creating our future - imi plc 11 english.pdfcreating our future. imi is a great company and i am...

The IMI Newsletter Issue 11 August 2019

Creating our future

IMI is a great company and I am very much looking forward to leading the business in the next phase of its development. I am also very excited about the significant opportunity we have to put the customer at the centre of our decision making, create sustainable value and make a difference.

August 2019

IMI will create tremendous value by solving key industry problems in attractive markets and employing the best

We have some tremendous strengths. First and foremost we employ great people. Our operational platform includes some of the best factories and processes in our sector and we are renowned for our world-class engineering expertise.

Throughout the last 150 years our Company has used this engineering expertise to solve some of the most complex challenges. By way of example, within IMI Precision, Norgren invented the lubricator which extended the life of industrial automation systems; IMI CCI, which is part of our Critical Engineering division, dramatically improved the reliability of electricity production; and TA and Heimeier, two of IMI Hydronic’s market-leading businesses, improved building heating efficiencies by over 20 per cent. And in doing so IMI has created significant value for customers, employees and shareholders.

Today, as our world continues to change rapidly and the demand for cleaner, safer and more energy-efficient processes continues to grow, customers need our expertise more than ever. We must capitalise on this market opportunity and deploy our considerable strengths to solve our customers’ problems in a way that accelerates value creation for all our stakeholders.

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Roy Twite CEO IMI plcIMI delivered results largely in line with

expectations in the first half of 2019, reflecting all the good work being done across the Group to harness the full potential of our business.

In Precision Engineering, sales were slightly down, as growth with Commercial Vehicle and Life Science customers could not offset the effects of a global slowing within its largest vertical, Industrial Automation. Focus for the division in the second half will be to drive performance to deliver good margins despite the market headwinds, while continuing to advance its strategic agenda.

Critical Engineering delivered an expected drop in its revenue, but was able to hold margins broadly flat versus 2018 through continued execution of efficiency initiatives and further leveraging of high margin aftermarket sales. Importantly, the division saw growth in its backlog orderbook and the first bookings in what is expected to be a recovery in LNG orders, where IMI’s technological leadership is well established. Strong bookings from the division’s IMI Truflo Marine business also supported the result in the first half; we see its market as an excellent growth opportunity for Critical Engineering for years to come.

Regarding Hydronic Engineering, having successfully “reset” the focus of the division in 2018, results were excellent in the first six months of 2019, with sales, profits, and margins all showing good growth. Our core brands of TA, Heimeier, and Pneumatex continue to underpin our technology-leading offering into our markets, and the division boasts some of the company’s most lean operations which enable both great customer service and cost efficiency.

Cash delivery was also solid in the first half, with the divisions improving cash flow and working capital management. This will be a critical focus area for the Group going forward as our ability to deliver free cash flow will enable us to pursue those investments - both organic and inorganic - that will help to take IMI to the next level.

My thanks to all for their hard work in supporting the delivery of our first half commitments.

Daniel Shook Finance Director

Full details of the 2019 interim results, including the webcast of the presentation to the City, are available at www.imiplc.com/investors

IMI will create tremendous value by solving key industry problems in attractive markets and employing the best

Precision Critical Hydronic

To best harness this opportunity we need a winning and pragmatic strategy. In other words, we need to determine where we are going to compete and how we are going to win in our chosen markets. As our existing five-year plan moves through its final phase, work on developing our future strategic direction is well underway and I will provide an update early next year.

Our people and our culture are and will continue to be key to our success. I am committed to building a diverse and inclusive meritocracy, which appoints and promotes the best people who are commercially astute, excellent at execution and have a growth mind set. Our core values of integrity, excellence, innovation and collaboration will continue to be embedded in everything we do. And recognising that our ability to create value is entirely dependent on our customers, we have added a new core value - customer focus.

Now is the time to capitalise on our many strengths, drive our business forward and make a difference. Working together, I am confident that we will effectively harness the significant opportunity we have to create sustainable value for our customers, our shareholders, our people, and society.

Roy Twite Chief Executive

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The IMI Newsletter Issue 11

August 2019

4 The IMI Newsletter Issue 11

WRITTEN BY Mike Semens-FlanaganChief Technology Officer IMI Critical Engineering

IMI’s ambitious Growth Accelerator programme, first launched by IMI Critical, now adopted by IMI Precision and IMI Hydronic

A new approach

A Growth Accelerator approach has already been implemented with proven success by major global organisations such as Nike, Google and eBay.

The programme builds on IMI Critical’s knowledge and will accelerate business growth, following the reduction in fossil and nuclear power demand. In a world where, in the last 48 hours, more data has passed around the world than had been created since the start of history up to the year 2010, the potential for disruption is obvious. It is vital that IMI Critical is able to react more quickly than everyone else. IMI Critical aims to develop products faster to directly solve customer or industry problems. This will stimulate business growth and create more opportunities for our talented colleagues.

The programme has the full involvement of the entire IMI Critical Executive team.

An initial cohort of seven ‘sprint’ teams were assembled in September 2018, drawing from employees across all sites and functions of the division. With support from their sponsors and external experts, the teams spent the first few weeks on the programme working to identify various industry problems in preparation for the official kick-off event

which took place in London in October 2018. The launch event was a great success with 73 attendees from across the division. Over two days the teams brought a lot of energy as they underwent a series of exercises, from assumption busting to experimentation, customer mapping and much more. These sessions aimed to disrupt conventional thinking and challenge assumptions about the status quo. One participant explained: “We thought about what questions our competitors would hate us to answer, an idea we would all certainly like to make a reality!”

With every great idea must come a business case and the teams were given a simple model to help draw out all the key insights necessary to build one.

The last sessions of the event included customer mapping and

development of a minimal viable product (MVP), by turning problems into opportunities to generate a new set of ideas. Using a voting system to select the most promising idea, the teams started to build their first MVP – the smallest experiment they could run to prove or disprove their hypothesis. This exercise took them into the sprint cycles, during which industry problem statements were refined based on customer feedback, before building and testing the MVP. The test and learn process in the sprint cycle encouraged the teams to validate and refine their ideas to ensure the solution they came up with at the end is one that customers value and will pay for.

The teams reached out to industry experts, start-ups and universities to utilise

August 2019

Last August, IMI Critical Engineering was the first IMI division to launch a brand-new initiative, the Growth Accelerator programme, to build a sustainable growth engine for the future. The programme is designed to fast-track growth by putting talented employees in diverse teams to solve industry problems.

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IMI’s ambitious Growth Accelerator programme, first launched by IMI Critical, now adopted by IMI Precision and IMI Hydronic

A new approach

Joining our friends in the other IMI divisions, we have kicked off the first Growth Accelerator programe with a two-day executive meeting in France.

√√The outcome of this meeting resulted in four growth themes, that the Hydronic executive team are confident will give the best opportunities:

l How can we use data to solve customer problems?

l What channels to market best serve customers solving their problems?

l What can we do to solve customer problems in the aftermarket/ retrofit and preventative maintenance in the Americas?

l How can we exploit disruptive technologies in building design and operation to solve customer problems?

Four sprint teams of 7 have been identified and invited to join the Growth Accelerator. The key aspect of the teams is diversity of thought, pulling members from all functions and six graduates are also included as part of the programme. The teams are spending the summer identifying industry-wide customer problems related to the four growth themes. The formal sprint kick-off will take place in September and a final pitch in December.

In parallel we are developing our overarching purpose encompassing our themes for growth. Work has started to bring this purpose to life through conversations across the division on the following areas:

l What: energy efficiency, smart connected products/world, simpler and easy to install, innovation, the Hydronic College

l Why: peace of mind, safety, comfort, easy to purchase, easy to install, confidence, noise control

l Who: everyone, employees and future employees, diverse and inclusive, at home and at work, the elderly, suppliers, future generations, customers and their customers

We are confident the Growth Accelerator programme will bring an empowered mind-set change and a customer-centric vision enabling our business to fulfil its growth ambition.

The new initiative has been tailored to Precision’s specific requirements and is designed to help:

l Build a customer engagement mindset

l Find new sources of growth

l Build innovation capability across the organisation

l Achieve greater customer engagement

l Increase collaboration across the regions

Five teams of 6-7 people have been assembled from across the world to work on five key project areas that have been identified as areas that could unlock significant potential for the business. Since the launch in June, these five cross-functional teams have taken part in a two-day diagnostics workshop either in person or via video conferencing. Before the workshop, each team had been tasked with creating a problem statement and during the workshop they looked at the market opportunity, validated customer needs, understood potential blockers and identified potential resources against their statements.

Using various diagnostic tools, the groups worked through their problem statements and validated their assumptions by calling customers. During this process multiple groups found that they needed to go back to rework their problem statement in order to really get to the heart of the customer problem.

Following the workshop, the teams have been asked to regroup and decide on next steps and further engage with customers to validate the problem statement and any key assumptions.

The problem statements will then be shared before starting to work towards a video pitch of ideas to the Executive Team at the end of July. Following the pitch, the Executive Team will decide which teams will move forward to the second and full phase of Growth Accelerator in September 2019.

their experience and knowledge of key technologies to help build solutions and value propositions.

June Stephens, part of the Americas team, sharing her insights on their journey on the programme said: “As a member of the team, this has been an eye opening and exciting journey. Normally we would have jumped straight to solution mode, but innovation coaches taught us to truly identify problems, instead of assuming what the problems are; since poorly identified problems lead to lacklustre solutions. We went through an iterative journey of identifying and pressure testing the problem – doing interviews with actual customers so that the problem we identified aligns to daily pain points they would pay to have resolved. After only two iterations, we became so much more customer centric compared to the start and vastly more confident in our proposals. Overall, our team is very excited and motivated to see this process through. We dream of positively affecting the customer in a tangible way and hope to leave a lasting legacy for IMI.”

In February all the teams pitched their proposals to the IMI Critical Executive, as well as Dan Shook (IMI’s Group Finance Director) and Phil Clifton, IMI Hydronic Engineering’s Divisional Managing Director. Members of the first cohort of the Growth Accelerator are now helping coach the second wave of Growth Accelerator teams. The Growth Accelerator programme is being rolled out to the whole of the IMI Group with the explicit aim of building a culture of customer-focus and innovation that creates sustainable and profitable growth.

WRITTEN BY Duncan McBurnieBusiness Development Director IMI Precision Engineering

WRITTEN BY Kieran Griffin Growth Accelerator Programme Manager IMI Hydronic Engineering

Two-phase IMI Precision Growth Accelerator

IMI Hydronic presses the Accelerator


Following a successful launch of Growth Accelerator in IMI’s Critical Engineering division, the Precision process gets underway.

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A powerful and engaging start to the next chapter of IMI plc


August 2019

For the third year, nearly 300 Group and divisional colleagues gathered in April for the annual conferences at the Celtic Manor Resort. UK. The theme of the conference was Creating our Future – chosen to align with the announcement of Roy Twite as Chief Executive following the retirement of Mark Selway.

Mark Selway opened the conference and outlined its objectives were to welcome new leadership, celebrate success and set the foundations for the future.

During his remarks, Mark talked about his time as Chief Executive of IMI and outlined what he is most proud of:

l Achieving operational excellence and world-class facilities

l Development of market-leading products that are building competitive advantage

l Investment in digital capabilities and infrastructure

l Establishment of core processes and best practice sharing

Roy then took to the stage and gave his thoughts, first of all by thanking Mark for his service to the Company and then continuing to talk about his pride in the heritage of IMI. He emphasised that IMI has a strong operational platform to build upon that consists of great people, fantastic engineering expertise and great factories.

With the world around us changing fast, Roy outlined how we need to focus on delivering profitable growth by creating more value for customers and generating better returns for IMI. We will do this by ensuring our new products are truly differentiated and margin accretive; and over time we must move into more attractive markets where we can lead. Roy ended with his vision:

“IMI will create tremendous value by solving key industry problems in attractive markets and employing the best.”

As has become traditional, the Chairman, Lord Smith of Kelvin and Mark Selway presented Group and divisional awards at the gala dinner for Most Improved Plant, Innovation and Commercial Excellence. Mark was also presented with an award for his services to Engineering GREAT.

WRITTEN BY Geoff Tranfield Group HR Director, IMI plc

In March, Jackie Hu succeeded Roy Twite as Divisional Managing Director of IMI Critical Engineering.

Jackie has been with IMI for more than ten years, working in our Nuclear Sales business before several promotions. His last role was President, IMI Critical Engineering APAC.

He has been a core part of the profitable growth and success of Asia Pacific and has pushed the collaborative approach of local sales support with our technical experts, maximising the sales of IMI products in the region.

With his new role, Jackie has outlined how the division will work together to create our own future, one that works towards our purpose – breakthrough engineering to improve quality of life!

From humble beginnings, Jackie personally appreciates the hard work required to be the best you can be. He is a big supporter of investment in people to build a great culture and a winning team.

“If we leverage our expertise, focus on attractive markets and ensure we are solving real industry problems, we will create value for our customers and for IMI.”

With Jackie joining the IMI Executive team, we will benefit from his drive and passion and he will bring more diversity to create a better future for IMI.

IMI Critical’s new chief sees a bright futureWRITTEN BY Mike Semens-FlanaganChief Technology Officer IMI Critical Engineering

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Across the globe the requirement for sustainable homes and buildings, together with increasing legislation aimed at reducing carbon emissions, is driving demand for cost effective energy efficient heating and cooling systems. In response IMI Hydronic Engineering’s offering includes an extensive range of products and technologies that ensure HVAC systems operate in the most energy and cost-efficient way.

To ensure optimal performance, correct system sizing and set-up are essential. Included in IMI Hydronic’s latest hydronic knowledge and tool offering is HyTools 3.0, a unique digital hydronic calculator available in app format for iOS and Android. Packed with expert hydronic data, this user-friendly technology simplifies complex calculations relating to flow, differential pressure, power and valve settings, product and pipe sizing and unit conversion. For customers who need to perform engineering verifications quickly and easily, while on site or during meetings, HyTools is a very useful resource.

In response to customers’ needs this latest version of HyTools, which was launched in March this year, includes a pressurisation section which customers can use to size the division’s IMI Pneumatex Statico, Compresso, Transfero and Vento pressurisation and degassing devices.

The HyTools app is available in 21 languages and can be downloaded from either Google Play or the Apple App Store. Since its launch it has been very well received and now has over 14,000 active users. On the app stores it has a rating of 4.6 stars out of five and reflecting this rating one review remarked: “Really good, every HVAC engineer must have!”

Energy efficiency that’s user-friendly WRITTEN BY Jean-Christophe CaretteHead of Technology IMI Hydronic Engineering

A new, online tool is making life easier for customers buying advanced products from IMI Precision Engineering. Launched earlier this year in conjunction with new IMI Norgren ELION electric actuator, the configuration tool allows customers to specify their required actuator quickly and easily.

Manual specification of an electric actuator to meet specific needs can be a complex and time-consuming process involving many steps. For instance, customers would need to calculate a number of functional requirements including force, speed and torque of the motor.

Our software simplifies the whole process. Online customers input application attributes such as distance, load and time, and the configuration tool specifies the actuator to meet those needs, along with the price. Customers can also configure using product attributes such as size, communication protocols and mountings.

Potential customers got their first chance to see the software in action alongside the advanced IMI Norgren ELION electric actuator which was unveiled at the Hannover Messe industrial fair in April.

Simon Gass, Global Product Marketing Manager – Actuators, was at the fair. He said: “Our new IMI Norgren ELION rod-style electric actuator is an industry-leading product and was received very well by customers visiting our stand. There was also very good feedback to the configuration software tool which was developed to support customers buying this new product. The software represents another step up in our customer service levels. It does not replace the personal support and advice available to customers from our technical team but it certainly makes the initial product specification process easier and faster.”

Members of IMI Precision’s engineering and marketing teams worked together for around six months to get the software ready for online use. The software was adapted for specific use with the new rod-style actuator and to meet other business needs. In addition to helping customers, the software is also proving an invaluable tool for our sales team.

More work is being carried out on the software to enable online specification of the new rodless electric actuator which is due to be launched in late 2019. Plans are also in place to extend the use of this tool to encompass other IMI Precision Engineering products.

New online ‘application configurator’ invaluable to customers and sales teamsWRITTEN BY Jez AshtonGlobal Online Marketing Manager IMI Precision Engineering

L to R: Didier Delforge, iOS app developer and Benjamin Baudoux, Android app developer

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Left to right: Neil Mao, Operations Manager, IMI China, Miguel Angel Perez Olvera, Vinfast Presshop Process Lead Engineer,

Terence Tan, Sales Manager Export IMI Singapore,Louis Hou, Project Manager, IMI China

Collaboration makes automotive history in Vietnam

WRITTEN BY Terence TanExport Sales Manager IMI Precision Engineering, Singapore

IMI Precision sites in Asia and the USA collaborated to design and produce the tooling which includes saddles, sensors and tooling arms used to move panels through the manufacturing press process.

Following a successful proposal to VinFast from Precision’s Norgren Automation Solutions (NAS) business in Detroit, USA, the Detroit team worked with colleagues in China to design the tooling solution. The China team, including Louis Hou and Zhang Hai Sheng, has led delivery of the project which includes manufacture and assembly of the tooling at IMI Precision Engineering China. Local service and customer support has been led by Samir Manglani at Precision’s Singapore office.

Ron Slone, Director of Sales at IMI Precision’s Norgren Automation Solutions, led the USA team which included Jim Kalb, Leslie Brunet and Dave Schoenherr.

Excellent collaboration across two continents has resulted in IMI Precision Engineering working with an important new customer, VinFast, to make automotive history. VinFast is about to become the first volume automotive manufacturer in Vietnam. The company is using IMI Precision tooling to produce body panels for its first and state-of-the-art cars which are due to be launched in the second half of 2019.

Ron said: “We offered VinFast our expertise and guidance on a solution that they could trust and we’re very proud and delighted that they’ve chosen us to support them in the launch of Vietnam’s first home-manufactured car.”

César Iván Torres Ballesteros, Press Shop Technical Manager at VinFast, said: “Collaboration with IMI Precision Engineering has worked very well. They have shared their expertise and knowledge to provide us with a world-class solution that is helping us to deliver state-of-the-art cars.”

Based at Cat Hai Island near the Vietnamese city of Hai Phong, VinFast unveiled the prototypes of its first two car models, a sedan and SUV, at the Paris Motor Show last October – only one year after the company was founded by VinGroup. IMI Precision delivered its tooling solution to VinFast in June this year in readiness for the start of volume production. The sizeable order marks the first time that tooling from IMI Precision has been adopted by an automotive plant in Vietnam.

August 2019


In recent years demand for intelligent heating and cooling systems has grown rapidly. Today, customers require energy efficient systems that can be installed and operated easily and controlled and monitored in a variety of ways, including remotely. In response to this increasing trend, IMI Hydronic is to evolving and expanding its product portfolio. In the last 12 months, the division has continued to enhance its connected offering, with the launch of new innovative products which enable communication and connection with other devices and systems to deliver optimal performance and energy efficiency.

The new BrainCube connect technology allows customers to monitor and control the pressurisation equipment within their heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system at any time, from any place, via a smartphone, laptop or building management system. As accurate pressurisation is the key driver of optimal HVAC system performance the remote access and visibility BrainCube provides is invaluable. In addition, if a system fault is detected, an alert is sent directly to the customer’s smartphone and, using the remote access, system settings

Customer solutions in connected technologies

WRITTEN BY Marcella ColombinoMarketing Content Specialist IMI Hydronic Engineering

can be checked immediately and adjustments made and, if service is required, this can be arranged before any problems worsen.

BrainCube connect technology is now integrated as standard across a range of IMI Pneumatex solutions including Simply Compresso, Compresso Connect and Transfero Connect, three pressure maintenance products which are suitable for small, medium and large applications up to 160Mw of power.

The division’s new connected product range includes nine new versions of the TA-Slider digital actuator. These new digital actuators are compatible with all control systems, with or without BUS communication, and can be digitally configured via any building management system or via IMI Hydronic’s HyTune smartphone App. Using the HyTune app, from the palm of their hand, the customer can choose from over 200 configurations to fine tune the installed actuator and monitor operating parameters.

AuraConnect a new thermostatic control solution for smart homes also forms part of IMI Hydronic’s new product offering. This IMI Heimeier product solution, which is compatible with radiators and underfloor heating or a combination of both, gathers key data including information about

BrainCube connect technology in action: adjusting settings on Simply Compresso pressurisation device using a smartphone

Configuring AuraConnect using smartphone app

temperature and humidity and can be controlled via a smartphone and integrated functions within the home such as motion and window-open sensors.

Graeme Waugh, Head of the IMI Hydronic Engineering College said: “Our extensive range of connected products and technologies deliver a number of significant customer benefits including better system control, easy remote access and last, but by no means least, peace of mind. By continuing to develop innovative solutions we will further enhance our market position and grow our business.”

Customers at ISH looking at the AuraConnect demo wall

Configuring a TA-Slider using the HyTune app


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GM specifies carbon fibre tooling solution

August 2019

IMI Truflo Marine targets export opportunities as part of Sub ClubWRITTEN BY Amy PayneMarketing Manager, IMI Truflo Marine, IMI Critical Engineering

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General Motors (GM) has specified carbon fibre technology from IMI Precision Engineering on vital tooling for its manufacturing plants. The move is a major breakthrough for IMI Precision in the Industrial Automation vertical and follows months of close collaboration with GM in Detroit, Michigan.

Norgren Automation Solutions (NAS) in Michigan, part of IMI Precision Engineering, has more than 20 years’ experience in carbon fibre design, manufacture and repair. Its bespoke carbon fibre solution for GM’s servo-crossbars – used to support tooling in the automotive panel pressing process – represents a pioneering application of our technology on a very large scale.

with our international portfolio, was especially attractive. Collaboration between industry and defence is crucial to support future international programmes and our relationship with the UK Sub Club will play a key part in the success of our business”.

Commander Stephen Walker, senior military advisor – Submarine Capability Lead at DSO, added: “I am extremely proud of the work our members are undertaking within the Sub Club - our presence at UDT is a realistic picture of the UK in a dynamic export market. Although the UK does not export submarines, we do build the vital components such as engines, valves, batteries and combat systems. Therefore, the Sub Club exposes this to export supply chains, leading to a prosperous manufacturing future for our UK supply chain”.

WRITTEN BY Jad Khattab WRITTEN BY Jad Khattab

Senior Product SpecialistIMI Precision Engineering, Detroit

Marcus Farnham, Neelima Kommaraju, Kim Elmer, Prabath Arachige, Rich Hamann with the

new carbon fibre servo-crossbars

Prabath Arachchige, Mechanical Engineer at NAS, has been responsible for leading the project and integrating the carbon fibre technology at GM. He said: “This technology offers multiple benefits when compared with conventional steel servo-crossbars of the type traditionally used at GM. Most importantly, it reduces system weight by around 50%. Lighter structures allow an increased number of strokes per minute – meaning that customers can benefit from higher productivity. Its unique carbon fibre structure also offers high strength and stiffness for improved precision of part placement.”

Great collaboration with GM and excellent cross-functional teamwork at NAS have been key factors in the success of this project. Key Account Manager responsible for the GM account, Kim Elmer, said: “The input from GM’s engineering team has been absolutely invaluable. They deserve enormous recognition for their contribution and their commitment to working with us to bring this solution to fruition. After months of dedicated work, it’s wonderful to see this innovative solution now being implemented and we’re looking forward to continuing our strengthening relationship with General Motors.”

Work on the GM project dates back to 2016 but it was late last year when the project really took off. Deliveries of the new carbon fibre servo-crossbars to the GM main plant in Michigan are being made throughout this year. A technical team from NAS is also supporting GM in installation and commissioning of the new tooling.

IMI Truflo Marine’s valves have been showcased at a major defence and security conference, as part of a UK government trade initiative. The company was invited to exhibit at the Undersea Defence Technology (UDT) 2019 event, in May in Sweden, which was organised by the UK’s Defence and Security Organisation (DSO) in a bid to increase export opportunities for British companies. IMI are one of 43 companies who are members of the DSO’s ‘Sub Club’, an initiative that industry, without infringing on commercially sensitive matters, allows participants to share knowledge and collaborate on new product development and prospective opportunities.

IMI Truflo Marine presented to a number of naval programmes across Eastern Europe and Scandinavia.

Christian Thomason, Key Account Manager at IMI Truflo Marine, said: “UDT was a great success, our already proven contribution to current and future UK naval programmes, paired

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IMI Hydronic Engineering has won the contract to design the heating and HVAC system for the Amur Gas processing plant, Russia’s largest, and the world’s second largest, natural gas processing facility. Located near Svobodny, a town in Eastern Russia, when completed, the facility will have an annual capacity of 42 billion cubic metres and natural gas from the plant will be transported to China via the Power of Siberia pipeline, the largest gas transmission system in Eastern Russia.

Renowned for its long track record of delivering successful projects across a wide range of residential and commercial developments, this project is IMI Hydronic’s first in the complex industrial processing sector and the Russia-based project team are delighted to have secured this significant contract win. Led by Vladimir Lizyakin, Kirill Martynov, Technical Director and Alexander Syomin, Product Manager for balancing and control, the team worked in partnership with consultants and project managers from ARMO Group to design a world-leading heating, ventilation and air conditioning system with a total capacity of 5 MW.

Key factors that helped secure this important contract included the team’s ability to design a complete system solution and provide all supporting technical documentation within the customer’s very short timescale. The system solution incorporated a number of IMI Hydronic market-leading products including the new digital actuators, TA-Slider 160 Plus and TA-Slider 500 Plus, which provide value-adding control and monitoring capabilities.

Following the contract’s award Vladimir Lizyakin, Business Development Director said “This is a significant strategic development. We have established a foothold in a new and attractive sector which has great growth potential. Winning this contract is a testament to the skill, expertise and hard work of our Russian project team. The Amur Gas Processing Plant is part of a bigger development across the Amur region. In addition, a new residential neighbourhood is being constructed to house the employees who will work in the plant and we are well positioned to provide our market leading solutions to this domestic project.”

Breaking into a new industrial sector

WRITTEN BY Dmitry SyominRegional Director Russia & CIS, IMI Hydronic Engineering


Over 80 of IMI’s global Finance leaders attended the 2019 Finance Conference in June. Held at the Belfry, Birmingham, UK the conference saw delegates from Site, Divisional and Group Finance come together, hear internal and external updates, and help set the priorities for the function for the next few years.

The theme was “Finance of the future” and Daniel Shook, Group Finance Director, opened the conference by reflecting on the progress made in “building the foundations” over the past five years and encouraged the team to now focus on “delivering our potential”.

Roy Twite, IMI Chief Executive, addressed the conference by sharing his strategic objectives for the Group and outlined how he sees Finance playing a key role in the next phase of IMI’s development. Roy also thanked the delegates for their continued efforts in maintaining strong financial controls, accurate information and insightful reporting.

The conference included presentations on divisional strategies. We were also reminded of the impact finance both already has on the perceptions of investors, and could increasingly have on the quality of decision-making within our business. External perspectives on the UK regulatory landscape and Finance automation were provided by EY and Deloitte.

In addition, attendees had an opportunity to visit a number of best practice “pods” to see some of the great work already happening around the company in areas like reporting simplification and business partnering.

The event included a dinner attended by Isobel Sharp, Chair of IMI’s Audit Committee, and the IMI Executive. Seven finance individuals were recognised for their achievement over the past year, including two Group Finance Director’s Awards and an award recognising the excellent work performed on the integration of Bimba into IMI Precision Engineering. As is now tradition, all winners took home the mini baseball bat trophy for their achievement!

Dan Shook commented “This was a fantastic opportunity to get the global finance leadership together to help shape the next chapter in our function’s evolution. I was particularly pleased with the level of energy and engagement shown throughout the conference. We were able to capture a range of perspectives and there was a great deal of collaboration amongst the delegates. We will now consolidate all these insights to build our roadmap for the future. My thanks to everyone for their input.”

‘Delivering our potential’ Finance Conference 2019 WRITTEN BY David RobinsonHead of Finance Projects IMI plc

The Amur Gas Processing Plant is the largest natural gas processing facility in Russia


August 2019

Variable Orifice Valve technology transforms US market

Engineers at IMI Remosa have triggered wide-spread interest across the US in Variable Orifice Valve (VOV) technology after solving a major customer problem.

WRITTEN BY Daniele CecchelliBusiness Development Americas, Petrochemical IMI Critical Engineering

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When a US refinery found it was operating a slide valve outside its normal control range, causing premature erosion of the unit, it turned to IMI Remosa for help.

The IMI Remosa team carried out a full analysis of the actual operating conditions the double disc slide valve was having to withstand, so that they could better understand the flexibility and reliability required of the valve. The team found that as well as premature erosion, operating the valve outside its normal range had also caused damage to the orifice chamber.

The analysis allowed the team to recommend a different solution for the operating requirements, rather than a straight replacement valve. Its proposed solution was to replace the orifice chamber with a stack of three VOVs, which would provide better reliability and more flexibility in a range of different process scenarios.

As this was the first application of this kind in the USA, and the largest in the world – a 120 inch valve standing 65 feet high – the team had to work hard to convince the customer to accept their recommendation. However, it turned out to be a breakthrough project, which has been a catalyst for VOV technology adoption in the US. The customer wrote an enthusiastic letter of thanks for the recommendation and the quality of the product, and has requested another VOV for a second plant.

Several other licensors and end users have also requested quotes for the technology.

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Shorter-cycle product development will accelerate growth

WRITTEN BY David Powell-WiffinGrowth Accelerator Programme Lead IMI Critical Engineering

IMI Critical taps into LNG growth in JapanWRITTEN BY Amer RefaiSales Director, IMI Critical MEA IMI Critical Engineering

A collaborative effort between IMI CCI China and IMI Bopp & Reuther helped secure an order for proportional acting safety valves for the expanding facility in Guangdong Province. The valves will be used to create a second ethylene cracker at the giant petro-chemical complex, in Huizhou, China.

Redesigned from a nuclear power safety valve, it is used in large petro-chemical units to resolve issues they were experiencing with the process in a run-away reaction.

The customer concluded that IMI Critical’s valves were ‘the only existing solution for this special process’. This close collaboration with the client enabled IMI to secure the order, and also provide technical services for commissioning of the valves.

Internal collaboration creates ‘sole-solution’ for China oil project

Valve Doctors®

20th anniversary

WRITTEN BY Stefano MalacridaDirector, Business Development, EMEA Power IMI Critical Engineering

WRITTEN BY Chris Peterson, Valve Doctor®

Programme Chairman IMI Critical Engineering

IMI Critical is ramping up its abilities to quickly validate which new products will make a real difference in the market.

A new product development (NPD) programme, called NPD Ignite, has been launched across the division to help make quick decisions on new products before material investment has been committed. It is building on the Growth Accelerator programme’s tools and approaches to rapidly validate proposed new product development.

The NPD Ignite pilot launched with five teams, all investigating a different product development opportunity. Business leaders submitted project proposals for consideration, some of which were based on ideas that had not been implemented in the past due to insufficient focus or resource. NPD Ignite allows IMI Critical to qualify these in an intense six-week period, focusing predominantly on potential solutions to real customer problems.

IMI Critical’s acclaimed Valve Doctor® programme celebrates its 20th anniversary in 2019. Originally conceived as a way to connect IMI Critical’s top technical experts to customers with demanding engineering challenges, the programme is now an established mentoring and development scheme, helping IMI Critical attract and retain some of the very best engineers.

With a buoyant liquefied natural gas (LNG) market in Japan, a number of IMI Critical businesses have been showcasing the division’s broad portfolio of cryogenic flow control solutions.

Representatives from IMI CCI and IMI Orton, including two Valve Doctors®, met a range of key players in Japan, including engineering procurement companies (EPCs) and end users.

IMI CCI is also updating its test facility in our new Japanese factory. This will allow major Japanese EPC’s and the end-user’s Project Management teams to experience the outstanding performance of IMI CCI valves and the IMI STI new generation actuation and positioners during witness testing.

During a visit in February, the team also took part in a two-day workshop with Japanese colleagues to develop a strategy for capitalising on the growing opportunities for IMI Critical in the Japanese LNG market.

The programme takes on average seven years to complete and covers valve design, plant operation, system layout and control system integration delivered through a combination of traditional classroom-style training, interactive training sessions, on-line training modules, “hands on” laboratory sessions, and one-to-one interview sessions with a Valve Doctor or Senior Valve Doctor. Once qualified, Valve Doctors® are IMI Critical’s top technical experts, operating on site wherever they are needed to solve process flow problems, and optimise plant performance, in power, nuclear, oil & gas and petrochemical plants around the world.

“The Valve Doctor® training programme is widely acknowledged as the highest level of application engineering in the severe service industry.” said Mike Semens-Flanagan CTO and programme sponsor.

Over 100 engineers have achieved coveted Valve Doctor® status in the last two decades and some even continue to work for IMI in retirement.

Commenting on the EPFL event Thomas Hudson said “As a graduate I know from my own personal experience how important these events are. Students can explore the opportunities potential future employers provide and companies like ours are able to connect with highly skilled and talented people and identify potential future employees at a very early stage.”

Similarly, in March employees from both IMI Critical Engineering and IMI Precision Engineering attended a ‘Women in STEM’ (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) event in the UK, specifically aimed at female students interested in a career in engineering.

These events are a crucial part of our attraction strategy for the IMI Graduate Programme and getting employees involved is a great way for us to talk to students about what it’s really like to work at IMI. If you are interested in getting involved in future events, please talk to your local HR department.

August 2019

The IMI Graduate Programme is a strategic pipeline of talent for the whole business, and in fact our Chief Executive, Roy Twite, started his career at IMI as a graduate himself! One of the key ways we attract a diverse range of high-quality graduates is by engaging with leading education institutions across the world. Each division has teams engaging with universities in the different countries where we recruit our graduate talent and the last six months has seen teams attending a number of great events.

In March members of the IMI Hydronic Engineering team, including colleagues from marketing, procurement, business development and HR, represented the Group at a contact-day which took place at the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, one of Europe’s most famous science and technology institutions. The event focused on female students and graduates in applied science subjects, including mathematics, science and technical studies.

Graduate recruitment initiatives are key to IMI’s future

WRITTEN BY Pauline Mathon, IMI Interim HR Manager, IMI Hydronic Engineering International

and Claire Kennady, Graduate and Emerging Talent Manager, IMI Precision Engineering

Did you know that it takes hundreds of years for computer components to break-down in a landfill site, a process that is often costly and environmentally unfriendly?

As an alternative it is worth considering that whilst a redundant computer might not be of much use to your business, it may remain serviceable and of great use to others for several years to come.

In response to this IMI has recently entered into a partnership with the Turing Trust, a UK-based charity founded by the family of mathematician Alan Turing who is widely acknowledged as a pioneer of modern computing and founder of the data science and artificial intelligence disciplines.

The Trust will re-purpose and distribute redundant and end of life computers to schools in sub-Saharan Africa where they are used to educate and train teachers and their pupils in the use of ICT.

IMI Group IT and Security are currently working with the Trust in preparing the first batch of laptops that will be shipped to

Supporting education in Africa by reusing computersWRITTEN BY Martin Carroll, Group IT Security Director, IMI plc

Africa later this year. As part of their preparation for re-use, all computers will be securely wiped of company information and electrically tested by the Trust.

An SOP on the secure erasure and disposal of company devices has been published on the Group Intranet. If you have any computers at your site that might be donated through the Trust, please contact IMI Group IT Security by emailing [email protected] for more information.

EPFL event members of the IMI Hydronic team based in Eysins L-R: Thomas Hudson, Graduate, currently in his fourth placement, Marcella Colombino, Marketing Specialist and Ola Mathisrud, former Graduate and currently Market Research Analyst

Representatives from IMI Critical and IMI Precision talk to students at a Women in STEM event held in Birmingham UK


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Konrad Kargul, Technical Adviser and member of the Hydronic College, hosting a recent webinar on cyclonic technology

IMI Precision Engineering China has won a prestigious quality award from an important new customer in the Commercial Vehicles (CV) vertical. Dongfeng Liuzhou Motor Co Ltd (DFLZ) presented the 2018 ‘Quality Contribution Award’ to the IMI Precision team at Shanghai, China, which supplies valves used in the production of DFLZ’s heavy trucks. DFLZ has more than 1,000 suppliers and operates a strict quality control and tracking system. IMI Precision is one of only three suppliers to receive the award.

The valves are used in pneumatic and coolant control systems and are operated by heavy-duty vehicle electrical systems which traditionally have high failure rates. In comparison, our products have achieved a zero failure rate – helping truck operators to keep their fleets moving and reduce maintenance costs.

The award from DFLZ reflects the high reliability of IMI Precision products and our comprehensive capabilities in research and development, production, quality management, project management and customer service. Steve Green, Sector Head, Commercial Vehicles, Asia Pacific, said: “Winning this award after being a supplier for only a short time to DFLZ is recognition of the processes and procedures put in place in the IMI Precision facility in Shanghai and the hard work of the whole team to deliver our promise to our customer.”

Shuguang Niu, CV Sales Manager, China, said: “Being recognised in this way by one of our leading customers will certainly open up further opportunities for us to work together with DFLZ and we value the support they have given us.”

Tim Chambers, IMI Precision Engineering’s Quality Lead in Asia Pacific, said: “This award from DFLZ recognises our commitment to achieving quality that customers can always rely on. We’ll keep on working hard to continuously improve our product quality and service to create a service to create a competitive advantage for more customers.”

Quality award for China team to open opportunitiesWRITTEN BY Brian Xu Operations Director IMI Precision Engineering, China

Following the success of webinar programmes in its Dutch and Swedish businesses, IMI Hydronic has recently launched a new web-based customer training programme in Poland. This initiative, which facilitates knowledge-sharing in a very time and cost efficient way, provides customers with access to market-leading technical know-how whenever they need it. The programme also raises awareness of IMI Hydronic’s brands and expertise and enables the division to engage very effectively with a large number of customers.

The 2019 Polish webinar programme, which aims to increase awareness of the importance of water quality in HVAC systems, focuses on the division’s project business and its IMI Pneumatex brand. Using a creative engaging format to facilitate customers’ understanding, the webinars showcase a series of experiments that demonstrate how the division’s technology works. It includes nine webinars which focus on a range of topics related to the division’s Pneumatex product offering including, cyclonic technology, air and dirt separation and vacuum degassing. Prepared and presented by Konrad Kargul, one of the Hydronic College’s HVAC experts, each session covers a short introduction on the relevant product, a detailed technical review and a demonstration of how to install and operate the product. Each session ends with a live Q&A session during which customers can raise questions and also share their own experiences.

Response to the programme has been very positive with over 200 people participating in the first three webinars, which were held during the first quarter of this year. Feedback from customers highlights the many benefits of providing training in this format, including the ability to participate in sessions at any time in any location, which avoids costly time and travel arrangements, and the advantages of being able to go back and rewatch sessions. The webinars, which are easy to organise and host, also enable IMI Hydronic Engineering to reach a much larger customer base in a very effective and efficient way.

Anna Bajek is a designer at Abeko, a building design studio based in Kraków, Poland. She regularly participates in IMI Hydronic Engineering’s webinar programme and remarked “These sessions are great timesavers . I no longer need to spend lots of time travelling to training facilities. Sitting at my desk I can now participate in industry-leading, knowledge-sharing sessions. I can watch the webinar wherever I want and I find the Q&A particularly valuable”.

Web-based customer training gives customers market-leading supportWRITTEN BY Maciej BombaMarketing Coordinator IMI Hydronic Engineering


August 2019

IMI Hydronic Engineering continues to deploy its Value Engineering capabilities to benefit its customers and its business. A systematic process that is now deployed across the IMI Group, Value Engineering covers every aspect of design, development and production and helps solve technical problems, improve product quality and function and eliminate waste. Its application enables the division to offer customers technically differentiated products at a competitive price and helps ensure that investments in new product development deliver earlier and greater returns.

Value Engineering continues to drive successful product development

WRITTEN BY Martin SauermannR&D Manager Pressurisation & Water Quality IMI Hydronic Engineering, Switzerland

To coincide with the 2019 International Women’s Day in March, an annual global event that celebrates women and campaigns for gender parity, IMI Hydronic Engineering employees participated in a number of activities to promote diversity and inclusion. As business becomes increasingly global and competitive, a diverse workforce with different perspectives operating in an inclusive environment that treats everyone equally and encourages a variety of views is key to success.

IMI Hydronic Engineering’s team in Eysins, Switzerland was invited to participate in a workshop that focused on the theme of this year’s International Women’s Day campaign – ‘Balance For Better’ – and other aspects of diversity and inclusion. Ahead of the workshop

Promoting diversity and inclusion

WRITTEN BY Pauline MathonInterim HR Manager IMI Hydronic Engineering International

Members of the IMI Hydronic Engineering team on the International Women’s Day 2019 ‘Better For Balance’ pose. L - R: Cindy Feignoux, Kieran Griffin, Pauline Mathon, and Lukasz Krezel

employees were asked to submit group photographs illustrating the ‘Balance For Better’ theme together with a tagline about diversity. Images submitted were included in the workshop presentation and formed part of the broader discussion which was aimed at raising awareness and opening a discussion on the various forms of unconscious bias. Further workshops and discussions will be held in the future to ensure that diversity and inclusion continues to be promoted throughout the division.

At the division’s plant in Erwitte, Germany, female employees across the business participated in an inaugural networking session, which in the future, will serve as a platform for discussion about gender diversity. And senior members of the division’s management team, including representatives from sales, engineering finance and HR, met to discuss how

gender diversity could be improved. Following the discussion, the group agreed to launch a number of initiatives aimed at attracting more women to the business, including a review of job descriptions for gender bias.

Commenting on the events that took place to coincide with International Women’s Day Phil Clifton, Managing Director of IMI Hydronic Engineering said: “Creating equal opportunities for all is the right thing to do. It is also the right thing to do for our business. Better ideas will be generated through access to different skills and sharing different views. Deep and local knowledge about our customers will help us win more business and build strong commercial relationships. While these events took place on a single day, creating a diverse team and fostering an inclusive environment should be one of our ongoing priorities.”

In response to the growing demand for pre-fabricated HVAC components, and the very competitive market environment, IMI Hydronic focused one of its recent Value Engineering projects on its Fast-Fit pre-fabricated fan-coil units, which are sold into the UK market. The multi-function project team, managed by Klaudia Czjakowska, included design expertise provided by the division’s R&D and design specialists led by Michal Nowak, product development insights provided by Eric Bernadou, (Product category manager Balancing & Control), product testing and validation undertaken by Tomasz Kopec, and commercial sales input from UK-based Robert Green.

Following tear-downs of competitors’ products and a detailed value analysis to identify and reduce design and production costs, the project team developed a new streamlined and standardised Fast-Fit product portfolio. The number of components in the finished products has been reduced by nearly 50%, making them lighter and more compact and, as a result, easier to assemble and install. And overall, as a result of the Value Engineering process, IMI Hydronic’s customers have access to a competitively priced enhanced Fast-Fit product offering.

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In March, IMI Hydronic participated in ISH 2019, the world’s leading trade fair that focuses on the responsible management of water and energy in buildings. The Frankfurt-based ISH fair is renowned for showcasing the latest innovations and trends in sustainable heating and air-conditioning, including intelligent solutions that conserve resources and utilise renewable energy. With around 190,000 people from around the world visiting the event in 2019, it is the premier international meeting place for anyone working in the Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning sector.

Given its focus on ground-breaking technologies for smart buildings, ISH 2019 provided IMI Hydronic with an ideal platform to launch its latest range of connected products and technologies. In addition, the event’s unrivalled international reach and very large footfall, created a perfect forum to engage with existing customers and connect with a large number of potential new customers from around the world.

Over 8,000 people visit IMI Hydronic at ISH fair WRITTEN BY Maria Del Colle

Marketing Communications Manager IMI Hydronic Engineering

which highlighted the division’s extensive engineering and project support capabilities. Representatives from IMI’s Hydronic College were also available throughout the show for customers who required detailed information and in-depth system discussions.

Over the course of the five-day event, over 8,000 people, nearly ten per cent more than last time, visited the division’s exhibition stand. Interest from planners and designers was particularly high and a number of exciting new commercial building leads were identified during the course of the event.

The division’s ISH 2019 exhibition stand focused on demonstrating its market-leading ability to solve customers’ every-day challenges and deliver both optimal and reliable solutions. A major part of the stand was dedicated to solutions for smart buildings from IMI Pneumatex, IMI TA and IMI Heimeier. With live demonstrations and working system models, the team on hand were able to demonstrate to customers exactly how the division’s latest ranges of connected products can benefit them.

Commenting on ISH 2019 Natalie Zeranska, IMI Hydronic’s Head of Marketing Communication said: “Given ISH’s focus, reputation and scale it is our key European marketing event. This year the show’s key themes included smart homes and digitalisation, which aligned perfectly with our latest range of products and technologies, all of which are aimed at delivering optimal energy efficient systems and, because of their remote connectivity, customer peace of mind.” To read more about the new products showcased at ISH see page 9. Specifically to raise the division’s profile in the commercial buildings sector, the stand also included a dedicated area targeted at planners and designers

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Klaudia Czajkowska, a Junior Programme Manager at the Olkusz facility in Poland was amongst several female engineers within the IMI Hydronic division who were recognised and congratulated on their achievements on the division’s Linkedin profile during the week of INWEB.“We have some amazing engineers in IMI Hydronic. Diversity and innovation go together to deliver great solutions to the world’s challenges.” commented Phil Clifton, Managing Director, IMI Hydronic Engineering.


August 2019

Ashlee Anderson is currently working as a Graduate Engineering Trainee - Project Management at IMI Precision’s Bad Oeynhausen facility, Germany. She said: “I hope, and expect, to continue to improve and use my evolving experience to create new products and work with technologies that can help society. In that sense, I believe that engineering is a genuine force for good, touching many aspects of people’s lives and will continue to play an influential part in shaping the world around us.”

“My advice to young budding female engineers thinking about a career path that, at its core, continually tries to make things better, is to be inquisitive about the subject, find people and mentors to help and guide you, and don’t accept no.”

The 2019 International Women in Engineering Day (INWED) took place on 23rd June and was celebrated across the IMI Group by both female and male employees alike. All three divisions used social media to feature women engineers past and present using the hashtag #transformthefuture. Having a diverse and inclusive workforce is important to IMI. Our culture encourages and supports talented people from all backgrounds to develop their full potential. Here are some of their stories.

In June our fiftieth management training programme took place in Osaka, Japan, delivered in local language with the support of our local leadership team, Robin Lu, Kenichi Matsuo, Yashiro Nishi, and Akitaka Unno.

Around 1,250 IMI managers have participated in the programme since it was launched in 2015. We have run programmes in USA, Germany, UK, Czech Republic, Italy, Poland, Sweden, Mexico and in China, Singapore and India but this was

Being a GREAT IMI Manager in Japan

WRITTEN BY Sue HallHead of Capability Development

IMI plc

WRITTEN BY Katrina Feeney Communications ExecutiveIMI plc

our first event in Japan. Materials were all in Japanese and the external trainers were trained in the delivery, working with our global team of facilitators to ensure the training and messaging was consistent with all the programmes around the world.

We believe that the combination of using our experienced, inspiring managers together with skilled external facilitators to deliver our management training offers a unique and engaging learning experience. Delegates give consistently good feedback, some comments from past participants and leaders who deliver on the programme are shared below:

“Participants are more engaged and more interactive when discussing in their own language and while the content is consistent globally, cultural differences are considered” Richard Yu – Interim Managing Director, SE Asia Pacific, Critical Engineering

“Inspirational, Insightful, Fun” Deborah Zawadski – Global Marketing Intelligence Director, IMI Precision Engineering

“Programme helped me to learn how to effectively manage a team, adapt to a new culture and believe, NOTHING is impossible” Tim Xu – Regional Lean and HSE leader, APAC, IMI Critical Engineering

There are five more programmes taking place this year in India, China, USA, Czech Republic and UK with a similar level of IMI investment in management training planned for 2020.

Making things better

Jamie Swan has been a Design Engineer at IMI Critical Engineering’s facility in Kansas US for six years. Most of her focus is on silencer design but she also works on pulsations dampeners, suction stabilizers and volume tanks. She said: “We need more women and girls to pursue engineering to ensure more diverse view points are included in the engineering processes. More diversity in view points and experience allows a group to develop better products that are more useful and appealing to a larger market.”


IMI Hydronic Engineering’s team in Singapore has established a key partnership with Vertiv, one of the leading providers of equipment and services to data centres. This has already helped the division secure a number of attractive contracts. Vertiv designs, supplies and services power, cooling and IT infrastructure solutions. It has a global footprint and a blue-chip client portfolio that includes Alibaba, Telefonica, Siemens and Vodafone.

In recent months IMI Hydronic has worked alongside Vertiv to deliver state-of-the-art computer room air-conditioning (CRAC) systems across a number of projects in Singapore and Hong Kong which have involved the supply of over 1000 products including components from the TA-Modulator and TA-Slider ranges. These stabilise the pressure across the system ensuring an ideal cool temperature is maintained and energy loss is minimised. The division’s industry-leading balancing instrument, TA Scope, measures flow rate and differential pressure which makes testing, commissioning and any troubleshooting, easy and quick And the division’s HySelect software, which delivers accurate hydronic calculations, ensures that the system is set to deliver optimal performance from day one.

Maurice Heng, Senior Account Manager of Vertiv, commented on how they benefit from the partnership: “Collaboration with IMI Hydronic Engineering is a win-win situation. Their team in Singapore are heating, ventilation and air conditioning experts and working with them has definitely helped us win projects. Their training centre in Singapore has also provided valuable knowledge and practical information for us and our customers. The sessions with the Hydronic College experts have been eye-opening learning experiences.”

The partnership with Vertiv is a real growth opportunity in an expanding market and has also created an opportunity to showcase IMI Hydronic’s market-leading engineering expertise to a large number of other potential customers. Over 80 Vertiv customers have participated in training sessions with the Hydronic College experts. These sessions have strengthened the partnership with Vertiv, established new commercial relationships and won a number of prestigious projects including contracts for the DSTA, the Singaporean procurement agency for the Ministry of Defence and the Singapore Armed Forces, and Equinix, the Nasdaq-listed company, which is one of the largest colocation datacentre providers in the world.

New partnership secures attractive growth opportunityWRITTEN BY Steven Lim Managing DirectorIMI Hydronic Engineering Singapore

Customers of IMI Remosa can be further assured of the reliability of our products, after the company gained an industry-wide certification.

The Italian business, which manufactures valves and hydraulic actuating systems for critical applications in petrochemical industries, has achieved certification of its Functional Safety Management System to IEC 61508 and IEC 61511.

Mauro Natalini, COO/General Manager, IMI Remosa, said: “The certification reinforces to our customers that IMI Remosa is the right supplier for the safety related valves needed to achieve the required Safety Integrity Level for their systems. It puts us in a privileged position compared with our competitors.”

IMI Remosa safety certification enhances competitiveness WRITTEN BY Cristian ArgiolasMarketing Director, IMI Remosa, IMI Critical Engineering

Developers of a new liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant in Canada have awarded IMI Orton a blanket agreement for manual and motor operated valves. IMI Orton and IMI CCI both have very strong relationships with the partners building the LNG plant, which played a big part in the business securing the agreement, which also included IMI CCI securing the severe service package, along with some additional balance of plant applications.

The flagship plant is being built in British Colombia, on the west coast of Canada, and will reach a capacity of 14 million tonnes of LNG per annum from the first two trains. There is potential to expand the plant to four trains in the future.

IMI Orton will supply special items like triple-eccentric valves for the cryogenic and non-cryogenic configuration, and IMI CCI will supply cryogenic control and anti-surge valves. The total potential supply agreement is worth more than £22m.

IMI Orton and IMI CCI scoop multi-million pound LNG order in Canada WRITTEN BY Chris BarnhillMarketing, IMI CCI Americas, IMI Critical Engineering

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L-R: Steven Lim, Maurice Heng Senior Account Manager of Vertiv, Wai Yee and Alvin Chin


August 2019

Smart, safe solution opens doors at Indian Railways

Product training delights distributors in the USA

WRITTEN BY Doug MorrillTraining Manager – Americas

IMI Precision Engineering

Distributors in the USA are giving great feedback on training programmes designed to help boost sales of IMI Precision Engineering products. Built around IMI Norgren products for the Industrial Automation vertical, the training includes ‘distributor academies’ and roadshows.

Distributors are the lifeblood of our sales in the USA. With their ‘feet on the street’, the number of people selling IMI Norgren products goes up by a factor of 100. The major training initiatives launched recently have been designed specifically to increase distributors’ knowledge of our products, our tools and who to go to if they have questions. In short, the training will help distributors to sell more effectively. Designed by a team of IMI Precision people including product managers and product sales engineers, the training includes some of the IGNITE material currently being used successfully to train our in-house sales teams.

Two ‘IMI Norgren Distributor Academies’ were held last year at the IMI Precision Engineering facility at Littleton, Colorado. The first academy of 2019 was held in March. Delivered by our subject matter experts, the three-and-a-half day academies include training on new products and cover function, features and benefits, applications, competition and sales practice. Delegates build circuits and get lots of hands-on time. They also learn more about IMI Precision’s online and digital tools including the Norgren Express App. Very positive feedback has been received from delegates.

A series of product roadshows – delivering three-hour training sessions at 40 distributor sites was launched on 26 March 2019. As well as covering new and improved product features, the roadshows offer discounted products for distributor sales personnel to use as samples during customer visits. A dedicated van – with the option to switch branding between ‘IMI Norgren’ and ‘Bimba’ – is also visiting distributor sites. A product display, with an emphasis on new products, is configured to meet individual distributor needs.

August 2019

WRITTEN BY Ruupesh Chugh General Manager Sales IMI Precision Engineering, India

A door automation system developed last year by IMI Precision Engineering is now playing a key role in improving safety on passenger trains in India. The first large-volume orders for the system were received in April 2019 – with more orders expected to follow.

The new IMI Norgren system, offering a unique combination of electro-pneumatic actuation controlled by smart electronics, was fully approved by Indian Railways following an extensive evaluation programme. IMI Precision in India began work on the project in late 2017. Indian Railways, which operates 12,617 trains daily over 115,000 km of track, wanted an automated solution to the operation of bulky external doors on its long-haul trains. The weight of the doors made it difficult for passengers to operate them manually, compromising safety. IMI Precision’s sales and engineering teams worked together to propose the automated solution which was required to work with the existing door hinge design.

Gurbej Singh, IMI Precision General Manager – Engineering, said: “The process of product design, development and approval was complex and presented several challenges. Our team worked closely with the door supplier, the Research Designs & Standards Organisation, and Indian Railways’ integration contractor to ensure successful integration of the automated system into the existing coach design. Our solution, designed, developed and manufactured at Noida, India, for an initial train set of 24 coaches, was then put through a comprehensive trials programme to prove operational and safety features. The team liaised with several authorities involved in verification of the design.”

The initial train set used in the trials programme has gone into service. Rail staff and passengers have been giving very positive feedback on the new door operation system. Ongoing success of the system in service is likely to result in orders for both new trains and retrofit programmes.

The first production order for the new system to Indian Railways is due by September this year. IMI Precision engineers are supporting the customer’s main contractor with integration of the IMI Norgren solution.

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Delegates at a distributor academy organised by IMI Precision Engineering in the USA

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New IMI Norgren equipment for the oil and gas industry will help to optimise drilling operations on offshore platforms. The equipment has been developed as a result of close collaboration with global solutions provider to the energy industry, National Oilwell Varco (NOV). IMI Precision Engineering has been working with NOV since 2005. The new equipment, including a valve matrix system (VMS) used in ‘fingerboard’ control of drilling operations, was designed following an ‘ideas creation’ session with NOV.

Fingerboards are used for accurate positioning of the stands that hold tubular drilling components in a vertical orientation. Electrically-controlled, pneumatically-operated latches are located along each finger to hold the stands in place. Fingerboard control cabinets contain the solenoids and pneumatic valves used to

Customer collaboration delivers valuable solution for offshore drilling market

WRITTEN BY Walther KirchnerSales Director Energy – EMEA IMI Precision Engineering

operate the latches. The IMI Norgren VMS offers a more compact solution for latch operation, with faster response times.

Pål Koch, IMI Precision’s Key Account Manager Energy Norway, said: “NOV has confirmed that the pneumatics on the fingerboard for the new Johan Sverdrup, Equinor platform in the North Sea will be operated by IMI Norgren equipment. The fingerboard control cabinets are equipped with our new, digitalised VMS which has a very short response time for safe, optimised drilling operations.

“The cylinders which open and close the latches have been developed to perform in a harsh, offshore environment. All of the equipment that we are providing to NOV meets the relevant IECEx international standards and ATEX legal requirements for electrical, electronic and related technologies used in hazardous environments. Our close cooperation and joint development work with NOV has resulted in reliable solutions for NOV’s offshore customers at a time of resurgent demand in the energy sector.”

The VMS has been designed and manufactured at IMI Precision, Fellbach, Germany. Following integration into a fingerboard control cabinet, the entire system successfully completed factory acceptance testing at IMI Precision’s Denmark Service Centre.

The VMS is becoming NOV’s preferred solution for offshore platforms. To meet varying customer requirements, we are also offering a single solenoid valve solution.

This successful project contributed to a substantial increase in sales to NOV.

In its first 18 months of operation, IMI Precision’s consolidated engineering team in Asia Pacific (APAC) has developed more than 20 new products – helping to boost sales by more than £16m. Established at the end of 2017, APAC Engineering combines the formerly separate research and development teams in China and India. The move has enabled IMI Precision to deploy its best engineers on the best cross-regional opportunities in APAC.

The new structure ensures that separate design teams are aligned to each of our four verticals. APAC Engineering has also recruited ten new engineers from top universities to further strengthen the team.

Formation of APAC Engineering has led to platform product launches in the shortest possible time. High-quality new products developed by the team using the global new product development process include the Smart Waste Gate (SWG) for the Commercial Vehicles (CV) vertical. The SWG is used to control the waste gate on diesel engine turbo chargers – allowing management of engine efficiency and emissions.

APAC Engineering team fuels business growth

WRITTEN BY Chris PatientEngineering Director – Asia Pacific IMI Precision Engineering

In the Energy vertical, development of the Redundant Valve Manifold – a system of inter-connected valves used in critical applications – has been another success story for APAC Engineering.

Gurbej Singh, General Manager – Engineering, helped design and implement the new APAC Engineering structure. He said: “The team has welcomed the opportunity to work on interesting projects with colleagues from overseas and is enjoying the success we’re having with sale of our new products.”

“To assist the team, we’ve enhanced our testing and validation capabilities. We’ve invested in state-of-the-art equipment such as thermal chambers and life test benches in the laboratory at Precision’s new plant in India. Investment at Shanghai has included a prototype workshop and world-class equipment for vibration, flow, thermal and corrosion testing.”

To support IMI Precision’s five-year marketing plan in APAC and accelerate business growth, APAC Engineering has developed a five-year plan for projects, technologies and skills upgrade.


Competitor valves displaced by IMI Z&J

August 2019

Valves and equipment manufactured by IMI Z&J in Germany have been chosen to replace competitor valves in the two large propane dehydrogenation (PDH) units in a petrochemical complex in Saudi-Arabia.

One plant had been equipped with IMI Z&J Wedge-within-Wedge (WwW) valves, while the other five reactors were using competitors’ equipment. This allowed the plant operator to directly compare the performance of the valves, in terms of quality, long-term operating expense, service capabilities and customer support.

IMI Z&J had built a very strong customer relationship with the technical department, who then convinced their own commercial team that, at the next overhaul, the competitor valves should be exchanged for valves and equipment manufactured by IMI Z&J Germany, whose performance was superior.

In the Catofin® process every second in the sequencing of the valves counts. The required short opening and closing times on the very large 42 inch valves, creates high demand on the hydraulic power unit. IMI Z&J valves use the most up-to-date actuation, which increases the lifetime of the valves and reduces downtime. The strongest argument was the ease of maintenance of IMI Z&J valves.

With the next shutdown due in February 2020, IMI Z&J needed to be able to meet delivery times of just eight months, compared with the standard lead times of 12 to 14 months. Intense work allowed us to meet the challenging timescales and secure a multi-million pound order for WwW valves for IMI Critical.

Investment in a fully-automated manufacturing process has delivered big benefits on two fronts for IMI Precision Engineering in Michigan. The project has improved manufacturing speed, efficiency and safety at Precision’s Norgren Automation Solutions (NAS) plant in Saline. Through delivering the project, our in-house engineering team has also acquired new skills which will add significant value to existing customer solutions and new customers in adjacent markets.

The new, automated process for high-temperature brazing (used to join components) came on line in January 2019. Replacing a dated, semi-automated process, the new ‘Brazeomatic’ cell has reduced brazing time from 3.33 minutes to 2.01 minutes. It is estimated that this will save more than 500 hours in processing time per annum – increasing capacity for brazing and allowing operators to tackle other tasks whilst the automated process is running.

Safety optimisation features include improved ventilation and guarding around the equipment to prevent accidental contact with moving high-temperature parts.

When the improvement project was first visualised, it was agreed that design, manufacture and installation of the new equipment should be undertaken in-house in a bid to develop a new skill set. A dedicated resource, including IMI graduate rotations, successfully delivered the project. All the mechanical equipment was designed and built in-house. The cell incorporates IMI Norgren components such as valve islands and a NAS pneumatically-driven gripper highlighting our products’ ability to move material including in high temperature applications. The team also specified electrical requirements and played a major role in producing the electrical control panel and computer programming.

Advance preparation of site services, coupled with careful planning, ensured that the new equipment was safely installed and commissioned within a two-week timeframe – with no loss in production.

Henry Brohl, Plant Manager, said: “The new Brazeomatic is probably one of the most complex automated systems at IMI today and an excellent example of what we can achieve in automation solutions. The success of this equipment is a tribute to the hard work and commitment of our team. The new skills they have developed will be a big benefit to the business as we explore opportunities to deliver similar solutions to our customers.”

New ‘own-design’ brazing process improves efficiency and safety

22

WRITTEN BY Rich Hamann Engineering Supervisor

IMI Detroit/Norgren Automation Solutions

42 inch Wedge-within-Wedge valve

WRITTEN BY Markus GandelheidtManager Service, IMI Z&J Germany IMI Critical Engineering

23


In an increasingly competitive marketplace, IMI Hydronic’s engineering expertise sets it apart. To retain this reputation as a knowledge leader in its sector, it is essential that its customer-facing sales teams have a deep understanding of the technologies that comprise the division’s market-leading products. This technical understanding ensures that customers are provided with the best advice and solutions and, overall, that the division maximises its competitive edge in the marketplace.

Each year, the division’s sales force undertakes nearly 1,000 hours of high-level technical training. Provided by the IMI Hydronic College’s highly-skilled hydronic experts, the sales force training programme includes concentrated “booster” sessions and regular ongoing training modules. The programme covers theoretical and practical training across a range of topics, including presentations on pressurisation and flow control and deep dive sessions on the technical theory behind balancing and control and electrical actuation. Applied learning also forms part of the programme and course participants are required to work through practical exercises, including installation set-up and balancing.

On an ongoing basis the sales team also participate in the college’s remote-learning sessions via webinars and E-Learning modules which are regularly posted on the IMI Group intranet. These E-learning sessions make knowledge sharing more effective and efficient and further expand the sale teams’ technical knowledge and capabilities.

In addition to this technical training the sales team now has access to a new digital technical knowledge database. Developed by the Hydronic College specifically for the in-field sales teams, this database increases and facilitates global knowledge-sharing whilst increasing the sales process efficiency and improving effectiveness in the customer journey.

Marco Hakhoff, Account Manager in IMI Hydronic Engineering’s Dutch business, recently attended one of the Hydronic College’s week-long “booster” training programmes. He said “While some of the sessions were technically challenging,I now know exactly what needs to be done to ensure our customers’ HVAC systems perform optimally. My enhanced knowledge and understanding will help me solve existing customers’ challenges and build new commercial relationships.”

Sales force knowledge delivers a competitive edge

WRITTEN BY Peter PeekHead of Sales, Netherlands IMI Hydronic Engineering

Members of IMI Hydronic Engineering’s sales force participating in a “booster” training session held at the Hydronic College.

Earlier this year, dozens of employees at IMI Critical Korea attended a two-day customer engagement training course.

The Value Selling workshop saw employees learn about aligning business vision with our customers’, providing solutions and insights that will help both suppliers and customers grow.

The participants came from Outside Sales, Inside Sales and Marketing as well as the Managing Director of IMI Critical Engineering, Korea. Protecting the core market, while expanding into the Oil & Gas and Petrochemical markets, are priorities.

Each team analysed its key account customers’ concerns and vision and planned how to address them. By looking at future opportunities and markets from a customer perspective, they were able to identify opportunities to improve the way the team approaches customers, and the products and services offered.

Getting closer to customers in Korea

WRITTEN BY Younghee SuhMarketing IMI Critical Engineering, Korea


August 2019

The plant includes an 80,000-tonne coal-handling terminal, two 120-metre diameter circular coal yards and a seawater desulphurisation system.

The end-user was concerned about the standard trim construction, fearing erosion at the nozzle position at a high speed. IMI CCI has many such application references, and an excellent

IMI Critical China has won a high-value order for turbine bypass and water spray valves with pneumatic actuators for the first supercritical power plant project in the Philippines.

All operations across IMI are committed to operating in a sustainable way. This is the right thing to do to ensure that the Group minimises its impact on the environment, and as operating efficiently and reducing waste and scrap levels enhances competitiveness, it is also the right thing to do from a business perspective.

IMI Hydronic Engineering’s plant in Ljung, Sweden has carried out a number of sustainable projects that are helping enhance its customer offering. In particular, cost savings associated with reduced oil consumption and scrap levels are helping ensure product pricing remains very competitive and efficiencies related to certain production processes have contributed to a significant improvement in on-time deliveries.

One project focused on the machinery used to manufacture the division’s TA valves. Following an assessment to determine oil usage, an initial oil consumption reduction target of at least 10% was set. In less than two years, as a result of careful monitoring and regular maintenance, oil consumption within certain parts of the machine has been reduced by 40%.

Sustainable operations enhance competitiveness

WRITTEN BY Robert JohanssonMaintenance Manager and

Per Karlsson Technical Manager, IMI Hydronic Engineering AB Ljung

Daniel Haggren Machine Operator noted that “Before the assessment started, one of the machines was using over four litres of oil every production hour. Now, thanks to careful monitoring and assessment the same machine is using less than a litre of oil each production hour.”

The plant’s R&D, process engineering, quality and manufacturing teams have collaborated on a number of projects aimed at reducing scrap levels across the business’ product portfolio. A project focused on the division’s STAD balancing valve, resulted in a new and improved product design, a 70% reduction in scrap levels and a more effective and better quality product.

Richard Pettersson, an industrial engineer who works within the foundry at the Ljung plant said “The STAD project has made our production process more sustainable and competitive. Waste levels have been significantly reduced and because the new design can be manufactured more efficiently, over 400 hours of production time per year have been saved. At the same time the quality and function of the product are much improved.”

Technical excellence secures high-value ‘supercritical’ order

WRITTEN BY Yanxia WangMarketing Manager IMI Critical Engineering, Greater China

reputation among customers. This enabled us to convince the end-user to exclusively choose IMI CCI Drag™ turbine bypass valves, thus securing this order. The feedback from the end-user since installation is that our turbine bypass valves are much more stable and has a much lower noise level – another endorsement of our excellent products and services.

The Ljung team responsible for the successful oil usage reduction programme

The STAD balancing valve scrap reduction team

25


IMI Critical has devised an innovative solution to eliminate a major safety risk with slide valves.

Two of the most severe fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) accidents in recent years have resulted from leakage across a conventional slide valve.

Our engineers have come up with a way to modify the design of a conventional slide valve to include a tight shut-off when fully closed, to eliminate this risk.

The IMI Critical innovation is the first of its kind and can be retrofitted to existing units – creating an upgrade opportunity.

With safety requirements rising in the USA and Europe there is a ready-made market for upgrading the slide valves.

Safety innovation is an industry first

WRITTEN BY Giulia PiombiMarketing, IMI Remosa IMI Critical Engineering

Engineering students in the USA have gained hands-on experience of hydraulic and pneumatic design by taking part in the annual Fluid Power Vehicle Challenge (FPVC) organised by the National Fluid Power Association (NFPA). As a gold member of the NFPA Pascal Society, Bimba stepped up to sponsor the challenge which culminated in a finals event on 11-12 April at the IMI Precision Engineering facility at Littleton, Colorado.

Male and female engineering students, from 15 universities across the USA, took part in the 2019 FPVC to design and build vehicles that can have up to four wheels. The vehicles must transfer the power from human to wheels using a fluid power circuit instead of traditional mechanics such as a chain

Young engineers take up fluid power vehicle challenge

WRITTEN BY Shannon TaftMarketing Communications Manager

IMI Precision Engineering, USA

and gears on bikes. Pneumatic features can also be incorporated into the design.

In the run-up to the finals, students met industry mentors and judges to learn about fluid power components, circuits and systems and their use in controlling force and motion. The teams also developed supply chain experience by ordering components from parts suppliers.

Students must pass several steps to qualify for the final. These include production of initial designs, drawings and analysis for a design review, and proof that their vehicle is safe and operational before shipping. On the first day of the finals, the qualifying teams assembled their vehicles and presented their projects to the judges. The next day, the teams competed in a race to test the vehicles’ speed, reliability and efficiency.

Kent Sowatzke, Vice President Engineering at Bimba, was a challenge judge. He said: “The FPVC is a great way to highlight how rewarding it can be to work in the fields of hydraulics and pneumatics. It gives students a chance to actually bring a design to life – and it’s also a chance for industry to spot emerging engineering talent. This year’s competition resulted in some impressive designs. Several of the schools had participated in previous challenges and took the opportunity to improve on past designs. First-timers to the competition showed great teamwork and formulated new ideas to compete against the tried and tested.”

25

Installing an IMI slide gate valve


August 2019

Continuous Improvement is now well embedded in IMI’s culture so operational teams across IMI Hydronic Engineering are always reviewing and adapting design and production processes to ensure optimum efficiency, enhanced competitiveness and improved customer satisfaction. In recent months the division’s Slovenian facility in Brežice has delivered a number of significant improvements due to implementation of two key projects.

Following the launch of the new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system at the Slovenian facility, a multi-functional team, including representatives from both the local and global supply chain functions, manufacturing and Redland ERP teams, worked together with a particular focus on reducing lead times. The team initiated a value stream mapping (VSM) process to analyse every stage of design, manufacture and production. This analysis helped identify areas where processes could be made more efficient, waste eliminated and complex production procedures simplified.

Matejka Milovanovi, who was part of the back-order reduction team, said: “In recent years our operation performance has improved dramatically and we have made much progress. However, in an increasingly competitive world we must keep working together and continue to find ways we can operate even more efficiently and effectively. By doing so, our business will remain competitive and our reputation as a reliable supplier will be further enhanced. This is key if we are to build and expand customer loyalty across our product portfolio.”

As a result of the VSM analysis, a number of processes including inventory management, were streamlined and improved and the Slovenian plant’s back-orders have now been eradicated.

The Slovenian team has also made its production process more efficient and cost effective by increasing and enhancing its in-house machining capability. Additional new machinery, which includes a Capto tooling system that enables tooling to be changed in half the time, has been installed in the plant to provide a sizeable and very efficient in-house machining capacity. Component costs, and associated transport costs have been reduced and a more flexible production process, which is able to respond readily to market demands, is now in operation. It is anticipated that the new Capto tooling change system will save over 800 hours of production time each year. This added flexibility, which has contributed to significantly improved on-time delivery, and resulting cost reductions, is making the division’s offering more competitive.

Commenting on the Slovenian plant’s increased machining capacity, Jani Pirc, a member of the machining production team, said: “It‘s great to have increased machining capacity under our own roof. In particular, the new Capto machine tooling system has revolutionised our day-to-day production processes. The time to change tooling has been reduced significantly and, because the tooling set-up is automatic, after each change we no longer need to spend time measuring and checking settings.”

Further improvements to operations enhance customer offeringWRITTEN BY Sanja Predovic ´, Procurement Manager, Dejan Zofic, Process Engineer, and Rok Stjelja, Lean & HSE Manager, IMI Hydronic Engineering

Members of the machining team with the new Capto machine tooling system

Around the world, across all three divisions, IMI designs its own pension arrangements around the retirement benefits provided by governments. In some countries this means employees, alongside IMI, contribute into our company pension plans. With people living longer this sometimes means contributing more for longer.

For some employees the thought of working up to 65 and then retiring on their 65th birthday have long since gone. A few continue to work (perhaps part-time) well into their late 60s, others wish to retire much sooner to spend time with family and friends. With this greater flexibility comes more choice and with it a daunting list of decisions, especially when employees may have worked for several companies during their career and their retirement income may come from many places.

IMI Group Pensions has been helping our employees by: -

l Promoting greater financial wellness through new campaigns, booklets and by visiting plants and speaking to employees, often on a one-to-one basis;

l Broadening the scope of our pensions websites across more countries, with more information and new interactive modellers;

l Increasing the number of flexible investment & retirement options available;

l Keeping the highest of standards whilst still driving down costs; and

l Harmonising arrangements across different companies.

It is therefore with great pride that our UK Benefit Statements were voted ‘Best Pension Communications’ by the Employee Benefit Awards, beating some very large well-known competitors! IMI’s statements are easy to read and take employees, step-by-step, through their IMI and government benefits to allow them to make more informed decisions about their own futures.

Best pension communicationsWRITTEN BY Chris RawGroup Pensions Manager IMI plc

Representatives of the Slovenian multi-functional team

27


The customer required each valve to be calibrated, tested and certified in both horizontal and vertical orientations, the existing valve would only operate in a horizontal configuration and the incumbent supplier was unable to perform the testing and provide the necessary documentation.

IMI Precision and SunSource proposed the explosion-proof IMI Buschjost solenoid valve for the retrofit programme, and in addition to meeting all of the performance requirements, this valve has the unique characteristic of being able to operate in both a vertical and horizontal configuration. There was just one issue to be resolved, the IMI Buschjost valve was not compliant with the appropriate standard.

IMI Precision colleagues from Germany and the USA joined forces to overcome this hurdle – developing test procedures for a sample valve and then successfully supplying an initial order of 100 valves with all the required documents.

Engineering and close customer support displace competition

WRITTEN BY Rob Foster Sales Director Energy IMI Precision Engineering, Americas

IMI STI in Italy is to supply specialist actuators to a new major chemical complex in Russia. One of the major Russian chemical companies, and a leading technology licensor in syngas and fertilizer production, are building a new ammonia urea melamine complex in Gubakha, in the Perm region.

IMI STI has designed the actuators to operate at an ambient temperature of -53°C but the biggest challenge of the project is the highly corrosive environment created by the presence of urea and the requirement for the new Russian certification.

It will be a unique example of a closely integrated production chain, due to open in 2022.

Russian chemical complex order secured by IMI STIWRITTEN BY Mattia TammiSales and Marketing, IMI STI IMI Critical Engineering

Mike Gibbs, Pneumatic Territory Manager at Sun Source, explained: “With the agreement of the customer, the supportive IMI Precision Engineering team created a test cell at their German manufacturing facility and another test cell at its Connecticut site in the USA. Using these facilities, every valve is tested, serialised and shipped with documentation that shows it meets all of the relevant standards. With the successes at this plant, we are promoting the valve for similar burner management system applications at all of our customers.”

The ability to meet specific customer needs resulted in two more orders from the petrochemical plant operators late last year and early in 2019. Further orders are expected this year.

IMI Precision Engineering has received multiple orders from a petrochemical customer in the USA after going the extra mile to meet local certification requirements for valves. Working closely with distributor, SunSource, IMI Precision has replaced the incumbent valve supplier. The new business opportunity arose when the operators of a Gulf Coast petrochemical plant were retrofitting the large natural gas-fed boilers that generate heat for their processes. They needed shut-off valves that meet USA Factory Mutual FM7400 explosion and safety standards for valves controlling flammable gases.

August 2019

IMI Precision at Concord, California has won a very special award in recognition of its ‘outstanding leadership as an inclusive employer’ underlying the importance we place on a diversified and inclusive culture.

The Developmental Disabilities Council of Contra Cost County Hire-Able ‘Employer of the Year’ award was presented on 6 June 2019. It recognises the ongoing commitment of the Concord team to integrate people with disabilities into the worksite. In 2017, after working with a local organisation, Commercial Support Services (CSS), Concord hired three people with disabilities as part of a supported employment programme. The move proved a success for all parties and a fourth person was swiftly recruited to the team.

CSS nominated IMI Precision for the award noting Concord staff were ‘great about inclusion and sharing their work culture, helping the group become part of the organisation.’

The four recruits and a job coach work in production at Concord which manufactures components for life-saving medical equipment.

James Hoelle, Operations Manager at Concord, said: “Outstanding product quality is vital at IMI Precision. The group works as part of the team on the production floor and are held to the same standards as all other employees in terms of quality and work performance. The group has integrated well – at work and by joining in social events. We’re always looking for ways to enhance their skill set and are willing to regularly have them learn and work on new jobs.”

The ‘Employer of the Year’ award also recognises IMI Precision’s recent participation in a ‘Work Force Development’ panel to encourage others to hire people with disabilities. Our experience with the awesome individuals hired through the supported employment programme meant that staff jumped at the chance to take part in the event and promote the value of an inclusive culture in the workplace.

The IMI Way Day is an annual event greatly enjoyed by colleagues around the world.

Throughout the month of June, all IMI locations allocated a few hours to come together in their regions and take part in internal discussions that reflect the values enshrined in The IMI Way. It’s an opportunity to ensure that everyone in the business hears about the development of the IMI Way as the way we behave and operate. This year marked ten years of IMI Way Days, which is certainly something to be proud of. We took the time to celebrate our success, remind ourselves of the importance of good culture and ethics in our business, the importance of keeping safe, and to get feedback from colleagues about what it is like working in our company.

IMI Way Day 2019WRITTEN BY Katrina FeeneyCommunications Executive IMI plc

Inclusive culture commended

WRITTEN BY Rondi DavisonGeneral Manager, Life Science, Americas IMI Precision Engineering

Group: [email protected]

IMI Precision Engineering: [email protected] IMI Critical Engineering: [email protected] Hydronic Engineering: [email protected]

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An established part of the IMI Way Day is the time dedicated to the community. Colleagues around the world were given the opportunity to incorporate community activities of their choice into the day - here are some examples of what we did:

xVolunteering at the Salvation Army serving meals to homeless people xVisit to an orphanage to donate items for the children xSpending time at a centre for children with autism xDonating blood xPlanting trees in a local park xFood donation and food sorting and packing xGardening in a large park used by the community xImprovements to a local animal shelter xLitter picking on beaches xSpending time with the elderly xVolunteering at a respite centre for children undergoing treatment for cancer

zItaly xIndia xxUK zSingapore xAustralia zBrazil

Group Head Office: IMI plc, Lakeside, Solihull Parkway, Birmingham Business Park, Birmingham B37 7XZ United Kingdom Tel: +44 121 717 3700 www.imiplc.com

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