£1 million sales target for Blum’s new technical sales manager

Gary Bates, who started his career as one of the last indentured apprentices at Rolls-Royce, will be responsible for growing the East Midlands firm’s market share in aerospace, automotive and CNC machine tools.

The mechanical engineer’s arrival is at an ideal time for the company, with it recently boosting its Digilog touch probe system range by officially launching the LC50 at the MACH 2018.

The state-of-the-art laser control technology is looking to explore the growing demand for in machine measuring, with bosses at the company predicting a 60% reduction in the time taken to measure cutting tools.

“My previous roles have seen me work across the globe and in numerous different sectors with the most recent position as a metrology consultant for some of the biggest names in the aerospace world,” Mr Bates explained.

“Blum-Novotest’s reputation was a major attraction for joining the company and I’m very excited about leading the sales team in pushing the Digilog range and the LC50, not to mention traditional products including workpiece probes, roughness and bore gauges.”

He continued: “There’s never been a better time to be driving these innovations with manufacturing now going away from CMMs towards what we can offer. Speed, accuracy and ease of installation are all major selling points.”

The company is a global leader in production metrology, employing 534 people and turning over £77 million across its 16 subsidiaries.

Mr Bates continued: “Blum-Novotest had its best ever year in the UK in 2017 and it’s my job to build on this success. We want to double sales up to £1 million per annum but this is just the tip of the iceberg – we’ve got the technology; we’ve got the service and we’ve got the phenomenal backing of our German parent.”

Blum-Novotest www.blum-novotest.com