One of the West Midlands’ leading manufacturers enjoyed a double triumph last night at the
national Engineering & Manufacturing Awards.
PP Control & Automation’s Tony Hague took the main honour of the evening when he beat
off the challenge of some of the UK’s most influential bosses to win the Industry Leader of
the Year title.
The graduate engineer is a passionate advocate for UK manufacturing and impressed
judges with the way he has guided the business from £3m sales and 27 staff when he took
over in 2003 to a world class operation that is on course for £30m and now employs over
230 people.
He was joined on stage by one of PP C&A’s emerging engineers with 20-year-old Sophie
Young recognised as the ‘Rising Star’ in front of over 300 people at The Marriott Hotel in
London.
“We are absolutely blown away to come to a national manufacturing awards ceremony and
win two of the biggest awards,” explained Tony Hague, CEO of PP Control & Automation.
“The talent in the room – from SMEs through to some of the world’s largest engineering
names – was immense and I’m delighted that between Sophie and I we have helped put the
West Midlands on the UK industrial map.
“Leading a business is never easy, especially during the last three years when we have had
to come to terms with a global pandemic and then the impact of rising inflation, supply chain
disruption and energy prices.”
He continued: “You need a really good management team behind you, and you need
excellent staff and I’m pleased to say we have both at PP C&A.”
Sophie Young joined PP Control & Automation in September 2021 and in the following two
years she has progressed from assembling electrical equipment within the busy
manufacturing area to creating engineering information to speed up production of electrical
assemblies and control panels.
Within the first five months of her apprenticeship, she was given the opportunity to take a
project for a client involved in surface mount technology printing machines through from
quotation to completion.
This included supporting the New Product Introduction process by eliminating faults and
developing a product ready for production, carrying out inspection reports on first builds and
creating a dedicated production cell.
Sophie even volunteered to build the first iteration of the assembly to prove out her
documentation, cutting out 1-hour of build time by identifying a more efficient method.
The assembly now takes 2.5hrs to produce, which has allowed 100 units to be manufactured
last year, with 400 units scheduled for build in 2023.
Sophie went on to add: “To be recognised as the Rising Star in the UK is something I never
expected, and it tops off what has been an exciting year.
“We have such a great team at PP C&A, who are mentoring me and teaching me all there is
to know about engineering and manufacturing. There’s no way I could have progressed so
quickly in my career without them.”
For further information, please visit www.ppcand.com or follow @ppcanda on twitter.
