Leamington-based GRM on the fast track to success

A Leamington company is on the fast track to success after designing new seats for trains serving the eastern counties of England.

GRM has spent six months developing a prototype of lighter, safer seats for Greater Anglia and Eversholt Rail.

The 15-strong business has joined forces with Coventry-based Automotive Trim Developments (ATD) who will be manufacturing the 10,000 seats to be installed from September.

The project is great news for GRM, based at Edmund House in Rugby Road, but may not have been finalised without the support of the Coventry and Warwickshire Growth Hub after GRM managing director Martin Gambling met account manager Carolyn Reily at the Automotive Engineering Show at the NEC.

With Carolyn’s help, GRM applied for a grant from the Big City Deal which is run by Coventry University Enterprises. The funding enabled the recruitment of design engineer Ashley Fulham to work on the project full-time after GRM and ATD had already made significant investments in the prototype stage.

Martin said: “We were 80 per cent there and the extra funding was the final piece in the jigsaw because we didn’t have the time or the resources to take things to the production design level.

“The project wouldn’t have developed as smoothly without having a full-time member of staff working solely on this and, from ATD’s perspective, it has been helpful to know they are investing their knowledge in a permanent member of our staff.

 “We hope this will lead to work with other train companies as a new and exciting part of our business.  Working in sectors such as automotive and motorsport, where we develop and provide optimisation software products and services, the opportunity to expand into the rail industry is an exciting one.”

He added: “Talking to Carolyn it became apparent there was support for what we needed and it was really helpful having the support of the Growth Hub to discover there is a service available to help SMEs.”

The Coventry and Warwickshire Growth Hub is a one-stop-shop for support and advice for businesses across the area, which was formed by the Coventry and Warwickshire Local Enterprise Partnership as part of its City Deal bid to government.

Partners involved include the Coventry and Warwickshire Chamber of Commerce, UKTI, local authorities across the sub-region, Coventry University, the University of Warwick and the Manufacturing Advisory Service, which is now part of the Business Growth Service.

Craig Humphrey, managing director of the Coventry and Warwickshire Growth Hub, said GRM is an innovative business which is driving forward into new markets.

He said: “GRM had a fantastic train seat which had passed stringent safety tests at MIRA in Nuneaton but just needed funding to turn it from a prototype into the finished product.

“The seat is now production ready and by working with another local company – ATD in Coventry – it will be installed in time for passengers travelling on Greater Anglia trains in the winter.”