CPA — Lift & Escalator Symposium

5 mins with… Brian Preston - CP Automation UK Ltd.

Tell us about your company and your business

CP Automation as a whole specialise in delivering bespoke motor control, power quality and energy saving solutions for an increasingly broad spectrum of customers and industries providing niche products, services and solutions that eliminate problems for our customers.

For the lift industry specifically, CPA had been supplying braking resistors and regeneration solutions for over 20 years before taking the opportunity to acquire the Magnetek UK lift business in June 2020 to further expand our involvement in the industry. We now supply and support Magnetek products throughout the EMEA Region and have also added Yaskawa and Nidec Control Techniques elevator specific solutions to our inverter offering.

• How many times have you attended the Lift & Escalator Symposium now?

I have enjoyed attending the Symposium since 2017 and first exhibited as Magnetek when an opportunity arose in 2018. When Elizabeth called to say the Symposium was returning again in 2022 after the pandemic, I didn’t give a second thought to attending and exhibiting again, this time as CP Automation.

• What has been your highlight of attending?

As a component and services provider, we tend to exist in our own small bubble of expertise and every year the Symposium delivers varied and thought-provoking presentations from industry experts that have really helped me develop a greater understanding of all aspects of a lift application. However, I have to say that one of the biggest highlights of all the events I have attended was when the Symposium returned in 2022 after the pandemic – it was great to meet face to face again after almost two years of online meetings.

• What will you be presenting/demonstrating?

This year we will be showcasing the services side of our business with a particular focus on the growing, but often mis-diagnosed, problem of poor power quality and it’s impact in causing unreliable lift operation and premature component failure.

• Tell us what has changed for your business in the past 12 months, what have been the highlights?

There have been a lot of changes and expansion within CPA as a whole in the past 12 months but the elevator group in particular has significantly expanded what we can offer to the industry. We have broadened our AC drive product offering with a semi-exclusive agreement with Control Techniques which enables us to supply and support their elevator drive products and enables us to access customers and applications that we couldn’t previously when we only offered the Magnetek product range.

In addition, demand for our single and three phase UPS solutions has increased dramatically in the past 12 months as customers look more and more for a UPS supplier with solutions tailored for the load demands of lift operation, that can help with sizing and ensure a risk-free selection. Whether that be for a simple brake lift function or full lift operation for a defined period of time, we have a solution and can help determine the best option for any given application.

Finally, we recently established a services side to the business to help support customers further, whether that be through drive upgrade supply and fit, UPS servicing, pre- and post- modernisation energy consumption measurement or pro-active power quality assessment prior to starting a modernisation project – it is better to identify and correct an issue before a modernisation program starts, rather than find it mid-works.

• What would you say to anyone who hasn’t attended before? Why should they attend?

I would recommend attending to anyone and to come with an open mind. The Symposium provides a great opportunity to learn more about some of the challenges the Industry is facing and also where the Industry is heading in future which is invaluable information for suppliers like us.

• What do you think are the trends for the next 12 months in the industry?

We anticipate the demand for lift specific UPS solutions to continue to grow, particularly for secondary supply applications. In addition, poor power quality is going to become an increasing problem and identification of the causes, impact and correction of related issues is going to become a much bigger topic.