Duke of Gloucester Presents A-SAFE with Queen's Award on Inaugural Customer Day

A-SAFE has welcomed HRH The Duke of Gloucester to its manufacturing headquarters to present the company with the prestigious Queen’s Award for Enterprise. The Duke, cousin of Queen Elizabeth II, handed over the award to A-SAFE directors in recognition of the company’s achievements in international trade.

The day also marked A-SAFE’s first ever Customer Day, an event which saw some of the company’s most valued UK clients onsite to view product demonstrations, video presentations and receive a comprehensive tour of the factory to see A-SAFE’s state-of-the-art manufacturing processes and product testing facilities 

Customers arrived early to find a section of A-SAFE’s factory floor transformed into an exhibition stand, with almost every product from Height Restrictors to Micro Guardrails on display. Customers were then shown various demonstrations of the resilience of A-SAFE products, including a RackGuard drop test, which can be viewed on this video, a pendulum test and a ramp forklift test on Single Traffic Guardrails.

Three forklift ramp tests were performed on the day, with the vehicle weighing 5,500kg and travelling at 1.6m/s, generating an energy into the barrier of just over 7000 Joules. The guardrails absorbed the impacts and reformed to their original states.

Customers were then invited to familiarise themselves with the products on the exhibition stand before they were given a presentation from the group Sales Director. Finally, customers were able to find out more about A-SAFE’s comprehensive installation process before the arrival of the royal party, complete with motorbike escorts, at around 2:15pm.

The Duke, who was accompanied by Dr Ingrid M Roscoe, The Lord-Lieutenant of West Yorkshire, was greeted at the doors by all A-SAFE directors before being taken to the boardroom for formal introductions.

From the balcony, the royal party then viewed another pendulum test, before being taken into the Research & Development department for a presentation.

Following a tour of the factory, where The Duke showed a genuine interest in the complex manufacturing processes at A-SAFE, the time came for him to hand over the engraved Queen’s Award crystal bowl and unveil a commemorative plaque.

Director James Smith, who accepted the award from The Duke on behalf of all A-SAFE staff, said: “It’s a great honour for A-SAFE to receive this award. The company has come a long way in ten years, built on our company foundation stones of innovation, manufacturing and the highest possible quality of products and service. We are proud to be a local company with a global reach and we are looking forward to continuing our growth and making the workplaces of the world even safer places over the next decade.”

The royal party departed after signing the Visitors Book, leaving A-SAFE employees reflecting on a successful and memorable day.