Ability Tec beats Far East to land £250k order

A NORTH West social enterprise has won an order worth £250,000, beating a Far East manufacturer on turnaround times and quality.

Bolton-based Ability Tec, which was born out of the former Remploy Electronics factory in the town, is a small contract electronics manufacturer.

Amongst its new customers won since they began trading a year ago is Radcliffe-basd technology business Parotec Solutions, which was using a Taiwan contractor with factories in China to manufacture a device which charges multiple mobile phones, iPads and tablet PCs.

After a trial run using Ability Tec printed circuit boards, Parotec has decided to switch its 5,000 unit per annum production from China to Bolton.

Bob Atkins the owner of Parotec Solutions, explained: ““We had quality concerns with our supplier in China and it was taking three months to get the circuit boards delivered. That was tying up cash and it was costing significant time and money to get on a plane once a quarter to visit the factory.

“Ability Tec’s price is within a whisker of what were getting from China but for a more advanced, higher quality product and the savings we make by not having to take 17 hour flights to the Far East compared to visiting a factory three miles away is huge in terms of cost, time and also certainty. It also helps our cash flow that we can order in smaller batches of a thousand units whereas China could only offer their prices on large, inflexible orders.”

Oli Randell, part time managing director of Ability Tec added: ““Too many companies see the unit cost from a factory with cheap labour, but don’t see the added cost to them of working capital, transportation and storage, duty and also management time in having to maintain supplier relationships across thousands of miles and several time zones.

“Parotec Solutions won’t be the last company to see the whole picture and make the switch to UK manufacture.”