JCB receive Queen’s Award for export success

JCB Heavy Products have received a Queen’s Award for successfully growing exports of their range of tracked and wheeled excavators.

Over a three-year period from 2005, overseas sales of the company’s JS range of machines, which range in weight from seven to 46 tonnes, increased by more than 60%. 



Last week this success was rewarded when HM Lord-Lieutenant of Staffordshire, James Hawley, the Queen’s representative in Staffordshire, presented the company with a Queen’s Award for Enterprise.

The Award was received by JCB Heavy Products managing director John Gill at a special shop floor ceremony in front of the company’s workforce at the new £40 million factory in Uttoxeter, which began full production earlier this year.

During the ceremony, JCB’s chief operating officer, Alan Blake, paid tribute to the ‘magnificent achievement’ and thanked all employees who had contributed to the success. 



He said: ‘During the three-year period covered by the Award we were actually manufacturing our tracked and wheeled excavator range a mile away in a factory in the centre of Uttoxeter that had long since reached its capacity. What excites me most as we stand here today is thinking about what we can all achieve in the future in this fabulous, modern factory. Once the upturn arrives, and it will, we have the capability to produce 8,000 excavators a year here – more than double the number of machines we could make at our old factory.’ 



This latest accolade is the twenty-fourth Queen’s Award the JCB Group has been presented with since 1969. The twenty-fifth will be presented to sister company JCB Earthmovers, in Cheadle, later this month.