Bespoke furniture manufacturer Thinking Space Systems Ltd has been selected as winner of the Taylor Made Computer Solutions Award for the Best Use of Technology, part of this year’s South Coast Business Awards.
The awards which were organised by the Southern Daily Echo in conjunction with Trethowans Solicitors, were held at the Grand De Vere Hotel in Southampton. With special guest speaker Sharron Davis, businesses across Hampshire joined together, where the winners of each of the eight awards were announced.
The Romsey-based control room furniture manufacturer went on to scoop the award for their innovative use of CAD design software. Thinking Space was able to demonstrate to the Award Judges how the company has continued to invest in the CAD software, supplied by Adris, which now forms an integral part of the design to manufacture process.
“Thinking Space particularly impressed the judges with their strong commitment to the use of technology with a significant investment in software that has streamlined business processes and has encouraged growth. It is fair to say one of the challenges of managing bespoke projects is the ability to control and contain costs to ensure expectations are met and true flexibility in design is shown, but not at the expense of profitability. By engaging in technology and fine tuning their AutoCAD system in the way that they have, Thinking Space clearly have an exciting future and are certainly doing their bit in keeping British Manufacturing alive,” explained Judges.
The cutting edge software produces design drawings which are not only used by the sales team at the proposal stage, but through to manufacturing, as every furniture component is fully itemised on the drawing.
This has reduced production time along with the risk of error and has resulted in the company being able to increase their manufacturing capacity whilst still maintaining the high standards of quality. Since it was introduced, the company has seen significant growth, resulting in their relocation to larger premises in December last year.
“We are delighted to have received this award, it was a complete surprise but it has been a real boost to all the staff here, particularly our design team. It has given them the recognition they deserve as they have worked hard and been committed to developing the CAD software to improve our service to clients “commented Wayne Palmer, Managing Director of Thinking Space Systems.
The award comes as further upgrades to the design software are currently being introduced with the installation of Autocad Inventor 2013. Over the next three to six months, Thinking Space will continue to invest in the design software by way of an automated panel system which will create panel drawings and CNC programs which are automatically generated from Microsoft Access. In addition, Thinking Space plan to remain at the competitive edge of design and visualisation software and the upgrade will allow the design team, once trained in its use by supplier Adris, to provide a complete 3D design software solution with lots of features and flexibility to create higher quality visuals.
Design Manager Alastair Bark commented “These two further enhancements will allow Thinking Space to manufacture with more speed and efficiency and also allow us to offer our clients higher quality visuals of our proposals. These upcoming developments present exciting times for us and our clients”.
