What started as an attempt to make one joinery workshop run better eventually took us to Liverpool, where Prime Sash Windows powered by Joinery Core was recognised as a Smart Factory finalist at The Manufacturer MX Awards 2026.
It started with a workshop problem
Joinery Core was never created because we decided we wanted to build a software company. It started much more simply.As Skylon Joinery grew, so did the amount of information moving through the workshop. Projects, drawings, materials, stock, production stages, labour and deadlines all had to stay connected, and the systems we had relied on when the business was smaller were becoming harder to manage.So we started building something around the way our own workshop actually worked.Over time, Joinery Core became part of the everyday operation behind Prime Sash Windows, helping connect information from the office through to production and manufacturing.
Recognition we never expected
Earlier this year, Prime Sash Windows powered by Joinery Core was named a finalist in the Smart Factory category at The Manufacturer MX Awards 2026.That meant taking a story that had grown quietly inside our own business and presenting it to people from across UK manufacturing. On Wednesday evening, the team travelled to Liverpool for the awards ceremony alongside businesses operating on a completely different scale to ours.We did not win the category, congratulations to LISI AEROSPACE, who did, but standing there as a finalist was still a very proud moment. A few years ago, none of us would have imagined that changes being made inside our workshop would eventually take us to a national manufacturing awards ceremony.
Sometimes progress happens gradually enough that you do not realise how far you have come until somebody outside the business notices it too.
What the recognition really means to us
The part we are most proud of is not simply being able to call ourselves an award finalist. It is what the recognition represents.Skylon has always been built around people who make things, on construction sites, in the joinery workshop and across the different specialist teams within the Group. Technology has gradually become another tool within that process. Not to replace practical knowledge or skilled people, but to give them better information, better organisation and better ways of working.That approach is still developing. Joinery Core continues to evolve, our workshop continues to change and there are plenty of things we still want to improve. The MX Awards did not feel like the end of that journey. If anything, it made us even more curious about where it might go next.
What this means for you
For us, innovation does not always begin with a huge investment or a completely new idea. Sometimes it begins with a simple question:Is there a better way to do this?That question changed the way our joinery workshop operates and eventually led to Prime Sash Windows powered by Joinery Core becoming a Smart Factory finalist. We are proud of how far the team has come. And we are definitely not finished yet.
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