Kenard Engineering Acquires Software Specialists Seiki Systems

October 2002

Manufacturing software specialists Seiki Systems has been purchased for an undisclosed sum by one of the UK's leading privately-owned contract manufacturing companies, the Kenard Group.

Manufacturing software specialists Seiki Systems, which is based in Brighton, has been purchased for an undisclosed sum by one of the UK's leading privately-owned contract manufacturing companies, the Kenard Group, which has its headquarters in Dartford, Kent.

Seiki Systems was previously a division of Hitachi Seiki UK of Egham in Surrey and was sold in its entirety by the Administrators of Hitachi Seiki UK to the Kenard Group, a GBP14 million, 130 people precision contract machining company with operations in Dartford and Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire.

Managing Director, Dr Ray Ellis explains: "The technology associated with manufacturing software fits exactly into our business and we have been fully aware of the capability and potential of Seiki Systems since we originally installed its DNC software at our Dartford site in 1996.

"Since then, we have developed our own award-winning manufacturing information system Data Collection Systems (KIDS) which is able to collect and disseminate job-related information throughout the Kenard sites." Being an advanced contract machinist for sectors as diverse as F1, aerospace, defence, medical, telecom and oil, Kenard is not shy to invest in the latest production technology.

Indeed, at Tewkesbury it has one of the largest flexible manufacturing systems installed in a UK subcontract company and has consistently ploughed profits back into expanding the business.

Says Ray Ellis: "We can add 'coal face' production experience to Seiki Systems and whereas some of the best attributes of its award-winning software was dedicated to Hitachi Seiki equipment, this will now be developed for wider use in production machining." Seiki Systems main product, Networked Manufacturing System (NMS), is a totally integrated modular developed software package that provided the critical link between the production scheduling environment and the live situation on the shopfloor.

It enables pre-manufacturing requirements to be associated with live events and provides a simple method of post-manufacturing process analysis.

The Seiki Systems team of eight people under General Manager David Trowel will continue to operate from Brighton and will integrate with Kenard's own two IT specialists at Dartford.

As David Trowel points out: "Kenard is very serious in developing the business and our product.

As an example, although payments for existing maintenance contracts were absorbed by the Administrator of Hitachi Seiki UK, these are being honoured by Kenard up to their original renewal date without any further payment.".