Hill has been instrumental for WITTMANN Group business in the UK for well over thirty years. He began his working life as an engineering apprentice with GKN Kent Alloys. His next position was as a service engineer for Battenfeld UK. Barry was thus very well placed to integrate the two businesses when WITTMANN acquired the Battenfeld global injection molding business on April 1, 2008.
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From left to right: Barry Hill, Daniel Williams, Tracy Cadman. |
Michael Wittmann, WITTMANN Group General Manager, said that “Barry will be sorely missed within the WITTMANN family. No anniversary celebration, trade exhibition or conference will be the same without him. However, we realize that we cannot hold Barry back from a very well earned retirement. Europe’s ski slopes and motor biking highways will surely benefit from our loss!”
Come the new year, WITTMANN BATTENFELD UK will be jointly run by Daniel Williams and Tracy Cadman, responsible for sales and finance respectively. Michael Wittmann adds that “we are delighted with the WITTMANN BATTENFELD UK succession plan and we give Daniel and Tracy every support. The UK and Irish markets are significant for us – not least for their manufacturing creativity and their capacity to enjoy innovation – our current theme and slogan for K 2019 and beyond.”
Barry adds that “I have every confidence in passing the baton on to Daniel and Tracy. Like myself, Dan has come up through manufacturing via the apprentice route and therefore has a solid grounding in the issues and principles of industrial life. Our customers are in very good hands. It has been a pleasure and privilege to serve the WITTMANN Group through my career. It is rare indeed to work today for a global business that adheres so faithfully to true family values. Over the transition period of the next six months I am looking forward to steadily handing over the UK reins and to seeing many old friends and customers on site and at the K 2019 in October in Düsseldorf.”
The WITTMANN Group
The WITTMANN Group is a worldwide leader in the production of injection molding machines, robots and peripheral equipment for the plastics processing industry, headquartered in Vienna/Austria and consisting of two main divisions: WITTMANN BATTENFELD and WITTMANN. They jointly operate the companies of the group with eight production plants in five countries, and its additional sales and service companies are active with 34 facilities on all important plastics markets around the world.
WITTMANN BATTENFELD pursues the further expansion of its market position as an injection molding machine manufacturer and specialist for state-of-the-art process technologies. As a supplier of comprehensive, modern machine technology in modular design, the company meets both present and future market demands for plastics injection molding equipment.
The WITTMANN product portfolio includes robots and automation systems, material handling systems, dryers, gravimetric and volumetric blenders, granulators, temperature controllers and chillers. With this diversified range of peripheral units, WITTMANN offers plastics processors solutions to cover all production requirements, ranging from independent production cells to integrated plant-wide systems.
The syndication of the various segments under the umbrella of the WITTMANN Group has led to complete connectivity between the various product lines, for the benefit of plastics processors with an increasing demand for seamless integration of processing machinery with automation and peripherals.
