Latest News

During 2015, Helipebs Controls and the Employee Forum decided to raise funds for the locally based charity the ‘National Star College’ (www.natstar.ac.uk) which culminated in a grand Christmas draw for numerous prizes, many of which had been donated by our suppliers and local companies.

To continue building on existing relationships and making new friends in China a second visit was made by Helipebs representative Mark Confaloni and Qing Lin (Join in China), this time based around the Jiangsu, Wuxi and Shanghai Provinces.

There was plenty to smile about at the Helipebs Group recent AGM which announced record sales and profits for the year ending 31^st March 2014. Group Chairman, Ross Cole, was pleased to announce sales of £5.234 million, up 26% on the previous year. Profits also exceeded targets. In his report he says “Helipebs Controls has had an exceedingly busy year in all areas of the business.

Following on from a two week period of work experience in 2014, Poppy Woodward has now joined Helipebs Controls as a fully-fledged apprentice; she will be on an advanced mechanical apprenticeship.The first 10 months of her training are taking place at Gloucester Engineering Training (GET) and for the final 3 years she will be on site at Helipebs Controls and continually assessed by GET.

Helipebs Controls is pleased to announce the sponsorship of the Longlevens under 10 football team. The team has moved up to the 7 a side game and has had an impressive start to the season with good wins against impressive sides already.

Helipebs Controls was recently pleased to host a visit from the Jiangsu Jinshi Machinery Group (JMP) which had been arranged by the local ‘Join in China’.

Helipebs is pleased once again to confirm that they will be exhibiting at Offshore Europe 2015. The show, which returns to Aberdeen every other year, this time, will be between 8^th and 11^th September.

For many years, Helipebs Controls has provided a repair service to overhaul and repair cylinders which have been supplied into operational service.

In recent years, volumes and cylinder types have increased to the extent that the Company has invested in order to create a dedicated repair section which will ensure that urgent repairs are handled in parallel with the manufacture of new product.

Once received from the customer, a strip report is prepared which clearly identifies those items which are to be replaced or refurbished and then a detailed quotation is submitted. On receipt of an order, the repair work is undertaken including final assembly, test and paint so that a quality product is delivered back to the customer thus providing many more years of serviceable life.

​Continuing its push into the China markets, Helipebs representative Mark Confaloni and Qing Lin recently attended the CIPPE (China International Petroleum & Petrochemical Equipment) exhibition in Beijing. Helipebs are working closely with Qing Lin (Head of China Desk) from “Join in China” (a B2B company set up to assist UK businesses to establish themselves in China). Mark says “working with Join in China has enabled us to really push forward with our plans in further establishing ourselves. Qing is a great support to us”.

Following on from the success of last year, Helipebs Controls decided to enter two teams to play in The Milestone School Golf Day which took place on Sunday 24th May at the Rodway Golf Club. The Milestone School is a community Special School in Gloucester that provides for approximately 290 children with a wide range of special educational needs. The competition was again run as a Texas Scramble with a 128 players (32 teams) taking part and the rules required each player to take at least three tee shots during the 18 holes. There were prizes for 1st, 2nd & 3rd Place as well as the longest drive and nearest the pin. Helipebs was represented by Team 1 (Terry Williams, Andy Roberts, Geoff Davis & Chris Davis) who finished in 16th place, and Team 2 (Chris Nicks, James Denley, Gerald White & Steve Christie) who finished in 11th place. Chris Nicks was awarded a prize for being nearest to the pin on the 18th hole. This is the 10th year in which the event has been run and a total of just over £1,200 was raised on the day.

Helipebs Controls is pleased to announce the appointment of Phil Weager as their new QA Manager. Phil brings with him a wealth of experience in both engineering and quality sectors including ISO9001, 14001 and 18001.

Helipebs was pleased to be invited once again to participate in the latest Dragons Den event being hosted by Elmbridge Junior School.

To help raise money for school funds at the summer fayre, to be held in June, nineteen teams of one to three 10 and 11 year old, year 6 pupils, worked to come up with ideas on how to make as much money as possible. To qualify for a start-up loan to purchase what was required to get each money making scheme off the ground, they had to present to ‘the Dragons’ their ideas. Each idea had to include a Powerpoint presentation covering costs, projected sales and profit. Each team will also have to run their own stall at the summer fayre as well as pay back the loan, with interest.

Harry Anderton, Commercial Director, said “it was a great honour to be asked again having fulfilled the role as one of the Dragons the last time the school ran the event. Everyone who took part should be really proud of themselves for the time, effort and planning involved. I will definitely be going along on 19^th June to see for myself how the projects materialise from ideas to planning right through to the end result”.

“We are proud to support grassroots football at a local level” says Harry Anderton, Commercial Director“ and to see the progress the girls are making year on year is extremely rewarding for us.”

Four years ago, the girls began their flight into competitive league football, and it was a bit of a steep learning curve. Played 12, won 0 - but came away smiling, wanting to carry on, and determined to win at least 1 match in the following season. They achieved their goal by winning 3 matches.

Part of the Helipebs Group philosophy is to hold ‘Team Briefings’ over an extended lunch hour when the entire workforce is invited to the meeting to receive a power ‘point presentation’ on the performance of the Company together with a prediction for the future workload and growth plans in the coming months and years.

Once again, Helipebs Controls is proud to be involved with Elmbridge Junior School. This is the second year that it has been involved in promoting engineering to the school’s year 6 students.

​Harry Anderton, Commercial Director, in announcing the internal promotion advised “Jolian has been working for Helipebs since June 2006 having come from a lifting gear engineering background. Since marrying in 2008, he has been working for the company from home in Lichfield as a proactive internal salesman and in developing his role he has been backing up the external field sales as well as helping train any new members of staff.

Helipebs was once again exhibiting at OSEA in Singapore last month. Taking a larger stand than in 2012, the show was even more popular than previous with attendees from all around the world.

Mark Confaloni, Sales Office Manager, said “it gave us the opportunity to catch up with both existing customers as well as new potential ones. Sometimes we were so busy that we had a queue of people wanting to speak with us. It made even taking a coffee break or stopping for lunch quite difficult at times. It is true to say that we didn’t get the chance to have a proper look at the exhibition ourselves.”

Harry Anderton commented that “many new leads were collected and these will be followed up in coming weeks. I will be visiting the area again in March to hold meetings with potential distributors and meet up with people we missed at the show. We believe the show to be so successful that we have already registered our interest in booking a stand for OSEA 2016”.

The show attracted more than 18,400 visitors from 65 countries/regions to source new products and technologies with many establishing new contacts and business relationships. There were more than 1,500 exhibitors from 49 countries/regions including 19 international group pavilions all representing an impressive showcase of products. The OSEA international conference, running alongside the exhibition, recorded an unprecedented increase growth of over 30% in attendees showing that the event is the preferred knowledge exchange platform in the region.