EuroWire July 2023

Focus on UK

Latest beneficiary of Wired for Good campaign Alloy Wire International (AWI) has made the seventh donation in its ‘Wired for Good’ campaign, providing £5,000 to Sands, a charity that is committed to saving babies’ lives and supporting bereaved parents. The UK manufacturer of round, flat and profile wire has now spent £35,000 on backing local charities and causes close to its employees’ hearts, and the latest funding boost was made after several workers wanted to pledge their support to Sands. With 13 babies a day stillborn or dying within four weeks of birth in the UK, the financial assistance will be used to support all of the charity’s work, including the operating costs of its free helpline, face-to-face bereavement support groups, working with healthcare professionals and research that will save more babies’ lives. “Unfortunately, everyone knows some- one who has been affected by miscarriage and baby loss, and that is why the work Sands does is so important,” said Adam Shaw, financial director of Alloy Wire International. “There are a lot of parents at AWI, and we never want to imagine the thought of coming to terms with losing any of our children. However, we also acknowledge that if this tragic situation ever happens, the right

Saranne Moreno from Sands (right), with Alloy Wire International’s Adam Shaw and James Gill

wire after bending and presents it to the press, which then assembles the bracket. The lumbar structure, which is made from 5mm galvanised spring steel over-moulded in polypropylene, supports various holes for wires and a fan vent, along with clips to position the wires and tubes that hold a plastic air bag in place, while facilitating controls for a massage function. The production run originally amounted to 70,000 parts, but William Hughes is now producing 700,000 units per annum. AWI launched its Wired for Good campaign to celebrate its 75 th year in business in 2021, with the aim to donate funds to local community groups and charities. So far, the company has supported Mary Stevens Hospice, the Chris Westwood Charity for Children with Physical Disabilities, the Giving Hands Mission, Acorns Children’s Hospice, Santa’s Black Country Toy Appeal and Tough Enough to Care. Alloy Wire International www.alloywire.com Sands www.sands.org.uk support the work that we do, whether that’s paying for a half-day face-to-face bereavement care workshop and training a new befriender to offer peer support, to providing a bereaved family with a memory box to help create and keep safe precious memories of their baby.”

bereavement care and support needs to be in place.” by pregnancy loss or the death of a baby, with 91,500 people assisted through its bereavement support services in 2022 alone. This support was provided through helpline calls and emails, GriefChat, a Facebook support group and the charity’s own online community. In addition, nearly 2,000 memory boxes and 11,134 bereavement support books have been supplied to hospitals and community services across the UK. Saranne Moreno, partnership develop- ment lead at Sands, said, “Receiving financial support from businesses like Alloy Wire International is so important to our charity, especially post-Covid, when the financial landscape is extremely complex. Every penny of AWI’s £5,000 donation will be used to Sands helps anyone affected

Over-moulded lumbar structure William Hughes Ltd has been helping a European car manufacturer to develop an over-moulded carrier plate and wire frame for use as the backrest on the driver and passenger seats in its range of saloon cars and SUVs. What started out ten years ago as a reasonably simple wire assembly project, involving only wires with a plastic back plate pressed into them, has evolved with William Hughes’s guidance into a more sophisticated over-moulded assembly

with a pressed bracket. This achieves a number of benefits, including reduced assembly time. Production has now moved to Bulgaria, where William Hughes has created an additional fully automated robotic cell dedicated to this assembly at its factory in Plovdiv. The robot takes the

The over-moulded lumbar structure assembly developed by William Hughes

William Hughes Ltd www.wmhughes.co.uk

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July 2023