Innovation is the lifeblood of a successful business. New technologies and their applications in processes and products create stronger businesses and better jobs. Oldham has a long history of adopting innovation – the first cotton mill in the country was built in Royton in 1764, ushering in the industrial revolution that would change the fortunes of the entire nation.
This strong tradition of innovation still continues in Oldham. Although the age of ‘King Cotton’ has gone, it has left an industrial heritage that has been built on by successive entrepreneurs who have adopted new technologies to make their businesses successful in the 21st century.
A good example of this is James Briggs, a consumer chemical and aerosol specialist in Royton. The company was founded in 1830 to provide lubricants to the local spinning factories. In the 1960s, it adopted aerosol delivery for its speciality chemicals and lubricants, based on the results of its own research and development.
Recently the company won a DTI Smart award to develop an innovative system for applying touch-up paint to automobiles. Available to the consumer and car repair industries, users of the new product will be able to touch up damaged paintwork with the company’s unique ultra-fine nib and brush spray unit. The units are also made with a clear, polymer-based container so the user can see the colour of the paint. It’s a simple solution that removes the requirement to spray the top of the cap to indicate colour.
Another SMART recipient is Oldham-based Dynamic Controls, which designs and manufactures speciality high and low pressure valves. The company will use the funds to develop a special casting process to produce corrosion resistant nickel-aluminium-bronze valves, usually used in submarines. The new casting process will make the high quality valves available and affordable to the commercial market for use in other industries, making plants safer and more efficient.
Oldham’s long history of cutting edge innovation also includes Ferranti, a company dating back to 1897. In 1948, the company manufactured the world’s first computer, developed by scientists and mathematicians at the University of Manchester and inspired by Alan Turing’s concept of the ‘Universal Machine’. The computer was called the Ferranti Mark 1, and it was the world’s first commercially available general-purpose computer. Ferranti publicly sold nine Mark 1s between 1951 and 1957 in the UK and abroad. One was sold to Canada and was used to help build the St Lawrence Seaway. Following an MBO in 1994, the company now supplies electronics and electro-mechanical equipment to the defence, aerospace and commercial industries and employs about 170.
In 1989, a new company was spun out of the once mighty Ferranti/Plessey firmament called Zetex, which supplies semi-conductor based electrical components for the mobile phone, personal electronics and video/multi-media industries. In 2001 it launched 70 new products, up from 50 in 2000, despite undergoing the most significant market collapse in the history of semi-conductor development and sales. The company has sales offices in Greater Manchester, Munich, Hong Kong and New York and development facilities in Germany and China. World-wide the company employs 750 but its head office remains in Oldham.