Staff at Derby electronics manufacturers showed a Government minister their high-speed automated production line when he paid them a visit to find out how the pandemic had affected their operations.
Kwasi Kwarteng, the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, spent around an hour meeting workers and going on a tour around Mansfield Road-based firm Tioga, accompanied by Amanda Solloway, MP for Derby North during a visit to the city yesterday.
Tioga, which employs 135 people and is based in a former listed railway building, is one of the country’s leading contract electronic manufacturers and assembles a huge array of electronic products, from individual components to highly complex, complete machinery.
Its products are used in a wide of range of industries, from components in heart-rate monitors used to check unborn babies’ heartbeats to machinery used to prove data on the performance of giant wind turbine blades, as well as in the telecoms, security and military sectors.
During his visit, Mr Kwarteng discovered how some of the company’s components are so small that staff have to look through high-powered microscopes in order to see them and watched as its fully automated production lines produced an incredible 12 to 14 parts per second.
Mr Kwarteng said: “Tioga is truly a hidden gem in Derby. This fantastic company, one of the UK’s leading electronics manufacturers, is doing some incredible and innovative things and they have my full support as they continue to invest, grow and go from strength to strength.”
Ms Solloway said: “There are so many exciting and innovative firms in Derby and I feel very proud to have been able to show the Minister how the city’s rich engineering prowess is making its presence felt in the electronics industry as well.
“Tioga is one of a whole host of city firms who are leading Derby and the UK out of the pandemic and it was wonderful to find out how products designed and built right here in the heart of the country are changing lives – and, in the case of their neo-natal heart monitors, helping to save them too – for people all around the world.”
Tioga Managing Director Warwick Adams said: “We’re very proud of everything we’ve achieved at Tiago and it’s always a pleasure to showcase our incredibly high-tech production line and explain how our products are used across the globe.
“The electronics sector is something that the UK can be extremely proud of, but it is fair to say that its size and contribution to the economy, as well as the highly advanced products that we design and manufacture in this country, is not as widely recognised as it should be.
“People assume that all of the world’s leading electronics firms are all in the Far East but that could not be further from the truth. There is a lot of electronics development taking place in the UK and it’s something that we are very, very good at.”
