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Romax Technology, one of the world’s leading gearbox, bearing and driveline engineering companies, has signed an agreement to move into new premises at the University of Nottingham’s Innovation Park (UNIP).
Romax has rapidly expanded its simulation technology and drivetrain design business and has been growing at a rate of around 20% per annum on average, creating many new jobs both in the UK and overseas. The company hopes to create around 100 new jobs in Nottingham and the UK over the next three to five years.
Currently based at the Nottingham Science Park, Romax, which employs 105 staff in the UK, Romax has outgrown its current premises and has also been renting additional units on the park to accommodate its employees.
The new, purpose built, 3100m2 premises at UNIP will incorporate offices, a training suite and laboratory space. It will enable Romax to bring all of their UK staff under one roof and will also give them space into which to grow in the future.
A large number of businesses are already based on UNIP, but the Romax building will mark the first bespoke commercial development at the park. The cost of the development is £5.6 million, and the University will lease the premises to Romax for an initial period of 10 years.
Romax promotes green energy in the products and solutions it develops and the new building will reflect this; by using the latest sustainable and environmentally friendly building technologies, as well as aiming to achieve a BREEAM Excellent rating for the project. These technologies include the use of sustainable construction techniques, including biomass heating, building heat recovery and reuse, waste water recycling, solar shading and a biodiverse green roof.
Earlier this year, Romax announced an investment partnership with Moonray Investors (part of Fidelity International Limited), which will enable the company to accelerate the development of existing and new technologies in the wind power and transportation sectors and achieve their target growth rate of up to 40%.
Dr Peter Poon, founder and CEO of Romax said: “I am delighted to be signing this lease. The University of Nottingham Innovation Park is a great location for Romax. Not only does it offer us a purpose built facility with excellent campus services, it also maintains strong links with the University, which is important to us, as they share our ethos for innovation.
“This expansion enables us to continue to develop our simulation technology and drivetrain design business and, in addition, we will also be able to create high quality jobs for the local area. This in turn will help us to accelerate the development of our exciting portfolio of new products and services, especially those focused on wind energy."
The University of Nottingham has enjoyed a long history of partnering with Romax. The company has undertaken a Knowledge Transfer Partnership with the University, as well as collaborating on major energy and aerospace research projects and providing placement and full-time employment opportunities for university students. Romax and the University were also instrumental in helping to persuade Changan Automobile, the Chinese car manufacturer, to establish its European R&D centre in Nottingham.
Speaking at the signing of the agreement with Romax, Professor David Greenaway, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Nottingham, said: “To have Romax based at the University of Nottingham Innovation Park is an exciting prospect. Romax is a world class business which will be undertaking cutting edge development work here and creating many new jobs in the process.
“This commitment also further cements the exceptionally strong links that The University of Nottingham already has with Asia in general and China in particular. I am sure that both Romax and the University will benefit greatly from our continued close partnership.”
In addition to the Romax development, The University of Nottingham Innovation Park has already seen other significant investments this year, the most recent being GSK’s £12 million Centre for Excellence in Sustainable Chemistry which was announced in April.
For more information about Romax, visit www.romaxtech.com
For further details about UNIP and The University of Nottingham’s other services for business, visit www.nottingham.ac.uk/servicesforbusiness
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PICTURED ABOVE: (l-r) Dr Peter Poon, Founder and CEO of Romax, and Professor David Greenaway, Vice-Chancellor of The University of Nottingham, put their signatures to the agreement.
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Notes to editors: The University of Nottingham, described by The Sunday Times University Guide 2011 as ‘the embodiment of the modern international university’, has 40,000 students at award-winning campuses in the United Kingdom, China and Malaysia. It is ranked in the UK's Top 10 and the World's Top 75 universities by the Shanghai Jiao Tong (SJTU) and the QS World University Rankings. It was named ‘the world’s greenest university’ in the UI GreenMetric World University Ranking 2011.
More than 90 per cent of research at The University of Nottingham is of international quality, according to the most recent Research Assessment Exercise. The University’s vision is to be recognised around the world for its signature contributions, especially in global food security, energy & sustainability, and health. The University won a Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education in 2011, for its research into global food security.
Impact: The Nottingham Campaign, its biggest ever fund-raising campaign, will deliver the University’s vision to change lives, tackle global issues and shape the future. More news
About Romax
Established in 1989 by world renowned bearing expert Dr Peter Poon, Romax Technology has become the technology leader in high accuracy simulation and analysis of bearing, gearbox and driveline systems.
In over 20 years of providing expert engineering services to the global automotive, aerospace, marine, rail and wind energy industries, Romax created and refined RomaxDesigner, the world's first object orientated engineering analysis software package, validated through use by the world's leading companies, including 16 of the top 20 automotive manufacturers.
Building on their extensive knowledge of driveline systems, Romax is now the world leading independent designer of utility-scale wind turbine gearboxes and drivetrains. Their GL Certified high MW gearbox designs have been selected by major manufacturers for their proven durability. This experience has built a solid platform from which Romax are now developing pioneering new services to optimize operational efficiency of wind-farms, targeted at wind energy operators and utilities.
Romax serves customers across Europe, Asia and the Americas and through their class leading products and services have secured numerous awards including the Queens Award for International Trade.
Romax has a long history of working with Asia, and its success in Asian markets has impacted greatly on the company’s growth and contributed to the trebling of exports over 6 years, for which the company achieved the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in International Trade.
About UNIP
The University of Nottingham Innovation Park is a research and technology-focused innovation park. It offers an excellent business location for a wide range of high-growth businesses and our ever increasing number of world-class research teams, and is located just two miles from Nottingham city centre.
For more information about UNIP, visit www.notitngham.ac.uk/unip
About the new Romax Building at UNIP
The Romax Building is the latest of a new group of research facilities to be constructed on the University of Nottingham’s Innovation Park.
The building will provide approximately 3100m² of space, comprising open plan research offices, a training suite, and laboratory spaces to accommodate Romax staff.
The building takes the form of 3 storey pavilion type wings, either side of a central, glass fronted core, which contains the main entrance foyer, staircase and lift as well as office accommodation on the upper levels.
The central section is trapezoidal in plan, and the flank walls of polished blockwork extend out beyond the line of the building embracing a new entrance piazza, welcoming visitors to the building. The roof of the central core is a dramatic streamlined plane giving the building a strong identity.
The building will incorporate many environmentally sustainable design principles, to reduce its impact on the environment. External solar shading on the south and west elevations will minimise summer heat gain, natural ventilation through openable windows and the use of the thermal mass of exposed concrete floor soffits will control temperatures in both winter and summer, and the roof is a bio diverse green sward.
The building will also employ a renewable heat source, and is being designed to achieve a BREEAM ‘Excellent’ rating.