£1m 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 a good time for the company, with it recently boosting its Digilog touch probe system range by officially launching LC50 at MACH 2018.

This 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,” explained Gary.

“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 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 Co-ordinate Measuring Machines towards what we can offer. Speed, accuracy and ease of installation are all major selling points.”

Blum-Novotest is one of the global leaders in production metrology, employing 534 people and turning over £77 million across its 16 subsidiaries.

Its UK operation was founded in 2000 and originally started life in a small office in Lichfield. As the firm’s reputation grew in aerospace and automotive, sales started to increase rapidly and a move to bespoke offices and a state-of-the-art demonstration room in Burton-upon-Trent followed in 2015.

The company delivers its solutions to some of the world’s largest aerospace primes, car manufacturers and a host of CNC machine tool suppliers, including the Engineering Technology Group, Whitehouse Machine Tools and Yeovil Machine Tools.

Blum-Novotest www.blum-novotest.com