Design wins Queen’s Awards

Among the 116 businesses receiving a Queen’s Award for Enterprise are 18 companies with Design Council “Millennium Product” accreditation.

These include Marks & Spencer, Zychem, Pfizer and the Renewable Energy Company. Some of the 18 winning companies have more than one Millennium Product.

Marks & Spencer has developed designs for the seamless bra and secret support clothing, while Zychem designed an innovative printing system which enables blind people to read diagrams.

Other business innovators include Jaguar Cars and its reduced emissions AJ-V8 series engine; Imagination Technologies with its digital music speaker system and its PowerVR 3D graphics system; Optare for its innovative low-floor bus; and Psion for its Series 5 PDA.

Also included are Arup Associates, which has designed the Hulme Arch Bridge, the Inland Revenue Building and the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre; and BG Technology, which developed the Elastic Wave Crack Detection System.

Other Queen’s Award and Millennium Product names are Ultra Electronics, Spectrum Technologies, Sondex, Eli Lilly and Company, DW Windsor, Celsis International, De la Rue Cash Systems, Cannon Avent Group and Arup Energy.