Cummins Darlington looks forward to a new era in the global industrial limelight – Celebrating historic landmarks and a new range of alternative solutions

Cummins, a giant of power solutions and the world’s largest independent engine manufacturer, recently celebrated 70 years of business in the UK, a significant milestone in the story of modern British industry.

In Darlington, the plant has been manufacturing since 1965 and has hailed its own series of triumphs from the historic landmark of 1.5 million mid-range engines in January 2022, to its new £14m powertrain test facility that will help accelerate the move towards clean power technologies.

The NEAA catches up with Darlington’s Plant Manager, Craig Thomas, to see what lies ahead for the company at the leading edge of power solutions.

Can you tell us more about Cummins and the products you manufacture in Darlington?

We are one of four plants in the UK; our mission is to make people’s lives better by powering a more prosperous world, we have 5 key values – integrity, diversity, and inclusion, caring, excellence and teamwork; these values are instilled in everything we do.

At Darlington we have 2 of the 5 business segments – Engine and Components, we are one of 2 engine plants in the UK, we employ over 1,500 people. The Darlington plant serves the construction, bus & coach, agriculture, marine, defence, power generation and truck markets.

We produce a range of engines from 3.8 to 8.9 litres for marine and on / off highway. Darlington has 183 customers in over 53 countries.
In 2021 we produced over 66,000 engines, our campus also incorporates Cummins Emission Solutions, which focuses on the aftertreatment development and testing and automotive and industrial aftertreatment. In 2022 we built our 1.5 millionth mid-range engine.

On site we also have European Technical Operations which develops and tests the engines and a pilot centre for customer equipment repower. At Darlington we also have Cummins Business Services which are shared services inclusive of HR, Finance, IT, and others. The site recently had an investment of over £20 million on production test capability and office facilities.