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Last week was truly a special time for our company as we had the privilege of hosting Rear Admiral Doull CBE! This visit follows us receiving the Collaboration & Diligence award by the Dreadnought Alliance Supply Forum. Showing our family-owned business based in Halesowen can compete with the biggest engineering names.

Supporting The Royal Navy’s Submarine Fleet

During the visit, Rear Admiral Doull witnessed our advanced forging process with a 20-tonne shaft being forged on our 4000-tonne press. He also observed our meticulous craftsmanship and quality control measures that goes into every one of our produced components, essential for the Royal Navy’s submarine fleet.

Jon Warr Sales Director, “It was an honour to welcome the Rear Admiral Doull to Somers Forge. This visit reaffirms our commitment to supply the highest quality critical components for the UK submarine programme and underscores the importance of local manufacturing in supporting the national defence effort”.

New Brinell Hardness Tester

We are continuing to invest in the latest technologies and equipment to meet the needs of our customers. Our most recent investment is in our testing equipment, investing £180,000 in a Foundrax X-BHD Brinell hardness Tester. Foundrax are widely known to have the highest hardness performance within the industry and build machines to operate in the toughest industrial environments, making it a perfect fit for us. Having this machine will ensure we continue to produce products to the highest quality and remove human error.

Benefits of the Foundrax X-BHD

Investing in this machine was an important decision as it provides a high degree of reliability, repeatability and accuracy that is key to achieving long-term success. Dependable data, and accurate readings that are gathered will allow us to improve performance over time. Other benefits of this machine include auditable processes, pass and fail statuses as well as decreasing the test cycle by 50%.

To ensure parts are produced with the highest level of precision, we will be placing sawing and testing operations in one designated area which will improve and increase workflow. The installation of the integral Brintronic automatic microscope in the machine has opened up a whole new world of possibilities for heavy engineering. With this technology, it is now possible to achieve laboratory-like results in a heavy engineering setting! This new technology allows direct readings and recordings of results to be gathered without any extra effort or time, providing valuable insights and data that can be used to improve processes and efficiency.

Features the machine has include being able to measure multiple diameters and having a heavy-duty static test bed what can test large components. The equipment also has longevity in mind and comes with an internal component of the Type B and Type D test head, which are rated 4x factor of safety, and actuator column is rated at 6x.

Recent Investments

Investment is an integral part of any company’s growth and is at the fore front of our minds. Most recently, we have invested in a new CNC vertical borer and acquired the Oldbury based engineering firm, A&B Richardson Engineering. This has further increased our capabilities and capacity to meet the ever-increasing demand for precision machined forgings. This new investment will ensure that we can continue to provide the highest quality products and services to our customers.

We want to ensure that we are protecting our company through preventing cyber-attacks. We are proud to have renewed our Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus certification, (a government backed scheme) and continuing, as a company to put measures in place that further heighten our security.

To pass the certification we had to meet five main technical control themes. These included:

1. Firewall Controls
2. Secure configuration for devices and software
3. User access control to data and systems
4. Virus & Malware protection
5. Hardware and Software update management

The Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2022, found in 2021, 39% of business have identified a cyber-attack. Whilst this percentage is still high, since 2017 this figure has decreased by 7%, showing that through cyber security, we can identify and act against cyber-attacks

At the start of 2022, the Cyber Essentials scope was extended to further protect businesses. Some of these changes include:

• All Cloud-based services now must be included and tested
• More stringent Passwords and two-factor authentication rules
• Unsupported software must be on quarantined machines
• Updated rules around Routers and Firewall settings.

In addition to remain secure, we also follow the most up to date Government, National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) guidelines.

With the ongoing security threats the NCSC have been launching “Cyber Aware” campaigns across the country to remind individuals and companies, that no matter the size, it is crucial to protect themselves.

The “Cyber Aware” campaign, amongst others, promotes two main actions:

1. Strengthening passwords by using 3 random words (3RW)
2. Enabling 2-step verification (2SV), also known as multi-factor authentication.

This month we are putting these two measures fully into place and are promoting the campaign internally, encouraging our employees to extend this security beyond the business into their private lives.  This will not only go one step further in protecting employee’s sensitive data, but it will also mean that every individual acts as a firewall to protect our business against potential cyber-attacks.

As part of our policies, all employees undergo continuous training on cyber security and as part of this, and all will be fully trained on how to set up and use 2 step verification methods as well as advice on how strengthen passwords.