James Dawson gains Queen's Award for Enterprise

By Liz White, ERJ staff

Lincoln, UK-Fenner plc unit James Dawson & Son Ltd has been given a Queen's Award for Enterprise in International Trade for 2005. The company, “has been granted this prestigious award in official recognition of our international business development,” said a statement from the Lincoln-based firm.

“Overseas sales to 18 countries have increased by 62 percent over the last three years,” the group added. The US and Germany have been particularly good overseas markets for the group, and sales to China are also increasing, the company added.

James Dawson has “invested considerably over recent years to develop our global business of specialist hoses for OEM commercial vehicles and diesel engine manufacturers such as Caterpillar, Perkins, Cummins Engines, DaimlerChrysler, JCB and Volvo,” the firm commented.

Investment has gone into R&D to design new products to meet increasingly tight environmental regulation, while continuously developing cost-effective manufacturing processes, James Dawson said.

In line with the success of this approach, the firm has increased staff at Lincoln from 200 in 2001, to 300 currently, and is recruiting to add a further 30 this year. Total employment is now well over 400, and includes workers at the firm's Poynton, UK production unit, plus those in Shanghai in China and at a distribution warehouse in Manheim, Pennsylvania.