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Safety consultancy splits from TÜV SÜD after four years

30 October, 2014

The machine safety specialist Safety Systems Technology (SST) has divested itself from TÜV SÜD, which acquired the business in 2010, alongside Laidler Associates. SST will now operate again as an independent company, based in Halifax.

Explaining the reasons for becoming independent again, SST managing director Mark Smailes says: “We are a specialist machinery safety business with an established history. It’s important though that we are clearly seen as independent from those businesses which conduct the assessment and certification work to avoid any conflict of interest. The end-customer needs to be assured that the work being carried out is firstly necessary and secondly it ensures compliance.”

SST says that its customers will find the transition seamless. Current and forthcoming contracts will continue and all of SST’s staff has transferred to the newly-independent business. It will continue to deliver machinery safety services on a global basis, and is currently completing projects in the UK, Europe and the Middle East.

TÜV SÜD and SST will still work closely and will provide customers with integrated machinery safety systems, when needed.

Smailes: important to be independent

One of the advantages of operating as a stand-alone business, Smailes believes, is that SST will be more flexible and able to respond rapidly to customers, which can be a challenge as part of a larger organisation.

“It’s an interesting time for us to become independent again,” he says. “We have been seeing a great deal of work coming from the engineering sector with machine tool upgrades being particularly busy. I think this is a good sign for the UK manufacturing economy as it indicates that businesses have a certain amount of capital to invest and that they are expecting their machines to be heavily utilised in the near future.”




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