Tube bending pioneer wins Queen's Award

Scarborough April 21, 2015 --- The tube bending machinery manufacturer Unison is celebrating being named as a winner of the Queen’s Award for Enterprise - the UK’s highest accolade for business success. The award for International Trade is in recognition of achieving outstanding export success.

Over the last year alone, 70% of company turnover has been generated by export sales including machines for Angola, France, Germany, Ghana, Mexico, Norway, Russia and the USA. Its current order book has machines destined for service in France, Germany, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Poland and the USA.

Unison MD Alan Pickering attributes the company’s success and subsequent award to the company’s innovative approach and investment in R&D. “Unison has always pushed the boundaries. We were the first company to manufacture an 'all-electric' tube bending machine in 1994 and we continue to challenge the status quo to help our customers to overcome their engineering challenges. This could be to bend lighter and thinner tubes for the aerospace industry, or heavier tubes used in undersea piping off oil rigs. We have built a reputation as the ‘place to go’ for complex and difficult tube bending applications, and this ability is underpinning our export growth. This is our third export award but we are particularly proud of this one."

Unison’s willingness to push the boundaries has earned it the accolade of producing the world’s largest all-electric machines. During the last 12 months, one machine capable of bending 7-inch diameter tube and pipe for pumping applications in oil, gas and shipping markets has been put into operation at a Norwegian company. Another, which can bend pipes with diameters over 8 inches, has just entered service at a US shipyard to assist with building aircraft carriers and submarines.

"The Queen's Award fills us with confidence for the future," adds Unison Non-Executive Director Peter Wilkinson. "Export volumes have grown by around 100% in both of the last two years. We aim to continue that trend, and are currently investing in operations in North America - our foremost export market. We are also actively seeking and recruiting agents and partners in other key world markets to join our world class business”.

www.unisonltd.com

About Unison Ltd
Unison started in business by developing control systems for metalworking machinery – supplying a number of prominent UK machine manufacturers in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1991 the company moved into machinery design, focusing on machines for tube bending. At that time, tube bending machines were powered hydraulically. In the early 1990s Unison invented a range of machines employing electrical servo-motors for controlling bending motion. These were the world’s first 'all-electric' machines for tube bending. The performance of Unison's new machine design – with its fast and repeatable software-controlled set-up, right-first-time action, low power consumption, and quiet and clean operation – was an instant success. The company has progressively led the tube bending machinery industry by increasing the tubing diameters that can be formed using all-electric motion and is now one of the world’s leading manufacturers of tube bending machines and associated software. In 2014, Unison took another quantum leap in power by developing a servomotor-powered machine architecture that is capable of bending thick-walled piping with diameters of 225 mm and more.

ENDS