The processing and packaging machinery industry celebrated another year of outstanding achievement and business excellence at the 2018 PPMA Industry Awards gala event at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole Hotel on 25 September.
Hosted by TV personality and comedian, Brian Conley, this year’s PPMA Group industry awards continue to recognise manufacturing excellence, technical innovation, entrepreneurship, customer service, sales and training support, as well as outstanding contribution to the processing and packaging machinery sector.
The prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Dudley Bradley, the executive chairman of Ytron-Quadro (UK) for his forward-thinking and long-standing commitment to the industry.
During his career, Bradley, who started as a process engineer, worked his way through the ranks before forming Ytron-Quadro in 1984; a business, that under his leadership, has experienced phenomenal growth and success.
He has also continued to work tirelessly to support the industry, playing active roles in the PPMA and the International Society of Pharmaceutical Engineering (ISPE).
Competition was extremely strong in all areas, while a host of exciting and ground-breaking new technologies and solutions presented in the series of ‘Innovations Awards’ categories gave the judges a particularly tough job.
New for 2018 was the PPMA BEST (Business, Education, Skills and Training) Award, which was introduced to highlight the importance of addressing the skills shortage. This inaugural award went to Evolution Bottling and Packaging Solutions in recognition of its excellence in commitment to employee training and skills development.
Continuing the theme of industry education, Kyle Constable, an apprentice at Olympus Automation (OAL) was named Apprentice of the Year 2018.
“Once again, we have been overwhelmed by the number and quality of submissions we have received this year for our Awards, in terms of manufacturing excellence, technical innovation, service and support, which clearly indicates that our sector has much to celebrate,” said Dr Andrew Mint, CEO of the PPMA Group.
“However, when looking to the future, we must recognise the challenges that we all face in terms of the skills gap. Therefore, it has been hugely encouraging to see how organisations in our sector are rising to this challenge and we are delighted to recognise this commitment with the introduction of our new PPMA BEST award, as well as honouring our young apprentices; all of whom represent the lifeblood of our industry,” he added.