ALS Mechatronic appoints operations director

Published by

Peter Davison

Blake Harrison

Gloucestershire-based automation engineering company ALS Mechatronic has appointed Blake Harrison as Operations Director to its board and to lead business operations through the company’s next stage of growth - streamlining productivity to ensure the company’s high-quality standards are maintained while continuing to make ALS Mechatronic a great place to work for its strong team of now 40 employees.

ALS Mechatronic was set up in 2002 and specialises in the design, build and installation of bespoke factory automation systems, control systems, container handling machinery, vision inspection systems and robotics; typically automating with machinery and software, repeatable labour-intensive manufacturing processes.

Blake will be based at the company’s headquarters, a 20,000sq.ft. manufacturing facility near Winchcombe in North Gloucestershire and will oversee the development of the company’s new second site, an 18,000 sq. ft facility in Alcester near Redditch which will house its CNC machine shop and will enable full machinery automation line assembly for QA and testing ahead of shipping to its worldwide customer base.

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Andrew Steward, founder and managing director for ALS Mechatronic said: With over a decade of manufacturing experience and a proven track record for developing ‘lean manufacturing’ businesses to highly profitable, efficient, and sustainable organisations, Blake’s strong commercial achievements, strategic planning and leadership qualities are exactly what ALS needs to transition the company to its next stage of growth.

"I am looking forward to seeing how the business now develops with Blake on the team.”

Blake said: “I am joining ALS at a very exciting time. The business is growing at a fantastic rate and has assembled a strong, highly skilled team of unique individuals.

"The challenge for me which I am relishing, will be to ensure we can continue this same growth trajectory, while improving productivity, project management and profitability and that our customers regard us as the industry benchmark for quality, price, technical capability, service and innovation.”

Peter Davison

Peter Davison is deputy editor of The Business Magazine. He has spent his life in journalism – doing work experience in newsrooms in and around Bristol while still at school, and landing his first job on a local newspaper aged 19. By 28 he was the youngest newspaper editor in the country. An early advocate of online news, he spent the first years of the 2000s telling his bosses that the internet posed both the biggest opportunity and greatest threat to the newspaper industry and the art of journalism. He was right on both counts. Since 2006 he has enjoyed a career as a freelance journalist. He lives in rural Wiltshire with one wife, two children, and three cats.