SOUTH WEST PRECISION ENGINEERING FIRM HELPS TO BOWL OVER COMPETITION IN BARCLAYS ONE SMALL STEP INITIATIVE

UK Precision, a precision engineering company based in Somerset, knows which side it’s batting for when the winners of Barclays One Small Step Competition are announced on 15 July 2010. The company helped business man Frank Thorogood, owner of Sidearm, develop and engineer prototypes of a product that could change the way in which cricket is practised the world over. Sidearm™ offers high quality batting practice, allowing one person to provide a batsman with quick, accurate, swinging and seaming deliveries with little effort. Replicating all the rhythms and trajectories of a real bowler, Sidearm™ gives the most effective batting practice possible. World class cricketers Graham Gooch and Paul Grayson see the Sidearm™ as “the most important improvement to batting practice in a generation”. Pace, Bounce, swing and seam can easily be generated from the full length of the pitch and one person can throw to another for hours on end! A complex engineering process lies behind the success of Sidearm™ and UK Precision was approached by Frank Thorogood to bring his ideas to life after prototypes from China failed to come up to scratch. Frank comments, “I knew that I could rely on a UK company to understand what was required and UK Precision demonstrated its dedication and expertise in its approach to the manufacture of prototypes for Sidearm™.” Applications Engineer Emlyn Jones from UK Precision explains what was involved, “Although at first glance the product looks like a simple piece of engineering, it was actually a lot more complicated and needed six or seven set ups in order to successfully manufacture the prototype.” UK Precision used software Solid Works to view the 3D model of the product and then fed the information into a Computer Aided Engineering programme to execute a virtual machining process that would generate the programme for the workshop machine. The work was then carried out on a Yang 1000 vertical machining centre with a variety of work holding devices. At every stage of the manufacturing process UK Precision made checks to ensure that each part of the product, fashioned from natural polypropylene, complies with precise measurements. The company prides itself on full traceability on any job it undertakes. On Sidearm™ as with many of its other jobs, the same person carried out all the machining guaranteeing a consistent approach. Frank Thorogood is clearly hoping that the outcome of the Barclays competition will see him start to manufacture up to 10,000 Sidearms™ in the next 12 months and the full data sheets provided by UK Precision will help him to provide the necessary information to the manufacturer of his choice. Emlyn Jones says, “At UK Precision we really excel in taking a product from its very early stages and then getting it to the point of production. We all wish Frank every success in the forthcoming Barclays competition and UK Precision will definitely be batting for Sidearm™ to bowl the judges over next month!” For more details on Sidearm™ visit: www.sidearm-cricket.com or to vote in the Barclays competition visit: www.takeonesmallstep.co.uk/Entry/View/2065.

Tags: