Vote for your ‘Yorkshire Innovator’

READERS can today vote for who they believe should be honoured as the Yorkshire Innovator in TheBusinessDesk.com’s inaugural Yorkshire Business Masters.

The Yorkshire Innovator category has been designed to celebrate the most innovative and creative individuals and their companies across the region and readers can vote on the three shortlisted entries.

The inaugural Yorkshire Business Masters are sponsored by Gordons, KPMG, Walker Morris and Welcome to Yorkshire.

The Yorkshire Innovator is sponsored by law firm Walker Morris.

Ian Gilbert, managing partner at Walker Morris, said: “Walker Morris is delighted to sponsor the category of Yorkshire Innovator in recognition of the importance of creativity and original thinking in successful firms particularly in today’s highly competitive business environment. These are qualities which also lie at the heart of our own culture.”

Readers can vote for who they believe should win the prestigious award.

To vote, fill in the form below.

The shortlist for Yorkshire Innovator is:

– Graham Bowland, of Surgical Innovations

Leeds-based specialist medical instrument designer and manufacturer Surgical Innovations (SI) has developed a pioneering range of Resposable instrumentation – devices that combine both the benefits of reusable and disposal instruments.

The fusion of both ‘reusable and disposable in one’ ensures that each product has the cost effectiveness of a reusable, with the optimum performance of a disposable, creating a cost effective, high quality instrument for surgeons operating mainly in laparoscopic operations.

Graham Bowland, managing director of SI, understood that surgeons required instruments that exceeded their needs each time they used them, but tight budget constraints within healthcare meant that the cost of such instruments had to be taken into account. Therefore in order to provide a solution that satisfied both procurement teams and clinical requirements, the Resposable technology was born.

Products include the Resposable Logi Range which includes scissors, graspers, dissectors; the YelloPort+plus and the latest product, Logi Flex, a device that aids gastric band deployment.

– Tom Hainsworth, of Hainsworth

Based in Stanningley, Leeds, Hainsworth is a family owned, specialist textile company which has been a market leading force for more than 225 years. Through continued innovation and technological investment, the company has continued to advance and prosper and is now run by the seventh generation of the Hainsworth family.

The fully equipped Hainsworth textile mill features modern spinning, weaving, dyeing, finishing, printing and fabric conversion machinery and employs experienced specialists who carry out every process in-house – from the selection of raw wool to the production of finished cloth.

Hainsworth actively seeks to push the boundaries of wool, integrating the traditional qualities of craftmanship with cutting edge innovation and product development. Its future is now firmly focused on the provision of groundbreaking products – a strategy which has seen the development and successes of what have become highly regarded brands.

Hainsworth has developed a unique range of woollen coffins and caskets as an environmentally friendly alternative to the conventional wood coffin and have been launched in the UK, United States and Europe.

It has also adapted its popular John Atkinson blankets to target a new, younger audience, developing a brand new range of affordable colourways and weaves with a contemporary edge, as well as developing a range of protective textiles used by firefighters, and a range of snooker and pool cloths.

– Dick Cardis, of JLA

Ripponden-based laundry specialists JLA has harnessed the processes found in thunderstorms to create a front line infection control tool for the NHS and care homes.

The company’s revolutionary system – OTEX – has been installed in 1,000 care homes nationwide, and more than 70 hospitals. Now it has received one of the Department of Health’s top accolades – ‘Level 1 Rapid Review Panel’ status – accepting it for use in all UK hospitals.

OTEX kills bacteria and viruses including MRSA and Clostridium Difficile spores in all laundry, including uniforms, mops, cloths, curtains, and clothes. Because fast-acting ozone is used in mainly cold water, most installations pay for themselves by reducing utility bills and saving staff time. In a recent independent survey of OTEX users nearly three quarters had realised these energy savings.

JLA developed OTEX in a £3m programme, after exhaustive tests established that conventional laundry processes were expensive and potentially flawed, allowing bacteria and viruses to survive and thrive; while every OTEX washing cycle eliminated them.

JLA has found a way to inject ozone – produced naturally during thunderstorms – by converting air to 90% oxygen. During the process, an electrical charge splits the oxygen atoms, which then re-assemble to form ozone. A patented interfusor delivers the ozonated water throughout the wash cycle, destroying bacteria and viruses.

[FORM: 22] The deadline for voting for the Yorkshire Innovator category is 4pm on Tuesday, May 25.

Our voting system will only allow one vote per user to be counted.

Yesterday, the shortlist for the Yorkshire Newcomer category was published and readers can vote for their winner by clicking here: Vote for your Yorkshire Newcomer.

The Yorkshire Business Masters’ judging panel, which sifted through dozens of entires to come up with the shortlist, was made up of Paul Fullerton, agent of the Bank of England for Yorkshire; Stephen Martin, chief executive of Clugston Group; Helen West, chief executive of Business Link; James Newman, the Master Cutler; Ajaz Ahmed, founder of Freeserve and Andrew Palmer, regional director of the CBI.

The awards will be held at Aspire in Leeds on June 17.

To book tickets for the event please click here.

For sponsorship opportunities please contact david.parkin@thebusinessdesk.com .