Lisburn company wins £2m Network Rail contract

Lisburn-based company Kelman Ltd has won a £2 million contract to provide Network Rail, formerly Railtrack, with its Signet system which is designed to speed up detection and location of signal faults.

The contract for the Invest NI backed company is the company’s biggest contract to date and could potentially lead to further significant sales of the product.

Signet is described as an "intelligent protection scheme" that automatically isolates faults and restores the power supply, so minimising train hold-ups. Faulty signals and the time taken to identify and repair them are one of the main causes of train delays.

Peter Cunningham, Kelman's Director of Sales and Marketing, said: “We decided to take a new approach and developed Signet, which works by tripping the units closest to the fault while maintaining power supply along the rest of the chain. Network Rail will be installing the system nationwide and we’re confident that there is also an international market for Signet.”

Kelman has invested heavily in product development in recent years and, with the help of Invest NI’s Compete Programme, developed two products – Rezap and Fusemate – which were selected as Millennium Products by the Design Council and have been a considerable success for the company.

The company has also established strategic alliances in a number of countries with key players with specialised technologies that complement the Kelman development programme.

Michael Polson, Manager Industrial Products at Invest NI, said: “This significant contract with Network Rail has resulted from Kelman’s focus on research and development in their specialist field of electricity distribution. The electricity utility market has changed and developed in recent years and the company has been able to react quickly to changing market requirements and to take advantage of new opportunities.

“Kelman is an excellent example of a local company which is developing world-class innovative products and embracing strategic alliances with companies that have complementary technologies, and as a result is trading successfully in the international marketplace.”

Kelman Ltd currently employs 58 people and has offices in St Petersburg, Russia, and in Copenhagen, Denmark.

(GMcG)