Issue 28
SORPA
With sustainability high on the global agenda, Iceland’s SORPA has emerged as an exemplary figurehead of waste management with its innovative solutions.
Goodpack
Having introduced a revolutionary mode of containerised transport, Goodpack is expanding its global network to help supply chains across a range of industries to become more efficient and sustainable Writer: Tom WadlowProject Manager: Richard Thomas It is little surprise that the global seaborne container industry is booming. As the world becomes ever-connected, combined with the fact consumer and commercial demands for rapid turnaround times are increasing, the market for efficient, timely shipping is growing. Take 2017. Container transport across the oceans accounted for 60 percent of all sea trade, activity equating to around $12 trillion in value and forecast to grow at 4.7 percent to the end of 2019. This growth has been made possible by the massive increase in the size of ships and subsequent capacity of freightliners. Over the last 40 years, deadweight tonnage of container ships has risen from approximately 11 million to more than 250 million tonnes. However, a second revolution is gathering momentum.While larger ships have permitted enormous financial growth and helped drive improved living standards across the world, it has come at a monumental cost to the environment. Just 15 of the largest container ships in operation today match the carbon emissions of every car on the planet. In country terms, the shipping industry ranks between Germany and Japan as the sixth largest polluter on earth. Efficiency of such operations, therefore, is paramount in ensuring that supply chains worldwide continue to fuel the demands of customers and minimise their environmental impact at the same time. Enter Goodpack. Established and named from a contract to provide a shipping solution to…
Next Generation Data
Next Generation Data is not just Europe’s largest data centre. It’s a flagship facility that’s providing the platform for technological progression Writer: Jonathan DybleProject Manager: Ashley ParfittThe past four decades have seen the world become transformed by technology, evident in the advent of the internet in 1983. Since then, global connectivity has exploded to say the least.Recent statistics have shown that there were 4.1 billion recorded internet users spanning the globe as of January 1, 2019, while Google currently processes over seven billion search queries a day.In line with the global digital revolution, many companies’ IT operations continue to become more and more sophisticated, requiring ever more advanced technologies in order to store and manage increasingly complex data.Contrary to popular belief, such data is stored in physical servers situated in expansive buildings that are the lifeblood of both the internet and huge numbers of progressive businesses. These buildings, in many cases, are known as data centres.“The data centre industry is often comparable to the construction industry,” explains Simon Bearne, Commercial Director of Next Generation Data (NGD). “Without good foundations, the development of adequate IT infrastructure is not possible as it will inevitably fall down.“This is where facilities like our own come in, acting as the hidden face behind the success of global corporations, providing the platform that allows them to embrace digital technologies.”Seizing the opportunitySituated between Cardiff and Newport in South Wales, UK, the NGD facility currently stands at a monumental 750,000 square feet, large enough to freely rotate nine jumbo jets simultaneously across its three floors.Renowned as…
Inno-Comp
Hungary’s Inno-Comp is on a mission to become the region’s most prolific producer of PP compounds, continuing its work as a vital supplier to manufacturers serving a range of industries Writer: Tom WadlowProject Manager: Thomas ArnoldPolypropylene – an unassuming thermoplastic polymer to many, but one that is worth tens of billions of dollars. Also referred to as PP, polypropylene supports a huge variety of applications, from packaging of consumer products to plastic parts for the automotive industry. We come into contact with it every day. Whether it be from using our household appliances, electrical goods or DIY tools, all of these contain some form of PP compound, a reality which translates into a projected market value of $28.2 billion by 2025. This represents an average market growth of 7.6 percent a year, making PP compounds the second largest polymer business in the world and responsible for 25 percent of all polymer demand. In Europe, Hungary’s Inno-Comp is seeking to ride on this wave of momentum. A producer of PP and other speciality compounds for the automotive industry, household and electrical goods, and pipes, fittings and sheets, the company was formed as the first integrated polypropylene compounding business in Central Eastern Europe in 1999. Built on a visionGünther Wenth is Inno-Comp’s owner, building the business out of a joint venture with Hungarian petrochemical company TVK, now known as MOL Petrolkémia. “We set up with a vision of being the largest PP compounding company in the region,” he recalls, “and the first real breakthrough came in 2001 when we secured our first big contract with…
Ricardo Performance Products
Leveraging the latest technologies and proactively capitalising on emerging trends, Ricardo Performance Products continues to fuel the high-performance automotive revolutionWriter: Jonathan DybleProject Manager: Thomas ArnoldMotorsport epitomises the very best of innovation and engineering, continually combined in new, ever-advancing ways that provide a platform for incremental improvement.Formula One is the pinnacle of this, each car comprising 80,000 carefully positioned components that are uniquely and individually scrutinised through rigorous testing and technology-enabled analysis. The rapid evolution of high-performance vehicles that has been experienced in recent decades and the often-astounding capabilities of current models are testament to the expertise of manufacturers and engineers, such as the experts at Ricardo Performance Products.As the manufacturing arm of global engineering, environmental and strategic consultancy Ricardo, the firm’s Performance Products division pioneered early hyper cars such as the Jaguar XJ220 and McLaren F1 and today continues to work with a range world-renowned global brands, from Volkswagen’s Bugatti Chiron to Aston Martin’s Valkyrie.However, in line with the evolution of the automotive market, Ricardo Performance Products’ capabilities have diversified in recent times, with the firm now operating across a broad range of advanced manufacturing segments.“Originally a manufacturer of prototype and race car transmissions, Performance Products has grown to support niche assembly in transmission, engines and complete vehicles and is now well established as the manufacturing specialists within Ricardo,” explains Martin Starkey, Business Development Director for the division.Innovative and diverse Currently employing more than 300 people globally, Performance Products provides turnkey production solutions in an adaptable way across a variety of global industries.The firm prides itself on its…
BSB Aviation
Remaining dedicated to its overriding customer-first mentality, BSB Aviation has continued to optimise the aerospace industry in the seven years since its inceptionWriter: Jonathan DybleProject Manager: Thomas ArnoldMore than a century on since the world’s first commercial flight took off in 1914, it is safe to say that almost every aspect of air travel has advanced substantially.In 1935, for example, the first Qantas flight along the Kangaroo Route (from the UK to Australia) was a 12 day-journey that entailed many multiple stops along the way. Today, however, the same airline runs a non-stop flight between the two countries, taking just 17 hours to complete.Technology has evolved exponentially, driven by visionaries in the manufacturing sector and wider aerospace industry that continue to seek optimal success in both efficiency and customer satisfaction.Take aircraft cabins themselves. Customers are now able to access a range of services, from in-flight entertainment to on-board internet connectivity solutions, while other progressive changes have been made, such as the banning of inflight smoking.Equally, while these changes may spring to mind for the average consumer, they constitute just one small aspect of the wider global effort to optimise air travel – efforts that have come along way, but are still providing manufacturers, MROs (maintenance, repair and operations firms) and airlines with new headaches each and every day.One thing for certain is that remaining cost efficient is more difficult today than ever before in face of not only competitive pressures, but also the rising complexity of both demands and expectations.“One quote springs to mind when we…
Saudia Aerospace Engineering Industries
Renowned as one of the world’s leading MRO providers, Saudia Aerospace Engineering Industries is playing a key role in furthering the Kingdom’s airborne ambitionsWriter: Jonathan DybleProject Manager: Thomas ArnoldA defining year in history during a period synonymous with both division and unity, 1945 is best known in global timelines as the end of the Second World War.Alongside the global destruction, it was a year that marked concerted efforts to strengthen global ties and relations in the aim of preventing any future breakdowns of such scale ever again. These efforts applied to all nations, with one such example prevalent in the warming relations between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and the United States.King Abul Aziz ibn Saud, renowned as the founder of the modern Saudi State, presented then US President Franklin D. Roosevelt with brightly coloured camel’s hair robes, hand painted perfume bottles, a gold dagger set with diamonds, and other gifts to extend the Kingdom’s hand of friendship.In return, Roosevelt provided the Middle Eastern country with a DC-3 passenger plane – an aircraft that marked the beginning of Saudi Arabia’s ventures into air travel.Impressed by the DC-3, the king quickly purchased numerous additional aircraft that led to the formation of Saudi Arabia Airlines (Saudia) in September 1946, with the country’s first international flight taking off for Jerusalem in that same year.Since this time, Saudia has expanded exponentially to become not only the national carrier of KSA, but equally the largest airline in the Middle East, aiding the transportation needs of more than 32 million passengers…
Cobham PLC
Honouring the pioneering legacy of its founder Sir Alan Cobham, Cobham Plc has become a go-to supplier of leading edge connectivity and knowledge across a vast expanse of subsectors within aerospace, defence and beyond Writer: Tom WadlowProject Manager: Thomas ArnoldThe explosion of connectivity across all walks of life is one of the great hallmarks of the past decade.Take a simple observation – there are now comfortably more mobile connections around the world than human beings. Indeed, over the last 10 years the number of mobile connections worldwide has more than doubled from 4.02 billion in 2008 to 8.24 billion in 2018, a trend which is only set to travel upwards.By 2020 more than nine billion mobile connections will be in operation, while the number of IoT-powered connected devices (cellular and non-cellular) will pass 25 billion by 2025, creating an opportunity worth $1.8 trillion.The remotest corners of the earth and outer space are also being joined up by technology.From the launch of nanosatellites to commercialised space shuttle excursions, there are few areas of our planet and immediate universe that cannot be connected. Even while travelling in the air at breakneck speed, passengers and pilots (both commercial and military) are able to connect and communicate with the wider world.Such unprecedented levels of connectivity are the result of a relentless drive to innovate and improve all areas of life by both public and private enterprise.In the UK, Cobham Plc is renowned for providing solutions to complex problems in challenging environments, be it in the air, on land, at sea or…
Event preview: The Dubai Family Office Forum
The Dubai Family Office Forum will reveal investment trends as it holds its fourth edition on February 5-6 2019 at The Palace Downtown in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Startup disruptive technological solutions to be featured at 3rd Future Cities Show
Future Cities Show will feature disruptive innovations as it holds its third edition on April 8-10, 2019 at the Dubai World Trade Centre. Under the theme “Propelling Globalisation through Digital Transformation”, FCS will gather together startup companies to showcase their projects to an international roster of investors.Host city Dubai is emerging to be an ideal ecosystem for startups as it prepares to be technologically ahead of all other cities within the next ten years. Dubai is currently at the forefront in the adoption and application of disruptive technology in the region. Thus, Dubai 10x initiative, set by HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, will be highlighted at the event along with smart city solution startup projects from around the world.As world cities have started adopting smart city solutions, Dubai adds more value to its own smart city development plans by ensuring urban challenges, in terms of security and safety, are efficiently addressed. Dubai Police is one of the several government agencies complying to this initiative. Through artificial intelligence, Dubai Police is making the emirate of Dubai a much safer place to live and work. Dubai Police’s Smart Area System links over 10,000 CCTV cameras using face recognition technology to predict crime and accidents, detect offenses, and flag wanted criminals and suspects. This state-of-the-art tool can also read vehicle plate number and sends a live feed to the command and control centre. This year, the use of AI has helped the Dubai Police apprehend 550 people, 109 of which were wanted criminals and 441 were suspects…
E-governance: The foundation of a smart city
To put e-governance in simple terms, would be the use of technology by governments to enhance the access to and delivery of government services with much greater efficiency, accuracy, consistency to benefit citizens, business partners and employees, which no doubt is seen as somewhat of a revolution. At its most basic, the adoption of e-governance allows greater government-to-citizens, government-to-business and government-to-employee transactions and is in fact one of the primary drivers supporting the development of e-governance programs. The development of e-governance in Singapore aims to see the city state develop as an intelligent island and as a global infocomm capital with a thriving and prosperous e-economy and a pervasive and infocomm-savvy e-society.To achieve this, the Singaporean policy makers focused on the key relationships : government to citizens, government to business and government to employee. One of the initiatives the government has taken for this monumental change is the use ICT to deliver integrated electronic services centred on customers’ needs.At a global scale, Singapore is among the leaders in adoption of information and communications technologies and ICT have now become an important part of all facets of daily life. The policy of the Singapore government to transform Singapore into an intelligent island has involved initiatives including educating Singaporeans in Internet skills, nationwide broadband network that delivers interactive multimedia applications and services and a dedicated portal that allows accessibility to a range of e-government services. Saudi Arabia is the latest to join in on the smart city buzz. As it pushes forward with its economic diversification and modernisation programme,…