A SEVERNSIDE firm has been featured in a publication issued by Parliament highlighting the best in Britain’s engineering and construction sectors.

Martin Cairncross Engineering, which is based on the Severnbridge Industrial Estate in Caldicot, is one of the companies featured in the Parliamentary Review.

The business supplies equipment to attach to coating machines in the metal decorating industry and exports to more than 120 countries.

Mr Cairncross said that changes to regulations over the last 10 years had led to the life expectancy of tools and equipment being reduced from days to hours.

Research and development by the company led to a fingertip-touch pneumatic scraping system which keeps can making lines running for two to three days with five-minute breaks, as opposed to stopping around every seven hours with one-hour breaks.

Among the companies to have taken up the innovation is the largest can maker in the world which sent a fact-finding party to Caldicot to assess it and a bespoke system designed in Wales is now running in several plants in the United States.

Mr Cairncross said: “We see our future as designing more efficient systems working with new can-making equipment which will be capable of increasing production in the challenging areas that are often avoided.”

He told the Review: “Receiving the award is a great boost to our company in terms of prestige and also a benchmark as to just how far we have come in terms of innovation, culminating in orders to more than 120 companies.

“It’s the realisation that a small idea has generated many exports and secured future jobs.

“This would not be  possible without a dedicated work force who strive for nothing less than perfection,” he added.