NEWS FROM WESTIN DRIVES

​We are delighted to announced that Westin Drives has achieved the British Standards ISO 9001: 2015 certification.

This is an internationally recognised benchmark for quality within an organisation.

The accreditation ensures suppliers and customers can have confidence in knowing that our company consistently meets the high standards set out by the International Organisation for Standardisation.

In short, it means:

• We put our customers first, making sure we consistently meet their needs. 
• We work in a more efficient way, as our processes are aligned and understood by everyone in the business.
• We meet the necessary statutory and regulatory requirements.

Service Manager Michael Limb, above, says: "This is good news for everyone because it will help us to continually improve our operations and enhance customer satisfaction.”

The refurbishment of Grove Works, the 19th century former textile mill in which Westin Drives is based, has won a design award.

Huddersfield Civic Society said that the five-storey, stone-built mill was undergoing ‘a remarkable transformation to create a productive working unit’ .

At a ceremony in Huddersfield Town Hall, a plaque to mark the award was given to John Eastwood, chairman of the Westin Group, and Ivan Moorhouse, who led the refurbishment project.

The judges described Grove Works as a distinctive structure along an otherwise nondescript section of St Andrew’s Road. 'Great effort and costs have gone into removing unsightly outbuildings, dealing with an extensive sump of below surface water and creating a functional modern extension,’ they said.

‘Stonework, windows and doors have been refurbished providing a much-improved entrance. These improvements constitute phase one of a programme that will take many years to fully realise but demonstrate the value of retaining and improving buildings for productive use and employment.’

The mill housed part of the spinner and weaver, T and H Blamires, for nearly 100 years until the business was wound up in 1961. It was subsequently occupied by a yarn spinner, Z Hinchliffe, until that firm moved its operation elsewhere.

A fault on a textile mill machine has led to improved efficiency for a West Yorkshire company.

​An engineer from Westin Drives was called out to the mill because of a problem with the drive system of a warping machine. 

​Its 45 year-old, oil-filled, variable-speed drive had ground to a halt during busy production.

The unit was removed for repair but our electrical engineer Barrie Harkness suggested an upgrade to the customer – which was accepted.

It was pointed out that this would enable production speed to be increased, so a target value of 50% additional output was established.

Using a WEG inverter, WEG motor and Motovario gearbox from stock, the machine was up and running in record time, with new sprockets replacing the worn originals.

The project also proved worthwhile for saving energy, as the old system ran continuously whether the machine was actually producing or not.

The new system retrofit only runs when required and at an optimum speed to match requirements.

Businesses in Yorkshire and beyond have known Westin Drives for nearly a century as a stockist, repairer and rewinder of electric motors. 

More recently we have built a reputation as a designer and installer of electrical control systems.

We are also becoming known for the quality of work from our CNC precision engineering department which opened last year.

To keep customers up to date with the breadth of our services, we have produced a leaflet featuring the work of Matt Phillips and his team of precision engineers.

So if your business requires a component to be manufactured or repaired, please get in touch and we will strive to reward you with a first-class job.

The great-grandson of the founder of Westin Drives visited us last week to see what his family had started nearly 100 years ago as an electric motor repair business.

Jorge Westin-Pearson, of Pearson Brothers, a high-quality engravers based in Halifax, was doing some marketing work when he came across our company and decided to get in touch.

He is the great grandson of Walter Stanley Westin, and the grandson of Walter's late son, Cyril, also a past employee at our firm, then named W S Westin.

We were delighted to welcome back this young member of the Westin family, and Jorge was impressed by his great grandfather's legacy.

"It was amazing," he said. "I had never visited the business before and I was really impressed at how they took the time to show me round."

Jorge was able to have a chat with Tony, our resident veteran, who has been with us for 45 years and who remembers Walter struggling to get in and out of his bright orange Rover. Tony was also able to tell Jorge other things he had not heard about Walter and Cyril.

We're sure Walter and Cyril would be proud to know of this connection to Westin nearly 100 years on – and we plan to keep the name of Westin alive for many more years in their memory.

​Westin Drives is helping to build the engineers of tomorrow with a record intake of new apprentices.
 
We're pleased that Adam Daffern, Jason Kilner, Nathan King and Liam Medley have joined our team. They now make up 25 per cent of our workforce. The story was carried in our local newspaper, the Huddersfield Examiner.
 
Adam works in the technical department while Liam works in the machining department. Both are former Greenhead College students. Jason, a repair engineer, was a sixth former at Shelley College and Nathan, a mechanical engineer, studied at Kirklees College.
 
All four continue to expand their knowledge and skills with part-time courses at the engineering department of Kirklees College. Nathan said: "I've always liked making things. I enjoyed art and graphics at school and I thought engineering would be an interesting job with good opportunities."
 
Michael Limb, service manager at Westin Drives, said: "Westin Drives has a keen interest in investing in the future of our business and want to ensure our staff develop the skills required to grow and succeed.

"We have identified a skills gap in our sector of the industry and are actively planning to future-proof our operation. To this end, we have taken on four apprentices across our departments and aim to equip them with the skills and experience they will need to help our business to thrive and prosper.

"We are proud to be deepening our relationship with Kirklees College, who are providing a wealth of expertise and support and from whom we regularly take students on work experience. We are also working closely with other providers as we look to progress the project."

Versatility of approach and speed of response are hallmarks of the CNC machining department at Westin Drives – an observation underlined by two recent jobs.

Job 1. When a customer sent an industrial fan motor for repair, colleagues in our motor repair workshop noticed that an attached pulley was also bent and worn.Solution? While the motor was being repaired and serviced, our machining department reverse engineered a new pulley – left on the picture above – and balanced the new component on our in-house balancing machine. Result: a 24-hour turnaround and a happy customer.

Job 2. A national manufacturer approached us to to create some acrylic waste cover plates for a new design of bath. In discussions with the company, we helped to improve the design of the plate to make it more user-friendly.

Our precision engineers then created a jig and the plates – which contain two concealed magnetic housings to secure them in the bath – were cut on our CNC milling machine. It took five days to assemble and finish 100 plates ready for dispatch. The customer is very satisfied with the turnaround time and price and that the quality exceeds that of a previous manufacturer. 

Although some customers believe that we work only with metal, the precision engineering workshop at Westin Drives is equipped to work with a variety of materials, from acrylic and nylon to Tufnol. From design to completion, our skilled engineers would be delighted to help you with your project.

​When Westin Drives was approached by a leisure and entertainment company wondering if we could repair bucking broncos, the answer had to be – Yee-haw!

With the festive party season approaching, the repair was needed urgently to keep festive revellers happy.

The ride had been booked for a Christmas party as a bucking reindeer, but an inverter for the spinning motion – one of two in the machine – had failed and the part was now obsolete.

Our company had inverters in stock, so the customer decided to replace them both while the machine was out of action. 

The compact Mitsubishi FRD-720 was ideal for the job as it has built in STO (Safe Torque Off) and the mounting holes were almost identical to the original Hitachi inverters, enabling the original EMC filters to be retained.

The unit can be seen here being tested – and was later load tested – all in the name of science of course.

Westin Drives was pleased and proud to host the latest SKF Certified Rebuilder Group meeting.

SKF Certified Rebuilders, of which our company is one, must meet exacting standards and specifications and are regularly audited for compliance.

The day featured technical updates, group discussions and a tour of the premises.
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All our visitors were very impressed with our new service centre and we received many favourable comments.