One of the highlights in the Charity social calendar is the CHAS Rocking Horse Ball and Barum & Dewar are delighted, once again to be hosting a table of guests at this wonderful event. Taking place on Friday 17th June at Prestonfield, this year's Rocking Horse Ball is the first to take place since 2019.

For thirty years Children’s Hospices Across Scotland (CHAS) has been offering a full family support service for babies, children and young people with life-shortening conditions. This includes palliative care, family respite and support – through its hospices, homecare services and hospital presence. Over 16,700 children in Scotland are living with a life-shortening condition and CHAS want to reach every single one of those that need support because no family should face the death of their child alone.

Find out more about the work CHAS does here: https://www.chas.org.uk/

Mark Speck, our Regional Sales Manager, describes how a consultative approach to selling underpins the success of Barum & Dewar.

One of Barum & Dewar’s core values as a business is relationships. Nurturing healthy relationships with our clients is crucial to the success of the business. We aim to build and develop strong, trusting relationships that are mutually beneficial, fulfilling and long-lasting.

A consultative selling approach ensures that we build these great relationships. It allows us to fully understand the needs and requirements of our clients and, more importantly, meet and exceed their expectations.

With over 25 years’ experience in the packaging industry, our consultative approach differentiates us from our competitors, companies where a reactive approach is often taken, generally leading to premade solutions. We are proud to buck this trend and place extreme importance on taking the time to provide a bespoke solution that ticks every one of the client’s boxes.

Our starting point is always understanding “why?”, which allows us to formulate a path to finding the right solution. By really digging into the brief and finding out why things are done in the way they are, we can understand how best to support the client going forward. A premade solution might not be the right answer for the type of challenge they are facing. What will add more value for our client and truly solve their problem? Is it a quick fix or is a complete turnkey solution technical project?

Taking a consultative approach means that we work a lot closer with our clients than some of our competitors might, giving us the opportunity to educate them on the range of solutions available. This ensures that our clients are presented with a credible and viable solution which not only solves their problem but adds value too. We take this approach regardless of the equipment for which we are producing cases or the sector, be that defence and security, aerospace and space, offshore and subsea, or any others.

Within the team at Barum & Dewar, we have a strength and depth of knowledge and a whole range of experience which we can call upon in supporting our clients. This helps to inspire a real team feeling between ourselves and the client, where they know they are speaking to someone who is an expert in their field.

We see our clients coming back to us with new projects thanks to the time and care we put into building strong relationships with them. They know that we can deliver a product of the highest quality that works well for them and meets their deadlines.

Our consultative selling approach consistently demonstrates to our clients that we have their best interests at heart and enables us to become their partners in product protection.

Barum & Dewar is pleased to announce a new contract win with the National Oceanography Centre (NOC).

One of the world’s top oceanographic institutions, the NOC undertakes world leading research in large scale oceanography and ocean measurement technology innovation; working with government and business to turn great science and technology into advice and applications. It supports scientists in universities and research institutes with facilities, research infrastructure and irreplaceable data assets – enabling the UK to harness the full power and diversity of its ocean science talent.

Following successful delivery of bespoke cases for large pieces of oceanographic equipment in the past, the NOC approached Barum & Dewar to provide protective packaging for the transport of its submarine gliders and accessories to several coastal deployments around the UK.

The submarine gliders are highly sophisticated, and extremely valuable scientific hardware that gather oceanographic data for a wide variety of applications. This kit travels in a ‘ready to deploy’ state, so their safe and secure storage and transit is of paramount importance.

The NOC’s existing cases limit the number of gliders it can transport at any one time. This, coupled with the fact that the cases can be stored on deck or quayside, in harsh saltwater environments at temperatures ranging anywhere from -10 to +30 degrees Celsius, forms the basis of the brief to Barum & Dewar.

With over 15 years of experience working in the subsea sector, Barum & Dewar is perfectly placed to design new protective cases for the submarine gliders, working to propose a solution that is lightweight, durable and space efficient.

Barum & Dewar has secured a follow-on order from leading aerospace company, Leonardo. This latest contract will see Barum & Dewar provide a range of additional Falcon Shield deployable protective cases and builds on the success of previous deliveries.

Leonardo is among the top ten world players in Aerospace, Defence and Security with significant industrial presence in the UK. Barum & Dewar has been a trusted supplier of rugged, deployable cases, racks and protective packaging for more than ten years.

In 2019, Barum & Dewar worked in close partnership with Leonardo to design and manufacture a bespoke protective packaging solution to ensure the safe transportation and storage of Falcon Shield.

Falcon Shield is a rapidly deployable, scalable and modular system designed to address the threat from low, slow and small unmanned air systems (UAS). Falcon Shield’s flexible configurable system enables highly accurate detection, tracking, identification, geo-location and mitigation of UAS threats through a complimentary, fully integrated suite of sensors and effectors.

Falcon Shield’s software Command, Control and Situational Awareness (C2SA) environment provides a modular integration framework and intuitive user interface enabling comprehensive monitoring of the UAS threat environment and delivery of effective threat mitigation.

As a deployable modular system, all components are required to be fully protected and easily handled during transportation. The previously designed and field-proven solutions from Barum & Dewar have once again been selected by Leonardo to support its latest contract awards.

Alan Gemmell, Procurement Manager at Leonardo, said,

“Having worked closely with Barum & Dewar to produce the Falcon Shield cases back in 2019 and seeing first-hand how professional and knowledgeable the team are, the exceptional quality of the cases and the timely manner in which they were delivered, there was no doubt that we’d work together again.”

Barely three months into the new year and deliveries of additional ruggedised transit cases and 19” rack housings to the UK Ministry of Defence have already begun at Barum & Dewar. Deliveries are scheduled to continue over the next couple of months as hundreds of cases are fitted out with bespoke Computerised Numerical Control (CNC) routed internal foam, fabricated aluminium bracketry, webbing straps and full label sets.

Due to the current challenges faced within the global supply chain and the logistical uncertainties surrounding international freight, Barum & Dewar’s operations team chose to have the military-accredited empty cases and racks shipped directly from our partner SKB’s US manufacturing facility in several 40ft containers straight to our dedicated foam facility in Southampton. Once received, the empty cases are being united with previously manufactured foam inserts, assembled, packed and shipped straight to Ministry of Defence stores.

The cases and racks are all part of the NSoIT(D) five-year contract awarded to Barum & Dewar in 2020 and will provide protection to a range of IT hardware and associated communication equipment during field deployment, enabling rapid delivery to the frontline.

David Frame, Managing Director at Barum & Dewar, said,

“Having worked closely with Ministry of Defence teams for the past two years, we have a clear understanding of the intricacies of the project and the specific needs of the client, which has allowed us to continue to deliver market-leading protective packaging solutions that are bespoke to their needs.”