Bill Cody founds Contimach Limited in HK to develop a production base for engineering products in China.

First China office opened in Shijiazhuang, staffed with QC engineers to oversee production of DIN standard sprockets, gears, housings, castings and forgings for German customers. At this time, Contimach was the first company to reverse engineer the production of Taper bushes – soon to become the principle product of the early Challenge range.

Contimach worked with the Dunpai chain factory in Hangzhou and converted production from Soviet standard to DIN standard. A year later, Contimach began exporting DIN standard transmission chains to Europe and USA – the first non-Soviet transmission chains to be exported from China.

Sino-Deutch Engineering

Bill Cody enters talks with major UK customer Fenner PLC regarding their intent to acquire Contimach

Dongguan production facility established with 15,000sqm of production space, 100+ staff and an initial volume of 40 containers per month.

Sale of Contimach to Fenner PLC finalized. Bill returns to UK.

Bill restarts production of Challenge branded taper bushes in north China with export to South Africa.

Bill Cody and Louis Hopkins establish Challenge UK in Wolverhampton as the European distribution base for the Challenge range of products.

Challenge Shijiazhuang founded as a production base to control production and quality, managed by Francis Tian

Challenge UK acquires ABEC Ireland managed by Sean Robbins.

Challenge Zhuji founded in Zhejiang to control production of transmission chains, conveyor chains, gearboxes, belts and electric motors.

Challenge UK purchases new 5,000sqm facility

Challenge Australia established in Melbourne managed by Graham Smit

Challenge Africa established in Johannesburg managed by Rob and William Parkin

Bill Cody moves back to Hong Kong to establish Challenge HK as the holding company for the Challenge group.

Challenge Ningbo established as WOFE and Zhuji base consolidated in Ningbo

Challenge Ningbo opens ‘818’ production plant for manufacture of special conveyor chains managed by James Cody and Clive Cunliffe with technical assistance from Mike Jones of Brooks Andell Conveyor Chains

To keep up with rising demand, the ‘818’ factory has been moved into its own custom built 5500m2 new build factory where 60 employees are managed by British expats with over 40 years’ experience specifically in Conveyor Chain manufacturing.

With a large investment in brand new, state of the art machinery, the new facility is able to process over 500 tons of steel every month, with all manufacturing steps performed in-house.

With URS U.K visiting our factory every year to issue our ISO 9001:2015 certification, we work extremely hard to ensure that any chain stamped 'CHALLENGE' is manufactured and supplied to the highest possible European quality whilst keeping us competitive with Chinese manufactured prices.

It is with great pleasure that we announce, effective from 1st August 2018, Challenge will become part of the Megadyne group.

Megadyne SpA is a Turin-based company controlled by Partners Group AG and the Tadolini Family and is a world leader in power transmission belts and conveying systems.

With almost 40 years’ experience producing high quality power transmission products, Challenge brings to the combined organisation a wealth of knowledge and the most complete range of PT products available under a single brand. The Challenge range is highly complementary to the Megadyne portfolio and when combined, serve to give a complete motor-to-effector solution for end users and OEMs alike.

The Challenge management team, staff and branch locations remain unchanged and we look forward to continuing to provide our customers with high quality products, competitive pricing and friendly, professional customer service.

https://megadynegroup.com/en/news

https://www.challengept.com/news.php

Global belting leaders, Megadyne and Ammeraal Beltech have been joined under single ownership and leadership to create a true global leader in belting.

In order to unite our brands under a common new identity, all while preserving and building upon the strengths of each, we have created a new corporate group name: AMMEGA