A TEESDALE firm’s patented water distribution system has taken top innovation honours in The Queen’s Awards for Enterprise.
Pharmaceutical company Honeyman Group’s achiev-ement was announced at the weekend.
The firm, which is based at Harmire Enterprise Park, in Barnard Castle, received the award for its HydroGienic system. The award recognises outstanding contributions to industry.
Managing director Tom Honeyman said: “We are deeply honoured to have been recognised by the Queen’s Award for our continued work as pharmaceutical water system specialists.
“There is constant commercial pressure on manufacturing facility managers to maximise efficiencies and output performance, while minimising costs and overheads. HydroGienic enables revenue savings, as well as improvement to production efficiency, performance and reliability.”
The system works through a central storage tank and each area of the factory is supplied through its own send and receive hoses.
The system allows user points to be added or moved without disrupting existing production, resulting in significant cost savings. Typical water distribution systems work so if one part of the factory requires changes made to their water supply, the whole system has to be closed down.
The patented system was recently installed at Quotient, a medical science company that deals with blood transfusion in Edinburgh.
Vice president of operations for the company Gordon Robb said: “The new HydroGienic system flexibility fits with our growth plans. When we need to expand the system, we can increase the number of distribution points with minimal impact on the business.
“By comparison, a traditional system would need to be taken down on a regular basis and would have associated costs for sourcing water.”
The award will see Mr Honeyman being invited to a royal reception at Buckingham Palace, hosted by the Queen.
