The perfect take

The Best Factory Awards (BFAs) have long been known as manufacturing's Oscars. And this year's ceremony almost gave us the tear jerking finale that's a signature move in Tinseltown. "I actually felt myself getting very emotional," recalls Steve Dalton of the moment his Sony UK Technology team were crowned Toyota Material Handling Factory of the Year. "It's the culmination of eight years' hard work with the guys around that table. We've been through a lot together and it just felt superb to see our achievements recognised. We had a group hug before going up on stage and I took a deep breath and said: 'Steve pull yourself together'". No Gwyneth Paltrow style wailing then as Steve and his Pencoed colleagues danced onto the stage in their victory march. Instead, the winner's rostrum was lit up by beaming smiles, warm embraces and the occasional double take to check this was no dream. "When I saw the videos of the other finalists, I thought: 'Oh no, these guys are really good'. Even though a lot of the factories in the films are in unrelated sectors to us, I could see the processes in place were outstanding. I turned to the rest of the table and said: 'This could be a long afternoon for us'. The omens quickly took another turn for worse, reflects Dalton. "We thought we had a great chance in the People & Skills Development category. So, when we didn't win anything there, I began to fear the worst." Morale was quickly restored with Pencoed taking first prize in the Innovation Award before scooping the Best Electronics and Electrical Plant Award and then the big one. For Dalton, MD at Sony Pencoed, the afternoon's success was more than 30 years in the making. He first walked into the South Wales site in 1983 as a fresh-faced graduate engineer. Back then, Pencoed was manufacturing TVs featuring state-of-the-art cathode ray tubes that beamed out Blockbusters and Bullseye. Dalton says: "It was a high volume product and, in total, we had over 5,000 employees at our peak." Sony Pencoed was one of six European factories for the Japanese electronics giant in the 90s, adds Dalton. TVs would continue to rumble off the line until the early 2000s. Then came the arrival of flat screen technology and a sounding of the last orders for Pencoed's cathode ray tube sets. Dalton spotted the shift and began to evolve the site's repertoire to include camcorder and camera technology. The last TVs left goods out in 2004 and the naysayers predicted the employees wouldn't be too far behind. "When we moved into camera technology there were plenty of people who said that was the beginning of the end for Pencoed and we would be shutting the factory down." Dalton knew better. He launched a five-year blueprint to make the site a hub of Sony's emerging professional broadcast camera systems. Workers were reskilled in the complex art of camcorder assembly. Says Dalton. "Our workforce have always been positive and taken a can-do attitude. From our early days the Sony DNA existed among our people; it just needed reigniting," he says. By 2010 Pencoed had been resurrected as the home of Sony's broadcast camera empire. The site's impressive versatility and willingness to change means it is now the only remaining Sony electronics assembly manufacturing site left in Europe. Dalton says: "We've tried to embed a proactive culture, to show people that they can take control of their own destiny. We could have sat back and been passengers to the technology shift away from cathode ray tube TVs in 2004, but then we wouldn't have been where we are now." That indomitable spirit means South Wales is the birthplace of cameras beaming out images to billions on CNN, Sky and the BBC. Buoyed by the success, attentions are now being turned to other electronic products to add to Pencoed's ever expanding repertoire. A defining factor in the site's BFA victory was a contract manufacture deal to produce the Raspberry Pi minicomputer. Pencoed won back the deal from China after demonstrating it could match cost per unit and has also won back a hair removal device from Asia. Proof that Britain's finest are manufacturing world beaters.