ENTERPRISING employees at a Birtley manufacturing plant have won recognition for their problem-solving skills.

For the last nine months groups of employees at excavator manufacturer Komatsu UK have been working together to identify areas within the manufacturing process which they could improve for an in-house competition.

But it was staff from the Birtley site who scooped first prize by redesigning a pin in an excavator arm.

Keith Hardy, Douglas Lough, Keith Matthews and Leslie Smith developed their winning idea during weekly lunch-time meetings and carried out a full assessment of the boom and arm section in order to identify any areas that could be addressed before presenting their proposals to senior management.

Tracey Wilson, human resources manager for Komatsu UK said: "The convention is designed to award the quality circle teams for all the valuable work they do whilst adding a competitive edge to the process.

"The standard of this year's entries was extremely high."