MiTek News
December 2016
Mitek welcomes David Smith St Ives Ltd
Based in Cambridgeshire, David Smith St Ives Ltd is one of the UK’s most well
established and well known manufacturers of high performance timber
products. After undertaking a thorough evaluation of the entire MiTek software suite we were delighted when they decided to make the switch across to
MiTek, for their connector plate and metal-web business.
David Smith have a large and experienced Truss and Posi-Joist design team who
underwent intensive on-site training and quickly got to grips with the PAMIR
design software. They immediately put it to good use to improve the speed of
their estimates and produce high quality designs and drawing output.
As well as the large Truss office, the Stair, Floor and Door departments are all
now using our MBA and Dashboard software to manage their enquiries, quotes
and orders.
James Anderson, Truss Department Manager, commented “the decision to
switch systems was a difficult one, and not one we took lightly. However the
support and training we have received throughout the migration process, together with the enthusiasm and commitment of the MiTek team has
contributed to making it a relatively painless process, and we are already starting to see the benefits the software will bring us moving forward.”
We give David Smith St Ives Ltd a warm welcome to our customer base and
look forward to working closely with them for many years to come.
Written by: Tim Garner, Senior Technical Support Manager
Senior Management Changes at MiTek
After 19 years with MiTek, David Fraser will be stepping down as the
Managing Director of MiTek Industries Ltd at the end December 2016.
David Fraser leaves MiTek at the
end of this year after 19 years
with the business
David has brought strong leadership to our UK & Irish business and has overseen a very successful period in MiTek’s history. We thank him for his hard
work and dedication over such a long period of time.
With David’s departure we are pleased to announce the following changes to
our Senior Management structure.
James Morgan has been appointed as the new Managing Director of MiTek in
the UK and Ireland. Having worked within our company since 1997 in various
roles, James has most recently held the position of Business Development Director and has had the benefit of working alongside David for many years.
As part of a further restructuring of our business, Richard George has been
appointed as Technical Director. Richard joined MiTek in 1988 and has
successfully led our Customer Support department for the past 12 years. In
Richard’s new role he will have the additional responsibility for our engineering
team, including our design office.
These two new appointments ensure that MiTek has the right senior
management team in place to continue to deliver industry leading software and
connector products to you for many years to come.
We wish David and Alison every success in their future.
(We have a suspicion that golf may feature in some of David’s
plans for the future! )
James Morgan has been
appointed as the new
Managing Director of our
U.K. & Irish business
Richard George has been
appointed as Technical
Director for our
U.K. & Irish business
Issue 19
Posi in PAMIR Update
Posi-Joist in PAMIR (PiP) has arrived! We are delighted to announce that the first
general release of our Posi-Joist module has been included in Pamir version 5.2
‘PiP’ automatically benefits from everything that has made PAMIR such a successful roof design tool, with its fast and dynamic framing, impressive interactive 3D
views and high quality output. The Posi-Joist project took its main direction from
our customer user group (Pictured below with our development Team).
The importance of speedy input and design was the message received from the
user group members, along with the need to accurately schedule the finished job
just as fast. With this in mind the development plan was adapted to incorporate
edge detailing and full ancillary take-off as part of the first release version. This
involved adding various framing options to achieve the most complex of details.
Thomas Edwards—Donaldson Timber Engineering “Adding Posi
Joists into the Pamir software has allowed us to save a vast amount of
time with design and amending designs. Overall once up to speed we
envisage a 30-40% saving in time over the 20/20 package. This is mainly
down to the high level of automation in Pamir and its ability to adjust
things in real time”
Paul Summer—AC Roof Trusses “The continuity of the tools available
in Pamir for both roof trusses and now Posi joists made the transition
into designing Posi joist second nature, that along with the intuitive
nature of the tools made leaving the 20/20 software an easy decision”
Our software department adopted an exciting new approach when implementing the
PiP project by creating a specialised development team who took ownership of the
project and dedicated all of their time to the task. The team was headed up by
Development Manager, Kyle Richardson (pictured right), who in his own words
“Loves Posi-Joists” – so much so that he even has some at home! Kyle and his team
attended all of the user group meetings to gain vital first hand feedback and were
able to quickly respond to the requirements of the users.
Written by: James Close, Head of Technical Support
Halloween Fun!
As darkness fell over MiTek Towers, the team geared up for a truly
monstrous Halloween. With a bucket full of chocolate treats, we
tricked the team into a Halloween Spectacular Pumpkin Carving
Competition!
By mid morning, our Accounts Office looked like our very own
pumpkin patch, with entries also coming in from children and
grandchildren of the MiTek Team.
Congratulations to the winners: 1st Prize 2nd Price 3rd Prize -
Leanne Tyler
Paul Goddard
Ajmere Kaur
Page 2
Technical Team Goes From Strength to Strength
MiTek has long been renowned for its technical excellence and expertise. To ensure we maintain this strong position in the market we are excited to announce
the following changes in our technical team.
Julian Marcroft will be joining the business as our new Head of Engineering on 1st January 2017. Julian is a Chartered Civil
Engineer and has had a varied and distinguished 28 year career in the sector. Julian has been the chair of the BSI committee
B/5252/5 for over 10 years and also the UK lead delegate on the European Committee CEN/TC250/SC5. We welcome Julian to
the MiTek family.
To further strengthen our technical offering we have promoted James Close to the
new role of Head of Technical Support. James has excellent market experience
having worked for timber engineering and timber frame companies before joining
MiTek 12 years ago. Most recently James has played an integral role in getting our
award winning Pamir software to market.
Richard George comments “I’m delighted to have worked with such an incredibly
strong team at MiTek for many years. I’m sure these appointments will make
MiTek even stronger going forward as we continue to deliver industry leading software and service to our ever important
customers.”
Julian Marcroft
James Close
Written by: Richard George, Technical Director
Posi-Joist Just Keeps on Growing!
Over recent years we have intensified our promotion of the Posi-Joist brand through increased advertising, frequent exhibitions and by touring the country
with a CPD road show tailored to both the specifier and engineer alike. This, along with the great work by our customers, has resulted in a rapid growth in the
specification and use of Posi-Joist, with sales volumes up by over 50% since 2013.
Since the introduction of approved documents L & F within the building regulations,
the requirement for airtight homes with adequate ventilation has grown each year.
With this in mind the focus has been to promote Posi-Joist as the leading brand of joist
that provides a simple solution to the problems these new regulations pose to a builder
and building designer. Posi-Joist is currently promoted within the trade press where
heating and ventilating is an important topic.
With the introduction of the new PAMIR Posi-Joist software, highlighted in this news
edition, MiTek will work even harder to keep the brand at the forefront and the service
and software the very best that can be provided to our customers.
For a full list of venues we are attending for the Posi-Joist CPD please contact
Peter Bullock on 07770 874342
Written by: Roy Troman, Sales & Marketing Director
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