In 2004, Micro-Epsilon UK Limited was established and for 20 years has been proud to support UK industry in the pursuit of more precision. The growth of the UK business since it was set up has been consistently strong.
One factor responsible for this continued growth is the company’s impressive product portfolio and innovation. Micro-Epsilon’s comprehensive range of products now includes sensors for displacement, distance, position and length measurement, 2D laser profile sensors and 3D snapshot sensors for dimensional and surface inspection, colour sensors, non-contact temperature sensors, thermal imaging cameras, and full turnkey measurement and inspection systems.
Chris Jones, who has been Managing Director of Micro-Epsilon UK since 2004, comments: “It’s amazing when you look back over the last 20 years at the performance of the UK business, which has grown so rapidly – from a one-man office in Liverpool 20 years ago, to a multi-million pound business. We’ve achieved all of this despite strong competition in the UK and changing market conditions, which have included the 2008 financial crash and more recently the COVID-19 global pandemic. This demonstrates what an incredible effort our staff have made over the last two decades and how our customers continue to value our products and our people so highly.”
As Chris emphasises: “Micro-Epsilon UK is not just a supplier of sensors and measurement systems, but offers installation, training, aftersales service and support, from a UK-based engineering team – something which many competitors do not offer. This gives us a key strategic advantage that is valued by our customer base.”
Humble beginnings
Starting from a desk in his back bedroom in 2002, to celebrating the company’s 20th Anniversary in 2024, Chris Jones founded and has grown the business over the last 20 years into a market leading UK sensor company.
After graduating in 1995 with a Mechanical System Design engineering degree, Chris worked as an applications and sales engineer at various sensor suppliers, before deciding that he wanted to establish his own business supplying leading edge sensors into UK manufacturing.
Rapid growth
When searching for high performance sensors that offered something different to the UK marketplace, Chris discovered Micro-Epsilon Messtechnik GmbH, a specialist sensor manufacturer of non-contact displacement sensors.
In January 2002, Chris started promoting and supplying Micro-Epsilon Messtechnik displacement sensors to the UK marketplace, and just two years later, in July 2004, Chris founded Micro-Epsilon UK Ltd in partnership with Micro-Epsilon GmbH, as joint owners. Over the last 20 years, Micro-Epsilon UK has consistently grown year-on-year into a multi-million pound annual sales turnover business.
In this time, Micro-Epsilon has developed a strong brand image and reputation in the UK for high quality products and a professional approach to business, providing high technical knowledge and excellent customer service. The business is an established supplier in almost all manufacturing sectors, from Formula One, automotive, aerospace, medical, robotics and automation, to all advanced manufacturing sectors. The company is also heavily involved in research and development activities, from fundamental science experiments at the Diamond Light Source particle accelerator facility in Didcot splitting atoms, to the UK catapult centres and universities. A specific focus of the business in recent years has been to contribute to renewable energy generation, with almost all wind turbines around the UK having Micro-Epsilon sensors for condition monitoring. In addition, in the last three to four years, the company has seen huge success in the development of measurement solutions for EV battery manufacturing. This has resulted in the business becoming the established solution for inline thickness measurement and control for the production of EV battery cells.
Chris comments: “Our biggest achievement has been the excellent reputation we’ve built up over the years and what Micro-Epsilon stands for in our customers’ minds. We’ve conducted several surveys and discussions with our customers over the years and the same messages keep coming back: excellent technical knowledge and understanding of their needs, high performance products, and responsive customer service both pre- and post-sales.”
Leadership and mentoring
A key focus for the business over the last five years has been development and mentoring of a leadership team. The company is working with an external coach to deliver bespoke training to the whole UK team, to help them develop and grow, with an emphasis on staying with the business long term and developing their career with Micro-Epsilon. It’s a positive and collaborative environment at Micro-Epsilon UK where the common purpose is based around knowledge transfer. The company has a clear vision, mission and key values that everybody in the business aligns with, forming a positive and inclusive culture
As Chris states: “Our Mission is to build long term relationships with our business partners, enabling them to achieve genuine competitive advantage by using high performance, innovative sensor solutions delivered in a professional manner by a company they can trust.”
Culture counts
The culture at Micro-Epsilon UK has also been a key factor in its success. As Chris explains: “Culture has to be developed over time, based on the key values of the business, its vision and mission, how we operate, how we interact with every person in the team on a daily and weekly basis. It’s very important to establish what I call Knowledge Transfer across the business. We do this continually, engaging in customer projects as a team rather than as individuals. This allows everybody to contribute to the success, as we all have different levels of knowledge, skills and ideas. When we have success, everybody in the team knows they were part of that and we celebrate those successes as a team.”
He continues: “It also has to be fun. When you look at what we do as a business, we provide solutions to customers that often they did not know was possible. This includes making customer products perform better, improving quality and process efficiency and reducing waste. When we help provide these solutions, our customers are really happy we can help them. This customer satisfaction is such a positive motivator – and that’s what makes it fun!”
Work-life balance
In order to perform well and consistently improve over the long term, a healthy work life balance is encouraged at Micro-Epsilon UK and so the company has developed an extensive employee benefits programme, to help the team stay healthy. This ranges from subsidised gym memberships, additional holidays for family celebrations, learning credits for external training, company charitable donations to a personal charity of importance, to subsidised travel to Germany and Austria.
Local support
The company also contributes to and supports its local community in Wirral, Cheshire. As well as sponsoring two local sports teams – U9 football ‘Manor FC’ and Caldy Rugby Club – the business also collaborates with local schools and youth centres, as well as local charities including ‘Positive Futures Liverpool’, an organisation that supports children from deprived communities by helping to inspire and develop them to achieve more with their lives.
Future outlook
The company has seen rapid growth in the last five years and is well positioned for future growth. It already has a significant sales pipeline for the next three to five years. Chris concludes: “With a growing importance in UK manufacturing and more specifically Advanced Manufacturing, high performance sensors and systems from Micro-Epsilon are well positioned to service these industries in the UK. Combined with the continual development of innovative sensors and measurement systems by the Micro-Epsilon group, the next 20 years should be even more successful for the company.”
