Industry4 Ltd

Registered Office

  • 4IR.UK British Systems
  • Unit 12, 44 Springfield Road
  • Poole
  • BH14 0LQ
  • United Kingdom

Background

4IR.UK British Systems is a trading name of Industry4 Ltd.

Registered in England & Wales as 10014834.

Co-Founded in 2016 as INDUSTRY4.UK by David Graham and Julian Singh. The business was renamed to 4IR.UK in 2017.

Yearly reports are issued between February and November.

Directors Report

The Company’s principal activity during the period was the sale and support of the SMEMA Hermes Adaptor and the SMEMA Ethernet Adaptor which are used within Electronic Assembly factories worldwide.

During the period we secured 6 new customers including a Tier 1 company from the Telecoms industry, with 4 customers returning to make repeat orders. A large number of orders are coming from distributors located in Italy and Germany so this is causing us to have reduced visibility of knowing who the final end customers are. For this reason it’s getting harder to report the final country destination of our products. Considering the distributor's locations are within the EU, we can conclude there is an even spread of customers between Europe, America and Asia within the period. We continue to work with eCommerce company Smart Factory Direct as our main product distributor for worldwide sales.

We still haven't secured any customers within England after visiting a possible lead at the start of the year, however we have secured our first customer in France. Total customers served is now 40.

OEM support was completed in the period so we are ready to allow integration of our software within other vendors machines to catapult the rollout of the Hermes Standard.

Our SMEMA Hermes Adaptor currently operates as a beta product yet it is considered stable for production environments. Our goal for 2026 is to implement International Language support which will allow the product to be taken out of beta.

The main highlight of the period was exhibiting our products at Productronica 2025 for the show’s 50th anniversary. This was only possible by the invite from our Italian distributor Mancini Enterprise Group and the ability to share their booth.

We were also able to launch the MVP (Minimum Viable Product) of our Hermes Standard Supervisory App software at the show which triggered discussions with the staff from Siemens Berlin and the Inission Group. This newly commissioned software will open us up to opportunities in providing production line monitoring, control and analytics features. This will elevate our supplier status from a provider of an enabling device to a critical core supplier commanding the day to day use of a SMT production line.

The Value Added Tax situation stated during the previous period report still exists and so material costs reflect it. With good progress in R&D and good growth in Reach, this positive trend has been offset by disappointing sales which were half of those seen in the previous period.

The Economy plays a big factor with two wars currently active and a slump in the automotive sector resulting in a drop in capital equipment sales across the industry. To improve this situation we intend to begin conducting direct marketing and social media advertising in the near future. We increased our prices for the first time in years caused by Memory shortages triggered by Data Center use for Artificial Intelligence.

We however operate in a vulnerable position where we rely on Machine Builders to support the Hermes Standard in order for us to provide tools to connect any voids along the production line and customers have indicated to us that some projects have stalled because of this.

A strategic review will commence within the next period to see if we can remove ourselves from this vulnerability. We however already believe focusing on the Hermes Standard Supervisory App will open ourselves to new opportunities and return the business back to a core software supplier.

To date all operations are currently loss making and our shareholders have indicated that they are committed to supporting the business over the next period. The Company therefore continues to adopt the going concern basis in preparing its financial statements.

The Company’s principal activity during the period was the sale and support of the SMEMA Hermes Adaptor and the SMEMA Ethernet Adaptor which are used within Electronic Assembly factories worldwide.

During the period we secured 2 new customers from the Defence and Space industries, with 16 customers returning to make repeat orders. 3 of these customers ordered 3 times throughout the year.

There is a big mix of end user customers and distributors including OEM integrators. The Northern American market has grown well, while the Asia market has become a volume buyer, followed by Europe who are rolling out the Hermes Standard on a step by step approach. We now serve 35 customers.

The development of the hardware of the SMEMA CFX Adaptor prototype was completed with software development to follow. A trademark dispute between IPC International Inc occurred by the use of their CFX logo and this has now been resolved peacefully.

We continue to work with eCommerce business Smart Factory Direct as our main product distributor and a small segment of sales are occurring via unofficial European and Asian distributors who have existing relationships with their customer base.

The Value Added Tax situation stated during the previous period report still exists and so material costs reflect it. Our first member of staff successfully supported the final assembly of the products.

We still have not conducted any direct marketing or advertising but aim to target the OEM market where our solutions will be embedded into other suppliers products. Our goal for 2025 is to secure a customer in England. To date all operations are currently loss making.

The Company’s principal activity during the period was the sale and support of the SMEMA Hermes Adaptor and the SMEMA Ethernet Adaptor which are used within Electronic Assembly factories worldwide.

During the period we secured 13 new customers with 2 repeat orders from the previous period. 7 of these customers reordered within the period. The value of the orders have substantially increased as forecasted while our products are used on multiple production lines within the same manufacturing factory. There is also a growth of organic recommendations of our products between customer manufacturing facilities around the world.

Our products now operate in 20 countries. We continue to work with eCommerce business Smart Factory Direct as our main product distributor and a small segment of sales are occurring via unofficial European and Asian distributors who have existing relationships with their customer base.

The Value Added Tax situation stated during the previous period report still exists and so material costs reflect it. We are currently onboarding our first member of staff to support the final assembly of the products.

During the period we attended Productronica ‘23 in Munich during November, this also featured the 12th Hermes Standard Initiative Meeting.

We also attended IPC WinterCom '24 at the end of January in Barcelona. This was to improve our relationship with the IPC CFX 2-17a Task Group as we secured a UK Government match fund to develop the SMEMA CFX Adaptor which has a target prototype completion date of December '24.

We still have not conducted any direct marketing or advertising but aim to target the OEM market where our solutions will be embedded into other suppliers products. To date all operations are currently loss making.

The Company’s principal activity during the period was the sale and support of the SMEMA Hermes Adaptor and the SMEMA Ethernet Adaptor which are used within Electronic Assembly factories worldwide.

During the period we secured 12 new international customers with 1 repeat order. Writing this report during September 2023 I can pre report that many of these customers made repeat orders after the period and the order book looks strong.

We continue to work with eCommerce business Smart Factory Direct as our main product distributor and will be agreeing new wholesale prices in the next period so this is likely to reflect in the next period’s balance sheet.

The business is not currently VAT registered and so we are having to pass the cost of us paying VAT for our materials to our customers. All our customers are currently international and so would be treated as zero rated and so we expect our costs to lower as soon as we become VAT registered and are able to claim back the VAT that our suppliers charge us. This may be reflected in the next period.

At the end of the period we attended IPC Apex Expo in San Diego and both Adaptors were well received with the American customer base.

Due to the projection of sales of this period we have agreed the repayment of a R&D loan of £6,777 to be made over the next period. To date all operations are currently loss making.

Fundraising

Date Type Awarded By Amount £ GBP Notes
2016 Grant Creative England 25,000 Repayable after £100,000 revenue
2018 Loan Director 6,777 Repaid
2019 Match Fund EU ESIF 9,278
2021 Grant Dorset Growth Hub 1,000
2023 Match Fund UKSPF 5,000
  • Between 2017 and 2023 the business was bootstrapped and the Director withdrew no salary from the business. The director took a part time weekend night employment for 2 days a week at John Lewis PLC.

Team

Name Appointed Resigned Notable Career
David Graham 19 February 2016 Technical Specialist Software Engineer at DEK Printing Machines Ltd
Julian Singh 25 June 2016 22 May 2017 Account Manager for Intel Corporation at DEK Printing Machines Ltd
  • Julian acted as the interim Business Development Manager during the business accelerator programme.

Documents and Presentations