Two new high technology machines will expand capacity will expand capacity by 30% and help Advanced Chemical Etching meet growing demand from the aerospace, electric vehicle and fuel cell markets.
The Chemcut Etch machines will help customers bring their designs and prototypes to market quicker, a decisive selling point that the business hopes will help it meet its two-year plan to hit £10m in sales.
Ian Whateley, Managing Director of Advanced Chemical Etching, commented: “We are always looking at ways where we can reduce lead times and have greater control over the tolerances we can offer, and this latest investment reinforces that.
“The two etching machines are currently being installed and should be fully up and running by late summer. When they go live, we’ll have a third more production capability, which means we can go after new opportunities and there’s plenty of those currently, whether its supplying busbars and lead frames to EV or critical components to the medical sector.
“This latest technology will make us faster, guarantee repeatable quality and, with energy costs rising, will reduce our electricity and water consumption considerably.”
The company specialises in the development of precision components to customers in more than 25 countries, spanning aerospace, space, general engineering, automotive, electronics, medical, telecoms and renewables.
The scope of its activities is far and wide and can include anything from safety critical components for aircraft and F1 cars, to meshes and electronic connectors, battery interconnectors, fuel cell bi-polar plates, cooling plates and heat exchangers.
All parts are developed and manufactured at its main site in Telford or at the company’s dedicated sister business, ACE Forming Limited, in Kingswinford.
It works to exacting tolerances and can manufacture components in materials, such as stainless steel, nickel alloys, copper, beryllium copper, phosphor bronze, brass and, thanks to new processes, aluminium, molybdenum, titanium, nitinol and Elgiloy.
Chris Ball, Executive Director, went on to add: “We operated throughout the pandemic and, thankfully, have emerged with an even stronger order book than what we went into Covid-19 with…that’s a great position to be in, especially with the amount of reshoring opportunities heading back to the UK.
“In addition to our recent investment drive, we have also strengthened our workforce with eight new people joining across our inspection, facility and plant maintenance, and our sales and marketing departments.
“There has been an increase in the number of special operation products we are getting involved in and this would necessitate the need for people to be multi-skilled and internally work across numerous projects. That’s why investment in ongoing training will be so crucial.”
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