NORTH Yorkshire cable cleat manufacturer Ellis has designed and created a world first after being tasked by global electrical giant Siemens to secure its cabling.

Triton is a two-in-one cable guide and clamp that was developed by Rillington-based Ellis following a call to assist in the installation and restraining of seven large diameter high voltage cables for an offshore electrical substation in the North Sea.

Ellis managing director Richard Shaw said: "The requirement was to feed seven 117mm diameter cables along a specified route within a fabricated structure, which featured a significant number of twists and turns.

“The problem though was that there was no existing product that would enable the cables to be installed in an efficient, safe and cost-effective manner.”

The Ellis team set to work developing a solution that would secure the Siemens specification, and see them become the first company in the world to offer a two-in-one cable guide and clamp.

Mr Shaw added: "Within six weeks of the initial meeting, Siemens had approved our new product design, two weeks later five working prototypes successfully passed an installation trial in Germany and less than a month after that we’d received the order and had the tooling ready for mass production.

“We have always taken great pride in our ability to innovate, but to be asked to do so in a live project situation was certainly a real test of our mettle.

“To come through such a test with Siemens problem solved, the specification secured and an entirely new product range on the verge of being launched is the kind of result that even I, at my most optimistic, wouldn’t have predicted when we sat in that first meeting looking at the requirements of the project.”