Management of change: An example from the electronics industry Available to Purchase

Hellerman Deutsch make electronic parts for the aircraft and space industry — specialising in making cable connectors and relays and components on which lives depend. These components are used in aircraft like the controversial Concorde, on space shots, three miles underground on mining equipment and in life‐savers such as heart/lung machines. It can be appreciated that the failure of a connector or relay could cause an aircraft to crash, a multi‐million dollar space shot to be ruined, heart/lung and kidney machines to fail. The company is largely the creation of its present Chairman, Jack Bowthorpe, who began it in a garage in London in the 1930s. He began by cutting electrical wiring into standard lengths and selling these to the then growing aircraft industry. From this came the demand to supply connectors and to make specialised cables and switches until today this electrical group with a value of £20 million has eleven companies within the UK and an international network of companies and distributors.