MWS: Shaping the Future of Manufacturing Through People and Purpose

Micro Weighing Solutions (MWS) shows how small manufacturers can thrive: by putting people first, aiming for resilience, and planning for legacy.

On a recent company day, the entire MWS team set aside the tools of their trade to gather as one. There were speeches, long-service awards, photographs, and, perhaps most importantly, conversations across the shop floor that might never have happened otherwise. For Managing Director Andrew Clarke, these moments are not extras. They are the foundation of the company’s future.

“If they grow, we grow, we grow together,” he says.

Andrew took full control of MWS in 2021, steering the Leicester-based weighing specialist through a period of upheaval and into renewed stability. Since then, annual turnover has risen by over 50%, with a detailed six-year plan to more than double the revenue through sustained and achievable growth. Yet he is the first to insist that the real success story lies in the people who power the business.

MWS employs 30 staff, a third of them from international backgrounds. That diversity is not a recruitment slogan but a lived reality, visible in the company’s shop floor and service teams. Engineers have joined through persistence and passion as much as formal pathways. One candidate knocked on the door until Andrew created a role for him.

“Anyone who wants to work here that badly,” Andrew recalls, “you find a way to make it happen.”

The Micro Weighing Solutions (MWS) team outside their Leicester headquarters - a diverse and dedicated group shaping the future of British manufacturing through people, purpose, and innovation.

The company’s strategy is as much about resilience as revenue. High-value markets such as pharmaceuticals and food manufacturing are central to its plans, supported by a growing service division that accounts for a third of their turnover. The goal is to push that figure to nearly half in the coming years, securing recurring income that gives MWS the confidence to invest in its people and facilities.

“Customer service comes from culture,” Andrew says. “If you build a team that cares, everything else flows.”

That care extends to a long-term ambition unusual in British manufacturing. By 2031, MWS aims to become an employee-owned business. For Andrew, this is not a financial manoeuvre but a moral one, a way of ensuring the legacy belongs to the people who made it possible.

“Success isn’t just about how much cash you’ve got in the bank,” he reflects. “It’s about who you’ve helped along the way, who you’ve given opportunities to, and what you leave behind…”

In an industry often defined by output and margins, MWS is staking its future on culture, inclusion and trust. And in doing so, it may be offering a model for what modern British manufacturing needs most: businesses that last because people want to build them together.

An MWS engineer at work - where craftsmanship meets innovation in every weld.