In 2018, AESSEAL® was named the inaugural Business of Trust Champion by the ceremonial Lord Mayor of the City of London. The award recognizes those companies which are helping to create ‘a lasting legacy of better business trusted by the community’. Since 2019, AESSEAL® has recognized its own employees with the AESSEAL® Dragon Awards.

Over a period of two months, employees have nominated colleagues for categories such as Team Leader/Manager of the Year, Above and Beyond, Branch/Department of the Year and Apprentice of the Year, with the overall winner picking up the Managing Director’s Award for Exceptional Customer Service and Excellence in SAP Implementation.

Managing Director Chris Rea presented the 2022 awards at Rotherham and via video conference on Tuesday 27th September.

Congratulations to all this year’s winners and nominees of the AESSEAL® Dragon Awards.

  • Team Leader / Manager of the Year – Darren Jones
  • Apprentice of the Year – Jack Roberts
  • Apprentice of the Year – Emily Allen
  • Above and Beyond – Elliott Michell
  • Above and Beyond – Simon Sheaf
  • Branch / Department of the Year – IT Department
  • Managing Director’s Award for Exceptional Customer Service & Excellence in SAP Implementation – AESSEAL Italia
AESSEAL Dragon Awards

Team Leader / Manager of the Year – Darren Jones

Darren has been recognized for the development of people and the promotion of new leaders within AESSEAL®. He is committed to ensuring that all apprentices within the business have sufficient support and a mentor, part of an approach which recently resulted in AESSEAL® being ranked by the Department of Education as the Top UK Apprenticeship Employer in the manufacturing sector for 2022.

Apprentice of the Year – Jack Roberts

Jack is a former Level 3 Engineering Technician (Machinist) with the AMRC – The University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre. Over the last 12 months Jack has consistently displayed a can-do attitude in SPD and is routinely a go-to person within the department. Keen, reliable, and steadfast, Jack is a valuable member of the team, and an excellent role model for other apprentices.

Apprentice of the Year – Emily Allen

Since joining the business Emily has and continues to display an unrivaled passion and drive for AESSEAL®, adding significant impact wherever she can. Emily proactively identified a capability gap in Rotherham Stores, and subsequently organized her own time to routinely support the management node, and in doing so to contribute to exceptional customer service. Regardless of the situation, and with the minimum of supervision, Emily always strives to lead by example in all she undertakes.

Above and Beyond – Elliot Michell and Simon Sheaf

In March 2022 the group was assessed by BSI against ISO14064 to verify its greenhouse gas reporting data as well as the carbon avoidance data associated with the sale of its products and its purchase of offset credits. This independent process was able to validate that our calculations clearly demonstrated that we were Net Zero. The process of calculating this data is something that most businesses are not even able to understand, never mind gathering the data and completing the calculation.

As such, to be able to understand the GHG protocols and ISO 14064, define the process of gathering the data, and then convert this to a definitive carbon calculation, has really pushed boundaries in this area, and has even pushed the boundaries of the assessment body.

Simon Sheaf joined the business in 2006 and has been an integral member of the QA/BA team ever since.

Elliot Michell joined the business in October 2021 to assist with calculating the AES Eng Group’s Net Zero emissions.

Between them they have quickly grasped and driven this process. To do so has taken a lot of work and creative thinking. Going through a process which is still largely unfamiliar to others means that the points of reference have been few and far between. However, even once they understood the process, the amount of work involved led to some very long days.

Branch / Department of the Year – IT Department

The IT department is a very underappreciated department, and the team has been working extremely hard to ensure that the global workforce has the tools available to conduct its daily work, even through the problems of COVID and working from home arrangements. IT is critical in keeping the business running, and the challenges raised by COVID placed additional burdens on the team. Its latest challenges include a number of office moves due to the development of the Factory for the Future at Mill Close, as well as the ever-changing IT landscape. Without this department, AESSEAL® would not have been able to achieve its current level of success. A truly World Class effort!

Managing Director’s Award for Exceptional Customer Service & Excellence in SAP Implementation: AESSEAL Italia

AESSEAL Italia had a very successful go-live with SAP. Implementing a new business system is never easy, and the fact that AESSEAL Italia has gone live on SAP, with little if any impact on customer service and overall business operations, is evidence of the fantastic job done throughout the project and especially during user-acceptance testing.

Everyone in the Project Aurora Team has been impressed with the attitude, commitment and organization of the team in AESSEAL Italia. AESSEAL Italia has done a magnificent job, and the key word is ‘team’.