58th Dinner on 18th May 2018

The 58th PLSC Annual Dinner was held on 18th May 2018 in the Holiday Inn West Hotel, Peterborough with 134 guests and members attending. 

Allan Arnott was the Master of Ceremonies and wished all an enjoyable evening together, meeting former colleagues and old friends.

Allan welcomed the Club’s Patron David Goldspink, General Manager – IPSD Medium Engines, responsible for the manufacturing and engineering globally, and company guests Andy Curtis, Dave Entwistle, Bill Morris, Richard Porter, Paul Smitheringale, Paul Thompson, Rob Walker and representatives from the Team Gold Award Projects who were to be introduced later.

Before Grace, Allan advised that the Club was raising money for the Company’s Charity Partners Anna’s Hope and Cancer Research. Raffle tickets would be sold during the evening and all money raised would be matched by the company, so he encouraged everyone to be generous.

Footnote: a superb sum of £734 was raised, making a total of £1468 for the Charities. Thanks to all for their generous support.  

Allan pointed out that this year two all new in-house design engines were on display in the room. These engines were produced by a 3-D printer and show finished to enable the business to engage early in the NPI programme with customers.

During the meal a rolling slide show of the Club’s activities of the previous year was shown which was of interest to the members present.

After the meal and following the Loyal Toast, Allan called upon the Club’s retiring President Anna Errico to present the President’s Rose Bowl to the new President, Adrian Talbot.

Adrian was then invited to give his Address.

Adrian welcomed everyone to the evening’s dinner and in particular David Goldspink, the Club’s Patron and thanked him for his support provided to the Club.

For Adrian, it was a great honour to be named President of the Long Service Club following such a long list of distinguished previous presidents, some of whom were there that evening. He thanked the outgoing President, Anna Errico for her management, direction and commitment to the Club over the last two years and the committee for their continued dedication and hard work ensuring the Club continued to thrive and deliver on the requirements of the membership.

Adrian then introduced himself, explaining this was his 40th year with the company having started his career as a technical apprentice on 3rd July 1978 at a small diesel firm based in Stafford called Dorman Diesels. Having worked in various departments including Product Support, Service, Warranty through to, what was known in those days as Publicity, before expanding into sales and marketing and ultimately managing the department at the age of 25. In 1994, Dorman Diesels was acquired by Perkins, and shortly after became known as Perkins Engines (Stafford) Limited. After a short time following the acquisition he was promoted to the position of Marketing Manager with the additional responsibility of managing both the Stafford 4000 Series and Shrewsbury 2000 and 3000 Series products, which were primarily used in trucks, gensets, rail and military applications.

In 1998, Perkins was then acquired by Caterpillar, and all the marketing functions were brought under one Marketing Director, Richard Case, and Adrian was offered a position of Group Literature Manager with responsibility for Perkins sales, service and technical literature globally. After commuting to Peterborough from Stafford for about 18 months, he moved permanently to Peterborough in May 2000 together with his wife and two teenage sons. In 2001, he took on further responsibility and became the Group Communication Manager with responsibility for managing Perkins brand marketing and the internal and external communications functions. During the following 15 years he continued in this role and at points during this time had responsibility for the training department and technical publications. In January of 2016 he moved once more into Perkins Aftermarket as Aftermarket Lifecycle manager reporting into Michael Wright before becoming the Aftermarket Product & Marketing Manager in January 2017, the position he currently holds.

Back to the Club, Adrian reported one of the things the committee has seen over the last few years is a gradual decline in the membership, and they needed to find ways of once again building the membership in order to secure the continued growth of the Club. Adrian hoped to help in utilising some of his marketing experience to promote the Club and ultimately build upon the current membership. He was thinking of perhaps reviewing the membership criteria but also what the Club offered. To that end he requested completion of the questionnaire handed out to everyone that evening with a few simple questions the committee would like feedback on.

This would be a great help in gaining some much-needed input and, hopefully go a long way in securing the future of the Club.

In closing he thanked everyone for coming and wished all an enjoyable evening and asked all to stand for the toast The Company and Guests after which Allan invited David Goldspink to give his response on behalf of the Company.

David opened his address by saying how it was a great personal honour for him to continue to be the Company Patron of this esteemed Club. He thanked Anna for all of her achievements as the Club’s outgoing President and congratulated  Adrian Talbot as the new President for 2018.

He continued by reporting that since the last annual dinner much had changed from a Company perspective, such as having a new Group President, Ramin Younessi, covering Energy and Transportation, the Caterpillar division that Industrial Power Systems Division (IPSD) reports into.

David noted that in 2018 “the world continued to spin a little faster” with existing customers increasing their orders and new customer wins. For Peterborough two brand new engines were completing their development, ready for production early next year, truly exciting times.

David touched on the Pension fund and was pleased to report that it was in a strong position as a result of a very successful investment strategy.

He thanked everyone for their kind attention and finished his interesting, professionally delivered address as he began, by thanking everyone for keeping the Club in such vibrant shape and for their work in promoting Perkins and Caterpillar and all they stand for in the wider community. 

The formal part of the evening moved on to the Presentations, the first of which was the Team Gold Award, presented to a Team in recognition of their support and enhancement of the Industrial Power Systems Division business at Peterborough and associated facilities, through growing the people, products and reputation of the business whilst demonstrating Teamwork, personal Commitment, Excellence and Sustainability. 

This year as usual the submissions were all of high quality and reflected a wide variety of project activity.

Representatives of the top three projects had been invited to the evening’s dinner, and the results were given in reverse order.

In third place was Phase 1 of Project Jigsaw, so named because it involved consolidating the 1103 and 1104 engine assembly test and finish facilities into one in order to make more space for 400 Series production.

The judges were impressed by the team’s achievement to more than double the utilisation of the original 3 and 4-cylinder facilities to achieve world class utilisation. The whole process took strong teamwork within a tight timescale, and production on the consolidated facility successfully started in November last year.

Becky Baxter, Stephen Wilson and Cliff Gillis representing Project Jigsaw were asked to come forward to receive their certificate from David Goldspink.

In second place was the Growth Through Customer Collaboration project - a project that pioneered a new way to win business through close collaboration with customers.

In the past Perkins has sometimes purchased a customer machine and installed an engine to demonstrate its performance and suitability to the customer - and hopefully win an order. The customer then had to re-engineer the installation for their own production.

This was different. Working jointly with the customer’s engineering team to install and integrate our engine into their machine in order to win business has not been done before in this way. The first machine was a telehandler from a major target OEM for the next stage of emissions.

Teamwork, Commitment and Excellence were demonstrated to achieve tight timescales and work to such a standard that the end result was production ready, with no need for the customer to re-engineer it.

The process was so successful that a new Customer Machine Engineering Team was created to deliver this approach with other customers and their machines. Costs and timescales are significantly reduced.

The project has enabled a major shift in relationships with customers, from Perkins being simply a supplier to being regarded as a partner. This brings earlier buy-in from the customer in the sales process, together with increased customer confidence and loyalty.

Ricky Watts and Jonathan Booty representing the Growth through Customer Collaboration project were asked to step forward to receive their certificate from David Goldspink.

This year’s winner of the Team Gold Award stood out as a shining example of what the Award aims to recognise. The Perkins® Smart Cap project involved the invention of a completely new way of communicating with engines in the field at a fraction of the cost of conventional telematics.

The initial invention of one Perkins Engineer, three teams with members in different countries had to be coordinated working round the clock, often outside their day jobs, to deliver this world first product, production-ready, in little over 12 months.

The Perkins® Smart Cap is an oil filler cap with some clever electronics inside it which can replace many of the current filler caps fitted to Perkins engines in the field. A video was shown how it works. Basically, as the engine starts, runs and stops the Perkins® Smart Cap detects engine vibration and stores that data. Making use of Bluetooth technology to communicate with a smartphone through the Perkins® MyEngine App, information about engine location, running hours and more is fed back to a Perkins server where it is visible to both the owner and the distribution network. This enables the owner to see where his engines are, when maintenance is due, what parts to order and where his nearest Distributor is.

Conventionally this sort of communication could only be done with a bulky bit of kit costing around $400 with additional annual subscription costs and only available for electronic engines. The Perkins® Smart Cap sells for less than $50, has no ongoing subscription cost and works on both mechanical and electronic engines. The unique design and the novel way it exploits smartphones has won industry and press acclaim, so much so that just a month previously this product won Gold in the Automotive and Airline Technology category of the prestigious international Edison Awards in the USA.  Previous winners include companies like 3M, Hewlett Packard, Microsoft and NASA, and Perkins was up against competition from the Dow Chemicals Company which came second in the category.

The team produced a world first product, and in doing so demonstrated outstanding Teamwork, Commitment and Excellence.

Unfortunately, the inventor of the Perkins® Smart Cap, Chris Green could not be there that evening, but Allan invited the diners to put their hands together for Ian Bradford along with George Bushell from the Perkins® Smart Cap project as they came forward to receive the 2018 Team Gold Award shield and their certificate from David Goldspink.

Ian Bradford gave a short acceptance speech on behalf of the team, thanking the Long Service Club evaluating committee for recognising the team’s work in this way.

Honorary Life Membership is bestowed to members on reaching their 80th birthday, in recognition of their services to the Club and the Company or in special circumstances.  John Jacklin was present and came forward to receive his Certificate from David Goldspink.

Names of the other qualifying members, who were not at the dinner and would receive their certificates by post, are: 

Tess Carnall, Deryck Cook, Derek Everitt, Dennis Forman, Keith Gammage, B Gilbey, R Harding, R Hill, Dennis Hook, Les Kitchener, Brian Meadows, O Medlock, Mervyn Montgomery, Shirley Russell, J Ryan, David Smith, John Wheatley, Ken Wright.

The Quarter Centurion Award is presented to the member who has made an outstanding and special contribution to the Club, the Company or the Community, locally or nationally. The Executive Committee considers all nominations from the membership before deciding upon the winner.

Allan went on to say this year’s winner will be more surprised than anyone because he thought it was being awarded to someone else! He has made great contributions to both the Company and to the Club, promoting both tirelessly. Allan read out a citation, reproduced below.

Citation:

He will know who he is when I tell you that he is regarded by many as the spiritual father of Perkins Germany and he was General Manager there for about 20 years.

David Foster, or Herr Doktor Foster to give him his full professional title, joined Perkins in 1968 as an Engineering Graduate Trainee; went to work for Perkins Germany in 1970 as Project Co-ordinator and was promoted to lead the technical team. He came back to England in 1981, working in European and later International Engine Sales based in Peterborough, with his wife, Ruth, whom he had met in Germany and with whom he has a son and two daughters.

He returned to Germany in 1985 and was General Manager of Perkins Motoren GmbH until he retired in 2005. While in this role he earned his PhD from the St Stephen University of Godollo near Budapest with a thesis on diesel engine performance (with support from colleagues in Perkins), specifically the effect of varying fuel temperature on different parameters, which took him 5 years of work to complete.

The Perkins Echo in January 2005 reported this achievement with the rhyme “David Foster avoided Gloucester / In a shower of rain / He went to study in Godollo / and added Doctor to his name!”

He was, and still is, an active member of the German Construction  Manufacturers’ Association through which he continues to promote, the name of Perkins.

Employees held David in high esteem, feeling that he made it a special place to work with a real family atmosphere. David still continues to organise an annual reunion for Perkins Motoren retirees and their partners, and the event is so popular he is considering opening it up to all who used to work in the German office.  Sadly, the Perkins Germany office was closed at the end of 2013.

David greatly values his friendships with Perkins people and is a long-time member and strong supporter of the Long Service Club. He always attends the Annual Dinner at which he always makes time to talk with old friends and colleagues. He and Ruth have been on some of our Club holidays.

David joined the Executive Committee and rarely misses Committee meetings, dialling in from his home in Germany. He can be relied on for sound counsel and is a Team Gold Award judge.

David is our webmaster, developing our website from its early beginnings. Keeping it right up to date with news and new reports, especially following the Dinner, is a time-consuming task for which the Club owes him a great debt of gratitude. Through the website he has become the first point of contact for many owners of vintage Perkins engines, many of them owners of marine engines including outboard motors, who cannot get a dealer to help them. Through this, David has helped dozens of owners and he is a great ambassador for Perkins.

Because David’s home is in Germany, he has become a German citizen, but we won’t hold that against him and it may prove useful in the Brexit years ahead!

Please put your hands together for our Quarter Centurion of 2018, as I ask David Foster to step forward to receive his award from David Goldspink. 

As David receives the trophy, you will be glad to know that, despite his second nationality, his keepsake is a crystal tankard which contains one Imperial Pint – Not a European Litre!

Citation ends 

David came forward to a standing ovation to receive the Award.

To round the evening off, Allan Arnott called upon David Goldspink to draw the raffle which had been running all evening, and the winners came forward to collect their prizes. 

Allan thanked all the guests and the Company for their continued support for the evening’s event, including Richard Graves for providing the services of Toby Mears our photographer. He further thanked the Holiday Inn Duty Manager Vash Taylor and Restaurant Manager Paige Fenner and her staff for making the evening so enjoyable. Finally the Club looked forward to seeing many members over the coming year at some of the great Club events which have been organised and advised the date for next year’s dinner as Friday 17th May 2019 at the Holiday Inn.

To conclude, some photographs taken during the evening by the company photographer: