Sertec Group, the global automotive components manufacturer, is celebrating after winning a prestigious national manufacturing industry award, with its employee engagement and improvement strategy proving particularly impressive to the judging team.

Sertec Group, which employs over 1200 people across six international locations, has been named the Confederation of British Metalforming’s (CBM) 2024 Company of the Year – with the top industry accolade presented at a glittering awards ceremony staged at the Grand Hotel, Birmingham.

The Coleshill based company saw off strong competition from the sector to win the main award, with the judging panel impressed by Sertec Group’s ‘Journey to Excellence’ strategic plan.

The ‘Journey to Excellence’ strategic approach has seen Sertec Group invest significantly in its strategy, people and operational innovation with a focus on driving employe engagement, skills competencies and performance output to exceed customer expectations.

Sertec Group CEO Grant Adams commented “We are extremely proud to win this award as it speaks volumes about our employees’ engagement and the journey to excellence we are all on together.

“In collaboration with all operational departments the HR team set out to define career ladders, clarifying all roles and competency requirements of our people and to provide clear avenues for advancement and performance development.

“As a result, today we are proud to see that everyone’s efforts have created a highly engaged, skilled team which is thriving in an environment for change and innovation and ready to undertake the challenges that come before us as a business.

“Being recognized as a benchmark for excellence against our peers in the industry is very special and demonstrates how we are getting it right despite the external headwinds faced by businesses in the sector.”

Ben Higgins, Sertec Group Operations Director added, “I’m extremely proud of the teams at all of the Sertec sites – we are striving for excellence and this award is a great indication that we’re on the right track. The next step of our journey is to deliver a sustainable Group that continues to put our people at the heart of it”.

Over the past two years Sertec Group have aimed to normalise and sustain good performance through employee engagement and recognition and employee training.

As part of the process the leadership team completed extensive 3M studies across the business to risk assess all work centres and prioritise improvement initiatives based on overall impact and opportunity.

In collaboration with all operational departments the HR team set out to define career ladders, clarifying all roles and competency requirements of our people and to provide clear avenues for advancement and performance development. This has been closely aligned to the complexity of work centres, ensuring that we have the right skills levels operating the right processes across the site, improving safety, quality and productivity.

As a result of the teams’ efforts, Sertec Group has achieved improvements in productivity, on-time delivery in full and the implementation of a comprehensive employee engagement approach to support their future goals and strategy.

The key performance results include a 35% increase in productivity, improved employee engagement to 81 % – a 36% improvement in just two years – and an average 97% delivery performance to customers, including 100% customer delivery performance for over 12 months. Further key achievements include a 47% reduction in accidents, zero lost time accidents in excess of 500 days, and a 68% improvement in reported near misses over a similar period.

In recent years, Sertec Group has focused its efforts to diversify its product offering and customer markets, by building up its expertise in Busbar technology and EV Battery Case Assemblies.

Sertec Group has invested in modernising their facilities to incorporate advanced joining technologies such as laser welding, whilst also investing in products to improve the overall availability and performance of their current production facilities.

The company is also investing heavily in research and development, site facilities and technology, with its highly capable engineering department working closely with its customers to design suitable and sustainable products for their respective industries, including the automotive sector.

The achievement of these strategic goals and actions has enabled Sertec Group to innovate, focus on improvement and strive for excellence, with the intention of realising its vision to become an industry leading provider of sustainable engineering solutions.

The importance of sustainable engineering in helping to shape the future of UK manufacturing and the wider global stage was a key talking point at the CBM awards evening. It was a theme that emerged during many of the winners’ acceptance speeches, with Sertec Group and others highlighting the important role the Government and industry have to play moving forward.

Grant Adams said: “The move to electrification for businesses is going to need significant funding for companies who are still in recovery mode from the Covid pandemic. The support schemes currently available to companies of our size are simply not fit for purpose.

“This is where we need true Government innovation and vision to ensure the UK remains at the forefront of this Industrial revolution.

“Our focus is to build upon this success, driving stability and sustainable growth to create a solid future for the business and all its stakeholders”.

The CBM awards evening proved to be a fantastic platform for promoting and celebrating the very best of the UK’s metal forming sector, whilst highlighting to members the important role manufacturing plays within the UK economy.

Sertec Group Ltd is based across six global locations with four UK manufacturing sites, a manufacturing site in Aszar, Hungary and a tooling technical centre based in Dongguan, China, all of which form part of its expanding worldwide operations.