Qimtek Case Study: Contracts Engineering

Flexible ordering to match customer demand

This year has highlighted some vulnerabilities in the global supply chain, from transportation delays and price increases, to increases in manufacturing costs and challenges forecasting customer demand. When quality, speed and reliability of deliveries are critical, choosing a local manufacturer like Contracts Engineering Ltd is a no brainer.

Troy Barratt, Managing Director at Contracts Engineering Ltd (CEL), a leading UK-based steel and aluminium contract manufacturer, highlights the factors to consider when choosing a high-volume production partner, whilst creating a local supply chain is the smartest thing to do.

Design for high volume manufacturing

Certain design features add complexity and therefore add time and costs to manufacturing. At CEL, they have a design team working with clients to ensure the design is easy to manufacture in high volume. They also produce prototypes to ensure all recommended design changes are acceptable.

Manufacturing quality assurance at every stage

There’s nothing worse for a client than to place an order for thousands of units, pay upfront, and then realise on delivery that the drawings were mis-interpreted, or the quality is sub-standard. At CEL, they have strong Quality Assurance processes from prototyping to full-scale production - including materials certs on all steel and aluminium used in manufacture. Raw materials come from reputable British and European suppliers and mills, and all their coating partners maintain British Standards and international standards such as ISO:9001. CEL have also invested in robotics and computerised equipment to increase efficiency and maintain consistent high-quality production. In April 2020, they took delivery of their first robotic MIG welding plant, which is over two times faster on high volume production than a manual welder, with consistent quality on every part.

Greater flexibility

CEL clients are also after flexibility, so CEL provides full-service support where they assemble, package and label products ready for distribution in weeks, rather than months. They agree call-off orders which let clients adjust requirements based on current demand, not on their best guess at time of placing the order. CEL also offer trading terms to clients, deliveries are straight forward and often same day. For those large and regular clients, they even store products in their warehouse and only invoice when they ship, greatly reducing inventory needs!