Diamond tipped medway company heads up European project
For many years the performance of our manufacturing industry has been reliant upon an unregulated supply chain of tools manufacturers and incredible as it may seem, in this modern age of high-tech engineering, there is no scientifically based measurement covering the quality or suitability of Diamond Tooling.
Micro Diamond Tools (MDT), part of Epsilon Holdings Limited, the Medway City Estate, Rochester, Kent based diamond tool and equipment manufacturer, has been granted an award by the European Commission, DG XII, C, to lead a group of European industrial companies in a research project entitled «Establishment of Standards for the measurement of the performance of Diamond Tools in Sawing and Drilling operations».
The project will take place in 2 stages and the total duration will be 30 months. Imperial College, London (Royal School of Mines) and University of Greenwich School of Engineering in Chatham, Kent, will be co-ordinating and performing the scientific research while the project itself will be co-ordinated by Epsilon’s Managing Director, Alec Coutroubis, a well known expert in this field. The scope of the project is European and it’s aim is to offer the tool users the quality and safety assurance and protection against sub-standard and frequently unsafe tools that have been made available in large quantities throughout the European Market in recent years. It will also help the domestic European manufacturers and reward their commitment to technical excellence, often frustrated by unfair competition.
Alec Coutroubis commented as follows:
«We are delighted that this long discussed need of setting standards in our industry in finally happening and we are grateful to Brussels that they recognised the need and are supporting us in this effort. I would also like to thank the companies that have already expressed their support and interest in joining forces with us and I look forward to extending the group and involving more entities related to our multi million pound ECU industry. It gives me great satisfaction that this long standing dream is on its way to becoming true and I am grateful to the academics that have been supporting me with such warmth and interest. I am finally very pleased that Kent will be the focal point of such an interesting European project»