1. UK industry news/Midlands
20 Machinery Market +44 (0)20 8460 4224 15 September 2016
ACE investment pays off
Telford-based Advanced Chemical Etching
(www.ace-uk.net), which produces precision
metal components, has won new orders worth
£500,000 from the aerospace and medical sec-
tors after investing £150,000 in a ‘state of the
art’ laboratory (headed up by Dr Muhammad
Eesa, pictured) and a new metrology depart-
ment. This has improved the firm’s ability to
offer access to new etching chemistry, along-
side its expertise in aluminium, titanium and
nitinol. The company can supply complex
parts for aircraft engines, cabin interiors
and landing-gear applications, while medical
customers have been tapping into its new
capability for bone re-construction and bionic
products.
Employing 46 people, the company is now
targeting new work in both these and other
sectors, especially where firms are looking
to optimise their designs to reduce weight
and save costs. Company director (and joint
founder) Chris Ball said: “The new laboratory
really puts us ahead of the competition. It gives
us the ability to develop safer chemistry pro-
cesses and control tighter design parameters
— delivering performance never before seen
in photo etching. In layman’s terms, it means
that the quality of one-offs/prototypes can now
be transferred to the thousands of components
normally found in mid-size and long produc-
tion runs. Our aerospace and medical cus-
tomers have been making the most of this new
facility, and the former now account for more
than 40% of our turnover. There is now a sig-
nificant opportunity to target F1, automotive
and other high-value engineering sectors that
demand the same precision excellence.”
Managing director Ian Whateley said: “This
is a major year for our business, and we’ve re-
ally attacked the market-place with investment
in new technology, new capital equipment and
new highly skilled staff. We’re well on course
to hit our business plan of turning over £5
million by the end of next year.”
Gestamp to open
new production
facility in the UK
The Spanish automotive supplier Gestamp
is to open a £70 million manufacturing fa-
cility in Four Ashes, near Wolverhampton.
This will house stamping equipment and
will safeguard the 800 jobs at Gestamp’s
current plant in nearby Cannock by pro-
gressively moving production to the new
facility. A Gestamp spokesman said the
goal is to create “a more efficient and
competitive operation that offers the best
service to our customers.” These include
BMW, Honda, Jaguar Land Rover, Nissan-
Renault and Toyota. Plans are for produc-
tion to start before the end of 2017.
Ian Middleton, Gestamp’s UK manager,
said: “We have been working on this pro-
ject for a long time. The UK has grown to
become one of Gestamp’s top-five global
markets since we started operating here in
2011. The company is committed to helping
its customers in the key areas of quality,
safety and lightweight innovations and
wants its facilities to use the most modern
stamping technologies available.”
Gestamp has already invested more
than £180 million in its UK plants since
2011, including over £30 million in the
existing Cannock facility. Once completed,
the annual turnover of the new West Mid-
lands plant will be more than £140 million
per year. Part of the existing facilities in
Cannock may be retained to accommodate
future training and development require-
ments.
The new plant has been supported
by Stoke on Trent & Staffordshire LEP,
Staffordshire County Council, Cannock
Chase District Council and the Department
for International Trade via the Automotive
Investment Organisation. The site has ben-
efited from the construction by the county
council of a new access road off the A449
— a £2 million project funded through
the LEP’s Local Growth Fund.
Fears for the automotive industry
A Midlands academic has warned that the threat
by Japan to withdraw some of its companies
from the UK post-Brexit could have serious
implications for the automotive sector. Nigel
Driffield, of Warwick Business School, said:
“Japanese companies are responsible for mil-
lions of pounds being invested into the Mid-
lands’ automotive industry, not even taking into
account the massive Toyota plant at Burnaston,
near Derby.”
Mr Driffield, a professor of International
Business, has been researching the effects of
Brexit on foreign direct investment into the
UK over the summer. He said: “While it is un-
likely that if the post-Brexit world was not to the
liking of Japanese investors they would move
overnight, one should bear in mind that Japanese
car firms invested some £260 million in the UK
in the four years up to 2014. Virtually all of this
took the form of re-tooling or updating, rather
than new green-field investment, and it is that
which, over time, would drift away were the
UK to divorce itself from the single market.”
The professor added: “Were these firms to
relocate, or prioritise production facilities else-
where, then the number of jobs under threat
would greatly exceed the number employed in
just the inward investors themselves. Japanese
investment in the UK has been significant since
the 1980s; and while Japan only represents
about 3% of the total foreign direct investment
that comes into the UK, it is much higher in cer-
tain high-profile sectors, such as automotive and
sectors with very close trading links to the EU.
“Moreover, we should not merely be consid-
ering the EU as the final export market for
Japanese cars made in the UK, but also consid-
ering the many supply chains in these sectors,
as they cross several EU national borders. This
means that free movement of components, as
well as finished goods, is key to the on-going
development of this sector.”
Micro-Mesh
acquisition
Nottingham-based filter manufacturer
Micro-Mesh Filtration has acquired the
gas-turbine-making division of a firm that
went into administration about two months
ago. Champion Laboratories called in
insolvency specialists from RSM Restruc-
turing Advisory on 5 July after the US
group that financially supported it filed for
bankruptcy. Micro-Mesh, which has been
operating in Nottingham since 1968, had a
long-standing relationship with Champion.
Graham Busby, a partner at RSM, said:
“The gas-turbine business was an impor-
tant part of Champion’s operation. I am
pleased that we have been able to preserve
value for creditors by selling part of the
business as a going concern. The remaining
assets — including plant, office furniture
and equipment, and stock — will be sold
at auction.”
James Underwood, managing director
of Micro-Mesh Filtration, said: “We look
forward to working with the existing
customers, as well as exploring some new
possibilities. We feel that this new acquisi-
tion — along with our existing range of
hydraulic filters — will enable us to offer a
complete filtration package to customers,
saving them time and money.”