Half century of success for RDP

Founded by three young engineers in February 1966, RDP Electronics has come through the ups and downs of British manufacturing history over the decades and is celebrating its anniversary with a special event on Saturday, April 16, at Madeley Court Hotel, Telford, for 150 guests including past and present employees.

It all began on a train journey in 1965 when Richard Garbett and Peter Smith whiled away a business trip to Farnborough talking over their dreams and aspirations. They and their working colleague, David Johnston, were convinced there was a good future in the market place for transducers and measuring instrumentation.

At this time, the aerospace industry was pioneering work in the rapidly expanding use of electronics devices for the measurement of all kinds of engineering parameters. All three had gained several years of experience in a variety of transducers and electronic instrumentation.

And so, in February 1966, the new company RDP Electronics was formed, based in rented offices in Wolverhampton's Royal London Buildings, in Princess Street, and at workshops in Upper Zoar Street.

During the early years of developing their own inductive transducers and measuring instrumentation products and markets their company kept up the cash flow by designing and building special systems for large organisations and universities. Soon, RDP was able to begin marketing its own products to a wide range of industries and research projects.

As market experience was gained the product range increased and more and more demanding applications for inductive displacement transducers developed. It became clear that in addition to the standard industrial/scientific products there was a market for very specialised devices. This resulted in transducers that could operate in temperatures from -200C to +500 C in radiation environments and underwater to a depth of 500 metres.

This versatile product range saw RDP involved in many prestigious projects in the early 1970's, including development of the supersonic airliner, Concorde, supplying long stroke LVDT transducers used in the full scale, long term fatigue testing facility and later flying surface control.

RDP also developed a new range of submersible devices for use in monitoring the movement of clay and rocks both in the construction of the new Channel Tunnel and also in the unique pumped storage scheme for instant power generation at the CEGB Dinorwic Power Station in Wales.

At the same time, RDP gained a Ministry of Defence contract to develop and supply specialised bore gauging equipment for the quality control of the internal dimensions of gun barrels, ranging from 85mm to 150mm, measuring to an accuracy of better than 0.0005 of an inch with a resolution of 0.0002 of an inch.

Just five years after starting RDP an opportunity arose to start another company to manufacture electronically controlled servo-hydraulic materials testing machines and RDP Hydraulics was formed. Not long after this the company took a risk and purchased outright a larger business, TC Howden, whcih manufactured complementary machines. The two companies were soon merged to form RDP-Howden operating from a factory in Leamington Spa. This ran very successfully for several years but the decline in manufacturing in the UK ultimately forced RDP to close this operation a few years ago.

In 1982 after investing quite heavily in advertising and marketing as well as making sales visits to set up representatives in many countries a decision was made to open a company in the USA to distribute and run the sales operation in what is the biggest market for RDP's products. So, RDP Electrosense Inc, was registered and a manager and staff engaged. This has been a significant factor in the company's continued success.

The development of the worldwide web has opened the doors to international sales in recent years, giving RDP a shop window for itsOf course recent years have seen the rapid development of the worldwide web and RDP were quick to take advantage of this by launching its own Website (www.rdpe.com) where the whole world can now view the product range and access to a wealth of technical details about the products and their applications. This has resulted in many sales from all corners of the world that may not have been discovered by any other means.

Fifty years on, having started from virtually zero, Peter Smith and Richard Garbett still play an active role in the company, a leading manufacturer of measuring instrumentation, operating from a quiet backwater of the city – now based in Grove Street in Heath Town – and shipping its products around the world.

And The road has not been a smooth one with several recessions and the three day week being overcome on the way, but with hard work and enterprise RDP has provided a living for up to 100 skilled and highly qualified employees, all of whom have played their part in the success of the company.