Capturing the sun and stars

Mar 13 2007 By The Journal

One high-profile outcome from a North-East engineering company's investment will be unveiled later this spring.

Eighteen months ago, Team Valley, Gateshead-based Responsive Engineering Group announced it was investing £2m in new technology improvements to support and extend its subcontract engineering services, following a management buy-in by managing director Peter Bernard.

The most publicly-visible result is the design, manufacture and installation of a striking phosphor-bronze cone at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London.

From May this year, visitors to the futuristic planetarium at the heart of the £15m Time and Space Project will be able to stare up at the stars before being taken on a virtual journey to distant planets from the space theatre.

Responsive took the job on after others approached to build the unique structure turned down the task, saying it was too difficult - it weighs 32 tonnes, but needs just 32 bolts to keep it in place.

A team of five welders from the region spent 13 weeks in London completing the job. Engineers rolled more than 200 panels into different shapes and sizes to make the cone - lowering them into place with a crane.

Sitting on the world's prime meridian - zero degrees longitude - it is tilted at 51.5 degrees, the latitude of London.

Its shiny surface will reflect the sky and clouds during the day and the moon and stars by night. Inside, the planetarium will give visitors a realistic view of the night sky - then let them journey out into space, thanks to digital computer effects.

Peter Bernard said: "It is a huge project, not just for us, but for the whole of the North-East manufacturing industry. This is British engineering at its best.

"At the moment it's a one-off project, but we are hoping it could lead to even bigger things. There are not many people out there who can build a £1m cone."

Responsive Engineering was originally formed in 2000 and has provided metalwork for the Scottish Parliament building and Heathrow Airport's Terminal 5. It also makes parts for Formula One cars, equipment for tanks and helicopters and parts for X-ray machines.

It has four group businesses, Streamline, Kingsway, Weldex and Pressex, which together provide specialist waterjet and laser cutting, precision engineering, welding, pressing and assembly services. Its business model is built around a mix of process capability, short lead times, and on-time delivery with a customer list that includes Airbus, BAE, Siemens and Exxon. Expansion is aimed at developing further opportunities in the defence, aerospace, oil and gas and other key market sectors.

The Weldex arm of the group offers specialist and coded welding, site welding, high-value reclamation, precision fabrication, assembly and testing, documentation management and consultancy (currently on a power station in Egypt). It has gained an international reputation for its competence in welding of exotic and difficult-to-weld materials.

Weldex also carries out reclamation programmes of mission-critical components for power stations, process plants, refineries and oil production platforms.

In 1991, Streamline was the first UK company to commercialise the then new technology of waterjet cutting. Today it remains at the forefront of the industry, while its unique breadth and depth of experience make it the preferred choice for customers with large, complex or close-tolerance component requirements.

Pressex has a wide range of presses, from 12 to 250 tonnes, including coil and strip feed. The facility is ideally suited for short-to-medium batch runs of complex shapes, product development or proving prototype tooling.

Mr Bernard said Responsive had to operate within the same tough trading environment as all manufacturers, but it was choosing to respond by investing.

The £2m investment also attracted support from regional development agency One NorthEast.

He said: "We are constantly under pressure, like everybody else - pressure on energy costs and on raw material prices. It's not an easy place to be.

"If we want to maintain the business at the leading edge of technology, we have to invest and be the most cost-effective and efficient we can be."