Pictures show, from left to right, Liam Greaves with the National ICME President , Tony Sartorius Hon FICME & National ICME President, Charlie Thomas & National ICME President.
At the recent ICME Awards and Fellow’s Lunch National President Andrew Laing presented Liam Greaves, Charlie Thomas and Tony Sartorius of Alucast Ltd with their awards making a triple success for the company.
Liam’s main prize as the winner of the Industry Contribution Award (non-ferrous) was a travel bursary, sponsored by one of The Worshipful Company of Founders’ charities, to be used to fund attendance at UK and international foundry-related events in support of his professional development within the castings industry.
Liam started at West Midlands based Alucast Ltd almost a decade ago as an Apprentice, winning ICME’s Apprentice of the Year Award in 2018, and has now progressed to become a Foundry Engineer for the company, leading on many process and quality improvement projects for the company.
In particular Liam was selected as the winner for his work on developing thin-wall body-in-white aluminium castings, driving innovation in lightweight automotive manufacturing for the company as well as his ambition and positive attitude to his company and career in the industry.
At the lunch Liam was presented with the trophy which had been cast in Yorkshire by a previous winner of the award, Mark Spooner of Sylatech Ltd. The company offered to design a trophy that ICME could present to the winner of the award at future awards lunches.
His employer, Alucast, was founded in the late sixties in Walsall and in 2001 all manufacturing moved to one plant in Wednesbury, the current Alucast site. At this time Tony Sartorius and John Swift took ownership of the business and the company continued to develop, acquiring a machining business in 2008. This led to growing sales and the company now has a TO of around £8m with 105 people now employed, and offers a single-source supply of sand, gravity and high-pressure aluminium castings for a wide range of applications including automotive, transport and general engineering.
Another of Alucast’s young team, Charlie Thomas, received the institute’s PC Nix Award for the best apprentice from a non-ferrous foundry company. Charlie has been with the company for 3 years, having joined from school on an apprenticeship. Her first foundry experience was via a two-week work experience in a West Midlands foundry with a CNC machine shop. She then enrolled on a two-week intensive manufacturing course at Advance – Dudley College of Technology before joining Alucast. Her next steps are to continue her education whilst developing her career, and learn more about supplier management and quality assurance – her company are confident she has a bright future.
Tony and John have always championed people development with new apprentices taken on each year and several of their apprentices have won awards over recent years. This support for future proofing was recognised by ICME with Tony being honoured with an Honorary Fellowship in recognition of his long-standing leadership and influence in UK casting and manufacturing.
As Tony said, “These achievements reflect Alucast’s mission to lead the way in engineering excellence, skills development, and future-ready manufacturing. I am very proud to receive this honour from my peers and thank the ICME for this award.”
