Perkins shares experts
Page 8
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
• Perkins Engines has opened up its 240 million research and development department to outside companies.
Perkins Technology has been established to give outside clients instant access to the engineering complex — one of the biggest of its kind in the world — and its 430 staff as if they were "in-house".
According to Steve Parker, head of business development at Perkins Technology: "Clients will be able to access our expertise immediately. . and get preferential treatment when it comes to initiating special projects."
Parker reckons that the 2400 million-a-year consultancy market for diesel engine research and development is growing at about 5% a year, and hopes that Perkins will steal a march over competitors like Ricardo by offering a "pragmatic approach" which is "profit-focussed".
"We can actually solve the problem, not just talk about it," he says. According to Tony Downes, Perkins Technology's general manager, consultants who do not actually manufac ture diesel engines lack his firm's experience of translating ideas into products: "It is no good designing the best engine in the world if you cannot make it at a price people are prepared to pay," he says. Perkins' test facilities now avail able to vehicle manufacturers and operators include 60 die& engine test beds for power outputs up to 1,500kW; noise and vibration cells; emmission recording equipment; combos tion photography; laser doppk anenometry, and a scanning electron microscope which is among the most powerful in the country.
Research programmes currently underway at Perkins Technology include the QHV 90, a quiet heavy vehicle engine for 1990. The company i; aiming to build a 63kW fourlitre natrually-aspirated engine with a maximum noise output of 90.9dBA at one metre.
The division has also signed a deal with Pegaso of Spain to build a medium-speed truckengine family, as well as three spark-ignition development programmes. A total of 23 mil lion worth of business is tied up in five major contracts at the moment, says Perkins.
Perkins Technology will tailor contracts to clients' needs, even taking on small projects for hauliers.