adminAn impressive new EMC test chamber has been officially launched at the Blue & Amber Light Fleet Exhibition by one of the UK’s leading specialist vehicle conversion companies.
MacNeillie have invested around £500,000 in a purpose-built semi-anechoic electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) test chamber, located within its secure facility in the West Midlands. The aim of the facility is to eradicate the costs of transportation, enhance project security, reduce the risk of delay and offer customers a true one-stop-shop solution.
The facility incorporates the latest test equipment from industry leading suppliers such as Rohde & Schwarz and Amplifier Research. Customers are expected to include original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), police forces, ambulance authorities, fire and rescue services, and other government agencies.
Seminars offering an overview of MacNeillie’s new EMC chamber are scheduled to take place each day during the Blue & Amber Light event at the International Centre, Telford, which starts on June 4.
Managing director Nigel Rowley said: “The launch of our new EMC test chamber at the Blue & Amber Light Fleet exhibition marks a significant investment by MacNeillie, achieving one of our business plan’s medium term goals ahead of schedule.
“Our business model is simple, we asked ourselves – how can we improve our service to our customers? The obvious answer in these current times of austerity is to pare down conversion and integration costs. Over the past 36 months, we have worked on various initiatives to reduce costs, further improve efficiency and restructure our procurement.
“Dave Beatty is the Director responsible for our purchasing and has completely overhauled our approach. These benefits are now being passed onto our customers. However, our original question was ‘how can we improve?’ We have taken the somewhat bold approach of thinking ‘the best value initiative’ is not all about price. It obviously contains the word value so how can we offer this? It’s that old conundrum of ‘price or value’.
“The element of our model that has evolved the most over recent times is the value bit. We have adopted an holistic approach. It is no longer about simply converting vehicles. Our model now works with customers to develop specifications, complete the project on time and price, and support that vehicle in service wherever it is around the world. Therefore providing value to our customers by ensuring their often complex vehicle is available and working hard in its intended role for the minimum amount of downtime, hence ‘sweating the asset’. Our existing ability to provide the conversion is even further enhanced by our emerging test facilities and our after sales supportability culture.
“Our EMC chamber follows other initiatives where our internal services have been strengthened. We recently opened our southern facility where we carry out conversions and deploy client support engineers from to cover London and the South. We are now a recognised MOT facility, testing, repairing and servicing customer’s vehicles using security cleared staff and there are several new initiatives ahead.”
MacNeillie will be working closely with a number of government departments including the Home Office Centre for Applied Science and Technology (CAST), to provide EMC assessments of vehicles for emergency and security markets. These assessments include:
- Antenna performance
- Radiated emissions
- Mutual Interference / Interoperability between vehicles and installed equipment
- Electrical supply disturbance and consumption
- Earth Bonding
- Radiated field strength measurements
Equipment level testing, in accordance with CISPR and EN61000-4 standards, includes:
- Radiated emissions from 30MHz to 3GHz
- Immunity testing from 80MHz to 1GHz
Mr Rowley said the investment demonstrated MacNeillie’s commitment to combining professionalism with the flexibility to respond quickly to customer requirements. The company is seeking to gain accredited test house status and to expand the scope of testing into related markets.
The company will also have a variety of vehicles on display at the Blue & Amber Light Fleet event at Telford on stand 62.
Mr Phil Peel, who is heading up the event, said: “It is getting increasingly more difficult to represent what we do and who we do it for. We are always very mindful of trying not to demonstrate bias to a particular manufacture or customer, so it very much depends on the timing of the event and what is available to show. We would really like to show vehicles from all of the divisions that make up our portfolio. However, due to the security classifications, we know this is not practical. We would like to thank our customers and colleagues for loaning us the vehicles we have at Telford this year.”
The vehicles include:
- Welsh Ambulance Service (CCV) Command & Control vehicle – Mercedes Sprinter;
- Vehicle & Operator Service Agency (VOSA) Post Collision vehicle – Peugeot Boxer;
- North Wales Fire & Rescue Service Water Incident Unit – Mercedes Sprinter;
- Covert motorcycle;
- Metropolitan Police Service (IRV) Incident Response Unit – Hyundai i30;
- Mercedes Sprinter Public order vehicle
- Maritime & Coastguard Agency (MCA) Search & Rescue vehicle – Mitsubishi L200;
- BMW Authorities (RPU) Roads Policing Unit – BMW X3.
The CCV vehicle is one of the latest and most advanced to roll off the MacNeillie production line.
