Since the UK Referendum on membership of the European Union SELLA CONTROLS has been continually assessing the impact of “Brexit” on our business and have in place a plan to mitigate the impact now that the UK has left the EU.

Our primary objective is to ensure continuity of service to our customers by working closely across our supply chain and our risk management is focused on a constant review of supply chain planning in light of the risks around Brexit.

Our current experience is that the Brexit impact on our business is low as our operations are based entirely in the UK however we have international customers and suppliers and have implemented the following: –

• • Customs arrangements. We trade internationally and are already
    experienced at importing and exporting within and beyond the EU; working
    within existing customs declaration procedures with a UK EORI Number,
    which will facilitate customs clearances.

   

  • We are working closely with our import / export agents and transporters to
    ensure there has been a smooth transition and they are able to declare goods
    on our behalf. We are also engaging the Customs Declaration Service (CDS)
    to assist in smooth transactions through borders.

   

  • We have undertaken a mapping of our supply-chain with high (Tier 1) to low
    (Tier 4) risk and are working with Tier 1 companies obtaining their direct
    support to ensure our supply chain is ready. All Tier 2-4 suppliers have
    provided us with statements on their own Brexit readiness.

   

  • We have held meetings with our UK wholesale suppliers who in turn have
    their own non-UK supplies and obtained assurances that they have
    appropriate plans in place and are carrying stock levels to meet our needs.

   

  • We have undertaken a review of all of our non-UK suppliers and discussed
    with them arrangements to bring forward delivery of critical components.

   

  • To assist our staff internally we have a help file with links to relevant HMRC
    advice to ensure that shipment details are as accurate as possible which will
    further mitigate potential delays at customs points.

   

  • We have set aside working capital funding to facilitate increased levels of
    stock holding.

   

  • We provide control systems through our engineering expertise and our
    technicians and engineers are predominately UK residents. We do not
    envisage any issues with residency of our current workforce and continue to
    monitor this.

   

  • We trade in a number of currencies including the Euro with our inflows in
    foreign currencies aligned to our respective outflows and see little exposure
    should there be a short-term devaluation in sterling. Should this be longer
    term we will adapt our currency exposure risk management accordingly.

   

  • We recognise that Brexit may impact the Standards and Regulatory
    environment in which we operate and continually assess updates from
    industry bodies and regulatory authorities.

   

  In summary, we are not aware of any issues likely to seriously impact our business but continue to monitor this closely.  Any disruption we envisage will be short-term disruption at borders and customs clearance and we have mitigated this by targeted early delivery of critical equipment and strategic stock holdings; both directly and through our suppliers; as set out above. As an SME we are able to react quickly to the impact of Brexit and this has a high priority on our Risk Register and is under regular review by our Board of Directors.
   
  John Blackwell

  Managing Director

The current COVID-19 restrictions on travel and social distancing means that traditional client attended Factory Acceptance Tests are not possible for all projects at this time.

However, this presents the perfect opportunity to use technology to develop new methods for these activities. These pictures show us performing a remote FAT for a solid state SIS logic solver.

Using a combination of fixed and mobile cameras, coupled with clear procedures and detailed test cases, we were able to take the client through the functionality of the system and allow them to inspect the panel build.