NPL Technologies, which provides prototype and production tooling services to the foundry industry, has recently seen a 30% increase in business from UK-based foundries, following several years in which its foundry tooling business declined to a low level.
After several years of downturn orders from UK companies for foundry tooling are on the up
“Since 2000 the bulk of the large foundry contracts have been shipped overseas to low-cost economies in the Far East and Eastern Europe, but NPL is now seeing resurgence in business as smaller, technically adept foundries corner the market for niche prototyping work across a range of industries. It is not cost-effective to send this kind of work overseas, and the necessary technical capabilities often cannot be found outside the UK,” he says.