Pictured above: (l-r) Jonathan Dimbleby, Adrian Chell, Philip Mauldridge, Terry Somerfield (all ZF Lemforder) with Graeme Allinson (Barlcays Corporate)

Solihull automotive manufacturer ZF Lemforder UK Ltd is celebrating after winning two top accolades at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers' (IMechE) Manufacturing Excellence Awards (MX) 2010 in London. 

They won the Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG) Award for Logistics and Resource Efficiency and Barclays Corporate Award for Best Financial Management.

There were 12 awards up for grabs at the awards attended by Mark Prisk, Minister for Business and Enterprise. 

Mr Prisk said: "Manufacturing and engineering are vital to the economy. The UK is renowned for its high-value, advanced manufacturing products and solutions and we must ensure that companies, like those recognised by the MX Awards, are given the support they require to exploit their competitive advantage and thrive in an increasingly competitive world."

Adrian Chell is Site Manager at ZF, which manufactures vehicle sets in excess of 70,000 annually for Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) vehicles. "Winning these MX awards is a great achievement and really gives the team the recognition they deserve for their efforts and passion to achieve excellence in a very difficult period.  We have a showcase plant that has weathered a storm, but we believe we have confirmed our position as the number one chassis systems supplier in the UK"

Graeme Allinson, Head of Manufacturing, Transport and Logistics at Barclays Corporate, congratulated ZF Lemforder saying: "For successful manufacturers, financial management is always important, but never more so than over the past two years. Good financial management highlights the often unsung heroes of business, the CFOs and financial directors, who are regularly the difference between failure and success."

Manufacturing Advisory Service (MAS) West Midlands has worked closely with ZF Lemforder. Simon Griffiths, Chief Executive, said: "The company is a great example of a progressive manufacturer and really impressed the judges with their proactive response to some of the financial issues that they encountered during the recession - extending credit terms to customers, whilst maintaining payments to suppliers and managing to remain financially secure took concerted effort. 

"Its four hour supply window for Just in Time delivery of complex chassis modules is a task in itself - but achieving this consistently, at extremely high quality levels, whilst not stopping the customer assembly line demands some of the best logistics systems and a strong delivery team. ZF Lemforder richly deserves to win both Awards." 

ZF Lemforder was also a finalist in the following categories this year: IMechE Award for Integrated e-Business, PricewaterhouseCoopers Award for Customer Focus, Technology Strategy Board Award for Process Innovation and Professional Engineering Award for People Effectiveness. 

The firm forms part of the ZF Group and manufactures parts for JLR vehicles, namely the Discovery 4 and Range Rover Sport. It is a major supplier of parts to the automotive sector worldwide providing suspension, steering systems and components. With JLR it produces corner modules which consist of a wheel end assembly including hub, knuckle, control arm, driveshaft, wheel disks and brake callipers. 

MX is Europe's most established and recognised best practice manufacturing benchmarking scheme. Throughout the competition a leading panel of industry experts from organisations including MAS, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), WMG, Barclays Corporate and Autodesk have been on hand to provide free business advice to entrants, worth more than £20,000.