Following a move by Tim Cornes to head up its General Engineering Division, Exova has appointed former Hilti global Vice President of Marketing - Fire Protection Systems, from the Hilti Group as its new Director of Fire Safety Technology.

John Willox has more than 25 years experience in the construction industry supply chain, 22 years of which have been with the Hilti Group both in the UK and at the company’s corporate HQ in Liechtenstein.  In the last ten years, John has held senior positions within the area of fire protection and HR.

John has extensive experience in the development of fire protection strategy throughout Europe, North America, Middle East and Asia and will be responsible for driving Exova’s position in the fields of fire testing, advisory and certification from its laboratories and offices in Europe.

Tim Cornes, who has been with Exova for 6 years and has headed up the company’s Fire Safety Technology division for 4 years will now guide the company’s General Engineering division with laboratories based in Europe.

Exova, the leading advisory company to the food and retail sectors is holding a FREE brunch seminar in Manchester on 7 October 2010 for retailers to find out more about the law relating to violence in the workplace and what retailers can do to defend themselves and their staff.

According to the British Retail Consortium’s (BRC) Retail Crime Survey 2009, 22,000 people working in retail suffer threats, physical or verbal violence every year and the numbers are on the increase. But what rights do retailers have in defending themselves against these threats and what are the financial implications of robberies as well as the physical issues relating to violence against staff?

Exova’s Managing Violence and Aggression seminar will be led by the company’s experts in legislation within the workplace and feature key speakers from Greater Manchester Council and The Co-operative.

Speakers at the conference include:

Andrew Pope - National Business Crime & Risk Partnership Manager for the Co-operative Group.
Andrew’s role is the first of its kind in the retail sector and he has driven many of the unique anti-crime initiatives, which the Co-operative has pioneered, in recent years.
Andrew is a member of the National Retail Crime Steering Group, (NRCSG), chair of the British Retail Consortium’s Retail Violence Policy Action Group and an advisor to various National, Regional and County Business and regulatory forums and organisations. The Winner of a Security Excellence Award 2008 and finalist in 2009, Andrew is also a Justice of the Peace in Cheshire.

Ben Thomson – Great Manchester Council.
A Senior Environmental Health Officer with the Council, Ben has been heavily involved with the Retail Violence Initiative in Bury which involves working with Greater Manchester Police on sharing robbery data and inspecting premises which have been subject to robbery, incidents of violence or those at risk

Jonathan France, Principal Advisor, Exova
An ex-Environmental Health Officer, Jonathan assists major companies in complying with health and safety legislation in a cost effective way that meets the needs of their business. Jonathan works with some of the UK’s leading retailers on implementing health and safety legislation and has been involved in several cases regarding violence in the retail workplace.

Jonathan France from Exova said: “Employers have a responsibility under Health and Safety law to protect their workers, but as figures from the BRC demonstrate, threats and violence in the retail workplace are on the increase. Many employers have no health and safety measures or procedures in place to manage this hazard. This seminar has been developed to show retailers what their legal responsibilities are in protecting their employees and customers against this frequently occurring hazard and to look at the practical elements of implementing the law, in a commercially effective way”.

Exova’s Managing Violence and Aggression in Retail will be held from 9.30am-12.30pm at the MacDonald Hotel, Manchester on 7 October. To book a free place on the seminar please contact Lisa Hurley (0161 787 3291 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it )

Exova, will be hosting an open day for the Water Treatment and Facilities Management Industries at its new state of the art microbiological and chemical water testing laboratory in Camberley, Surrey on 16 September 2010.

UKAS accredited*, Exova’s new Camberley facility is the only water testing laboratory located outside of London to hold ISO 17025 and to be accredited by the Legionella Control Association.

The new and purpose built facility, based at the J4 development off Doman Road, will offer microbiological and chemical water testing for businesses based in London and the South East of England and is an expansion to the existing water testing service already offered by Exova in Camberley. The site will be accessible 24 hours a day 365 days a year to existing clients for them to drop samples off within there client specific secure storage location. Exova also offers water testing at its network of laboratories throughout the UK at Birmingham, Grimbsy, Clydebank and Runcorn.

At the event guests will also be able to view a demonstration of Exova advantage, the state of the art web-based result package offered from Exova. Advantage allows clients to register samples, progress results, store invoices and trend past data. 

The expansion at Camberley is as a result of Exova’s innovative idea to open a network of secure ‘drop off points’ across the United Kingdom. Instead of having to use unreliable couriers or waste time with transportation, samples can simply be left at any of our Southern drop off points at Crayford, Battersea, Eastleigh, Slough, Bristol and South Mimms. These locations are checked daily by Igloo Thermo Logistics, our courier team, who deliver the samples into the Camberley laboratory for analysis. Our portfolio of drop-offs has made sampling in and around London more convenient for the Water Treatment and we now need to increase the capacity at our Camberley lab to cater for the increased demand.

Nick Barsby, Project Manager Water at Exova said: “Exova is recognised within the Water Hygiene industry as a leading provider of water testing and as a result, business is expanding fast. This new 4,500 sq ft site will allow us to incorporate a facility able to handle over 3,000 samples a week with dedicated labs for both micro and chemical testing of water. The addition of chemical analysis at Camberley will allow Exova to report some chemical parameters in a shorter time frame than previously possible, with some analytes being available for reporting within 24 hours of sample receipt”.

*Accreditation pending

Exova, the worldwide testing and advisory company has appointed a former GE Sub Sea Operations expert as Operations Manager of its new Aberdeen laboratory, opened specifically to serve the offshore oil and gas industry.

At GE Jim was responsible for securing business turnaround of its Sub Sea Operations following GE`s acquisition of VetcoGray. Covering cross functional product scopes on a global scale, Jim and his team were responsible for the transfer of GE’s Controls sector into its state of the art GE super service facility, improving customer fulfilment and cost parameters.

Jim has more than 20 years global operations experience,  beginning his career as a field Automation Engineer, progressing into senior roles within production, materials, demand management, commercial alignment and strategy to Lean operational execution for some of the world’s largest organisations including APW, Hewlett Packard and  AT&T with assignments crossing all four global regions.

On joining Exova, Jim Smith said “Exova is in a great position to deliver the kind of service based on safety, quality, cost and performance that the oil and gas demand as standard. I am excited at the opportunity to be able to add my experience within operations and fulfilment execution including Lean/Sigma to the Aberdeen team to improve operation performance and deliver exceptional service to our customers.”