A WORLD-LEADING manufacturer has been given the Royal seal of approval. North East company Soil Machine Dynamics has been awarded the Queen's Award for Enterprise.
Yesterday the Queen’s cousin, Prince Michael of Kent, met workers at the Wallsend manufacturing site, in North Tyneside, where he formally presented the award to them.
The ceremony was one of just a handful of events the Prince made during a visit to Tyneside, which also saw him stop off at the nearby Segedunum Roman Fort.
Apart from meeting with management at the factory the Prince also got a chance to speak with some of the company’s latest apprentices, some of whom were taken on following The Journal’s highly successful 100 in 100 campaign.
SMD was given the Queen’s award in the innovation category. The company designs and manufactures Work Class Remotely Operated Vehicles (WROVS) which are used in harsh underwater environments around the world.
One of the company’s vehicles was used in the Gulf of Mexico to help plug the hole which was caused when BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil platform exploded killing 11 people and leaving 200,000 gallons of crude oil pouring into the ocean each day.
