THE winners of the PPMA Group Industry Awards 2016 have been revealed, following a record number of entries in some categories.
Over 400 people gathered at Birmingham’s National Motorcycle Museum to see prizes handed out in 14 categories including Processing & Packaging Machinery Manufacturer of the Year, Partnership of the Year and Most Innovative Process and Packaging Machinery.
The ceremony was hosted by Mock the Week star Andy Parsons and Sky Sports News anchor Hayley McQueen.
DC Norris was the first winner in the category of Processing & Packaging Machinery Manufacturer of the Year. Judges said their innovative approach to new product development helped the company triumph and also noted their ‘excellent policy for staff recruitment and training’.
Festo & Siemens picked up two awards; Most Innovative Automation System and Partnership of the Year.
Russell Finex also recorded a double success by winning the Most Innovative Ancillary Equipment and Exporter of the Year awards on the back of a “remarkable increase” in export sales in the past three years.
Most Innovative Process and Packaging Machinery went to Domino UK for their SerialTrac system, described as a “game changer” for any SME trying to meet the serialisation demands of the Falsified Medicines Directive (FMD).
The Exceptional Sales or Company Growth award went to Riggs Autopack while HepcoMotion scooped the PPMA BEST (business, education, skills and training) award.
Stemmer won the Most Innovative Vision Project, with its winning project involving several aspects of machine vision technology from optics through to data handling.
The PPMA Sustainability Award went to Jenton with the judges praising the company for setting the standard in environmental awareness. Integrated packaging technology Bradman Lake Group won the Customer Service award. The judges praised the company for ‘going beyond the call of duty to get the customer’s facility up and running ahead of an ambitious schedule’.
Individual awards included Apprentice of the Year (to Chris Eckert of Packaging Automation) and Outstanding Achievement (Richard Bull, the founder of Enercon).
