How Tioga is leading the rise of the machines

In the latest edition of Marketing Derby’s Innovate Magazine, we meet Andy Grimmett, chief executive of hi-tech manufacturing firm Tioga.

As one of the UK’s leading privately-owned contract electronics manufacturers, the Derby firm deals in precision – its products engineered to the highest standards by a highly-trained team using the very latest technology.

And while you won’t see the firm’s name on those products – or any of the many others the company is involved with – the components turned out by the company’s plant are powering everything from wind turbines to cryogenic freezers.

In some cases, the firm is even managing to turn science fiction into reality – as Innovate found out during a visit to its Mansfield Road base.

Standing in Tioga’s staff lounge is the Terminator – a prop acquired from the set of the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie by company founder and film fan Warwick Adams.

While the technology which powered Arnie’s robot warrior may only have been a product of director James Cameron’s imagination, in the real world Tioga’s expert team is producing components for bionic arms – and helping change the lives of the limb different adults and young people who receive them.

And the company Tioga works with on the project, Open Bionics, has struck licensing deals with Marvel and Disney, meaning young recipients can have Hero Arms inspired by characters such as Spiderman and Iron Man.

“It’s absolutely immense.” Andy tells Innovate. “You see these kids’ faces when they receive their arm and it’s not some horrible looking thing, it’s like, ‘I’m cool now because I’ve got a Spiderman arm’. It’s a game changer.”

Tioga began life in 1996, developing from founder Warwick’s previous work designing and manufacturing medical and commercial electronics and taking its name from the Tioga Pass in California, where Warwick had holidayed.

Andy told Innovate: “To begin with he was kind of one man in a shed, producing electronics with a soldering iron – nowhere near as state of the art as things are now – and, as he was successful with that, one became two, two became three and now we’re a 150-people business, with a £22 million turnover.”

Key to Tioga’s success is the reputation it has forged for quality and reliability but, also, its commitment to establishing long-term partnerships with clients in markets such as telecommunications, lighting, audio-visual and security, putting in hard yards, sometimes over several years, to assist in the development of products.

Another key to the firm’s success is the relationship it has built with its staff, empowering them to make positive changes.

Andy told Innovate: “People here live and breathe it – and that’s everyone in the company, regardless of whether they’re a director or on the shop floor.

“If someone is working on something and they see a better way of doing it, they are empowered to just go and do it – they don’t need to seek approval as long as it doesn’t have a massive impact from a financial or a resourcing point of view.”

To read the interview in full, click here.