Engineering firm to open automated handling systems centre in UK

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PaR recently agreed to an extended framework agreement to support Sellafield Ltd, allowing the company to increase its commitment to work in the area.

The company has grown its UK team and is now supporting a variety of customers in the nuclear industry for projects, which include cranes, manipulators, custom tooling, robotic handling systems and R&D for Decommissioning.

PaR has been operating in the region at Seascale in the UK since 2011 to directly support the remote handling systems it supplies to Sellafield.

The opening of its new ‘Remote Handling Centre of Excellence’ for Europe aims to give PaR the space to grow within its traditional marketplace of nuclear remote handling, while developing other core technology solutions into other markets, such as aerospace, automotive and commercial material handling.

The new facility will include workshops for assembly of mechanical and electrical equipment and for the building, testing and refurbishment of manipulator systems.

As  well as specialised overhead cranes, which are essential for its larger projects such as crane manufacturing, testing of remote and robotic systems and it will also provide a demonstration facility for PaR’s EXPERTOPERATORTM crane anti-sway and motion control systems.

The facility provides PaR’s growing engineering and technical team adequate office space for current staffing as well as future growth.  The new facility also has classroom and conference space, which will be used for PaR’s role as a training provider and to support larger projects.

PaR will be building an ‘Inactive Demonstration Facility’ to support remote operations in both nuclear processing facilities and for decommissioning applications.

This facility will mock–up a full ‘hot cell’, equipped with Master Slave Manipulators (MSM’s), a nuclear crane and a PaR robotic manipulator system, all viewed through cell windows to simulate real ‘hot cell’ environments.