Pipeline to success

Jan 15 2008 By The Journal

Award-winning North East Company of the Year, Wellstream International in Newcastle, is working closely with the Teesside Manufacturing Centre based in the University of Teesside. It’s a partnership that demonstrates the benefits of industry and universities working together, as Nic Mitchell finds out.

THE success of Wellstream was hailed as “evidence that the region’s manufacturing industry can still lead the world” when the Tyneside oil and gas pipeline maker carried off the prestigious Company of the Year prize earlier this year. For the Tyneside-based company, which floated on the Stock Exchange with a market capitalisation of more than £300m earlier this year, has grown rapidly and attracted many admirers. These include judges of the North East Business Awards organised by the The Journal and its sister paper, the Middlesbrough-based Evening Gazette. They praised Wellstream for its innovative designs, strong business model, technological excellence and success in building its business.

The company and its relationship with the University of Teesside is also an excellent example of how industry and higher education in the region can both benefit from collaboration.

Dr Ahmed Abbas, head of the University’s Teesside Manufacturing Centre (TMC), recalls how the relationship with Wellstream and the Middlesbrough-based University developed after a management buy-out from US multinational Halliburton.

“The company, which now employs nearly 500 people at its River Tyne base, had been operating under its present management for about a year and was growing fast when we first arrived on the scene in 2004.

“They wanted to improve their business and management systems across the board to allow for expansion. They were gaining clients all over the world”, explained Dr Ahmed Abbas, whose centre is based within Teesside University’s School of Science & Technology.

“We gave a presentation to the board and they were very interested in what we could offer. And, after they visited three of our former clients to check us out, they asked us to do a major enterprise-wide review.

“What we offer is a total enterprise integration package. We look at the whole operation with an engineering as well as a business eye. And this is what manufacturers are looking for, ways to improve the management of technology across the whole organisation”, said Dr Abbas. “Specifically Wellstream asked TMC to help them select what they needed in terms of hardware, software and training”, added Dr Abbas, who set up a team of four working on the project.

“We identified possible suppliers, got them to do presentations and helped with the choice of software. We have been involved every step of the way and one of the TMC team, Suhail Aslam, was seconded to Wellstream as project manager.”

Suhail is an Industrial Design graduate from Teesside who was doing an MBA at the time with Teesside Business School.

Now the project is developing further and Wellstream and the University have strengthened the partnership by appointing two Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) associates. The KTP is concerned with implementing enterprise-wide changes across the whole organisation, comprising the introduction of a new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system and the embedding of updated processes and working practices.

And Dr Abbas is keen to stress it is a partnership that benefits both.

“We’re not just there to help the company, but by working so closely with a company like Wellstream it really helps our teaching and research at the University of Teesside,” he said.

Chris Pickering, Wellstream’s Supply Chain Manager, agrees: “We’re delighted to have the two KTPs on board. This is part of our overall programme to implement our new ERP system – the engine that drives the business.

“The University has been our partner for two-and-a-half years and during this period our relationship has been very good. They have steered us through the assessment and selection process and we believe we’ve ended up with the best system to meet our needs, which is making bespoke flexible pipe products for the oil and gas industry. I’m delighted that we can keep the partnership going through the two new KTP associates.”

• For more information about the Teesside Manufacturing Centre contact Catherine Frost, email c.frost@tees.ac.uk or phone 01642 342481. For details about Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs) at the University of Teesside contact Emma Detchon, email emma.detchon@tees.ac.uk or phone 01642 384036.