New vehicle engineering website

I am delighted to welcome you to our new website.

The rebranding of our business reflects that we are now a fully integrated part of Babcock, and follows a recent strategic realignment of the whole organisation.

Our new trading name is Babcock Vehicle Engineering Ltd and we sit within Babcock’s Land sector – one of the biggest UK players operating in the military and commercial market places.

This is an exciting change for the business and the customers we serve. We believe that integrating into the Babcock brand further strengthens our commitment to deliver ever more innovative and engineering-driven whole-life solutions to our customers.

I would like to give my personal reassurance that the name change does not mean a change in our focus or service. We remain committed to delivering a personal service second to none, and look forward to catching up with our customers and suppliers in the coming months.

Richard Semmens
Managing Director – Vehicle Engineering

EMC Test Chamber Launch, NAPFM – MacNeillie launches EMC Test Chamber

An impressive new EMC test chamber has been officially launched at the Blue & Amber Light Fleet Exhibition by one of the UK’s leading specialist vehicle conversion companies.

MacNeillie have invested around £500,000 in a purpose-built semi-anechoic electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) test chamber, located within its secure facility in the West Midlands. The aim of the facility is to eradicate the costs of transportation, enhance project security, reduce the risk of delay and offer customers a true one-stop-shop solution.

The facility incorporates the latest test equipment from industry leading suppliers such as Rohde & Schwarz and Amplifier Research. Customers are expected to include original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), police forces, ambulance authorities, fire and rescue services, and other government agencies.

Managing Director Nigel Rowley said: “The launch of our new EMC test chamber at the Blue & Amber Light Fleet exhibition marks a significant investment by MacNeillie, achieving one of our business plan’s medium term goals ahead of schedule.

“Our business model is simple, we asked ourselves – how can we improve our service to our customers? The obvious answer in these current times of austerity is to pare down conversion and integration costs. Over the past 36 months, we have worked on various initiatives to reduce costs, further improve efficiency and restructure our procurement.

“Our EMC chamber follows other initiatives where our internal services have been strengthened. We recently opened our southern facility where we carry out conversions and deploy client support engineers from to cover London and the South. We are now a recognised MOT facility, testing, repairing and servicing customer’s vehicles using security cleared staff and there are several new initiatives ahead.”

MacNeillie will be working closely with a number of government departments including the Home Office Centre for Applied Science and Technology (CAST), to provide EMC assessments of vehicles for emergency and security markets. These assessments include:

  • Antenna performance
  • Radiated emissions
  • Mutual interference / interoperability between vehicles and installed equipment
  • Electrical supply disturbance and consumption
  • Earth bonding
  • Radiated field strength measurements

Equipment level testing, in accordance with CISPR and EN61000-4 standards, includes:

  • Radiated emissions from 30MHz to 3GHz
  • Immunity testing from 80MHz to 1GHz

Mr Rowley said the investment demonstrated MacNeillie’s commitment to combining professionalism with the flexibility to respond quickly to customer requirements. The company is seeking to gain accredited test house status and to expand the scope of testing into related markets.

Crown Commercial Service Supplier – Vehicle Conversion & Reconditioning Services

The Government Procurement Service is an executive agency within the Cabinet Office aiming to provide advice and support with the procurement process. They have introduced a new Vehicle Conversion Framework in order to simplify the process of procuring vehicles and vehicle conversions. By involving stakeholders and setting consistent best practice standards, the framework agreement aims to bring down prices for the consumer.

MacNeillie are proud to announce that we are listed suppliers under all seven lots within the new RM956 Framework launched by GPS (now known as Crown Commercial Service). This means that we are one of the converters of choice for both public and government vehicles under the following categories:

Lot 1:       M1 & N1 Conversions and Modifications (and specialist variants)

Lot 2:       M2 & N2 Conversions & Bodybuild (and specialist variants)

Lot 3:       N3 Conversions & Bodybuild

Lot 4:       Trailers (including semi-trailers) and Conversions O1, O2, and O3 & O4

Lot 5:       Conversion and Bodybuild of special purpose vehicles

Lot 6:       Conversion and Bodybuild of stretcher bearing vehicles

Lot 7:       Electrical installation – supply and fit