across all industries.

Quality and Health and Safety Manager Jonathan Richardson comments…

“The Bronze Medal is a testament to the extremely high standards Hallam upholds in its daily operations. We are continually focused on improving our environmental practices and ethical conduct to build a better, more sustainable future. The EcoVadis bronze medal encourages us to keep pushing forward, with the ambition of achieving even higher levels of sustainability and striving for Silver, Gold and eventually Platinum status in the coming years.”

EcoVadis is a purpose-driven company whose mission is to provide the world’s most trusted business sustainability ratings. Businesses of all sizes across 200 industry categories and 175 countries rely on EcoVadis’ expert intelligence and evidence-based ratings to monitor and improve the sustainability performance of their business and trading partners. Industry leaders such as Johnson & Johnson, L’Oréal, Unilever, Bridgestone, BASF and JPMorgan are among the 100,000 businesses that collaborate with EcoVadis to drive adoption of and commitment to sustainability principles.

Hallam MD Rob Pickersgill has been reflecting on the development of Hallam’s product design and prototyping activities over the past 10 years. “In retrospect it’s clear that we have made significant progress technically and really can now offer our customers a handheld journey from concept to product launch and volume manufacture. We can even help with grant applications for support for the development of the product, although these days grants are more difficult to find. The design support we offer is not confined to high pressure castings, as we make so many assemblies now. We’ve gained a lot of experience at designing and sourcing other components for our OEM customers, from extrusions in a wide range of materials, to injection moulded plastics, LEDs and circuit boards and other electronic components.”

Hallam has also invested in modern equipment to support the design support process. “We have sophisticated CAD (design), simulation and CAM (transfer to CNC code) software these days plus 3D printing systems and forming machines for the mock ups and we work with a network of specialist ancillary companies for the bits we can’t do in-house. I also confess that I find discussing sales prospects for new products with our customers’ marketing people particularly fascinating. Design discussions with them focus on attaining excellence for the product of course and also process cost minimisation as markets are invariably price sensitive.”

Rob can be contacted directly on 07983315292.

Hallam is installing two new volume melt furnaces for its high pressure casting foundry. The gas-fired units are highly energy efficient and will facilitate Hallam’s work with customers in developing bespoke aluminium and zinc alloys with tailored or enhanced mechanical properties for specific applications.

Operations manager Colin Woodruff commented; “The new furnaces will finally eliminate the need to melt ingot in smaller localised furnaces, which we still have a few of, and replace these with a comprehensive centralised melt facility. This is a key element of our energy use reduction programme and has many other operational and environmental benefits. It is an exciting development.”

Grant for this project was obtained with the support of the Business Growth Unit, City of Doncaster Council.

Please contact Hallam on 01405 813006 for further details.

Hallam has registered with sustainability assessor EcoVadis, the world’s largest sustainability ratings provider. A sustainability rating is a systematic review of a company’s management of economic, environmental, and social performance.

The EcoVadis score (0-100) reflects the quality of a company’s sustainability management system at the time of the assessment. The rating methodology aims to measure the quality of a company’s sustainability management system through 3 management pillars: Policies, Actions, and Results.

EcoVadis employs strict and well-developed scoring guidelines applied to each assessment by expert analysts. The score allows companies to benchmark against their industry peers, but it also helps position the company’s overall sustainability performance in absolute terms.

Hallam’s first assessment is scheduled for September 2024.

Operations Manager, Colin Woodruff, and IT and Automation Engineer, Kyle Walker, visited this year’s MACH Exhibition at the NEC to look at the latest advances in manufacturing process technologies.

Of particular interest were Computerised Tomography (CT) scanners allowing non-destructive analysis of the structure of manufactured components without the overhead of traditional X-ray testing procedures. Colin and Kyle also evaluated Image Dimension Measuring (IDM) systems offering a speedier alternative to probe-based Co-ordinate Measuring Machines (CMMs) for critical dimension checks and Statistical Process Control (SPC) together with the latest developments in robotisation technologies.

Colin comments “The availability of CT scanners for manufacturing is an important development in meeting requirements for automotive, aerospace and medical sector customers. Suppliers are also willing to provide CT equipment on a servitisation basis, alleviating any capital financing pressures. IDM systems represent the next level for SPC and may replace CMM systems entirely in due course.”

CT scanners provide high resolution layered x-ray images and are in everyday use in the Healthcare sector.

The Hallam technical sales office can be contacted on 01405 813006 option 1, anytime.

Hallam MD Rob Pickersgill attended a Doncaster City Council Roundtable event on sustainable energy in manufacturing with presentations by Fhaheen Khan, Chief Economist at MAKE UK and Dr Pam Murrell, CEO of the UK Cast Metals Federation. Attendees included Ed Miliband MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Climate Change and Net Zero; Ros Jones, Mayor of Doncaster City Council and Don Valley MP Nick Fletcher. The event was hosted at the Ardagh Glass Group’s Doncaster complex.

Rob Comments “The discussions covered a wide range of issues highly relevant to the UK energy cost crisis including sustainable technology use and market pricing issues, the latter being extremely complex and another disastrous legacy of privatization. Long term contract prices for manufacturers include high risk premiums and inflated non-commodity costs, are the highest in Europe and 4 or 5 times higher than the prices that UK manufacturers’ competitors in China and even the USA are currently paying. The Government-commissioned REMA report (Review of Electricity Market Arrangements) doesn’t provide a solution to the pricing anomalies in the market, being focused on creating flexibility to accommodate sustainable power rather than alleviating domestic and industrial customer pain.”

However you travel, you’re never far away from a Hallam powder coated product!

Hallam’s powder coating process now uses Interpon Redox Plus as a powder primer protective barrier designed to give enhanced corrosion protection of mild steel, galvanized steel, zinc and aluminium.

Colin Woodruff, Operations Manager at Hallam, comments:-

“As well as exceptional UV resistance we can now offer market leading exterior environment resilience in products subject to severe weathering or heavy salt spray exposure. Redox Plus is a pure epoxy primer showing a high cross-linking degree reinforced with barrier effect agents to provide the best barrier protection. Redox Plus is over-coated with an Interpon powder and Hallam’s powder coated products benefit from a wide curing range, excellent retention of mechanical properties, outstanding edge coverage, good anti-gassing and good over coating as a result of using the Interpon system.”