Jobs created as manufacturer secures F1 and aerospace contracts
A Shropshire manufacturer has seen sales soar by 20% over the last 12 months with new contracts secured across the aerospace, F1 and automotive sectors helping it to smash through the £5m turnover barrier for the first time.
Advanced Chemical Etching (A.C.E), which is located on Hortonwood in Telford, has been boosted by the introduction of processes for etching aluminium and titanium parts, which it says have generated significant demand from a global customer base that is committed to sourcing lightweight components.
The growth has created 15 jobs and the company says there could be more recruitment plans on the horizon if plans to hit £8m by 2020 are realised.
The business produces anything from safety critical components for aircraft and F1 cars to meshes and electronic connectors and even frames for designer glasses.
All parts are developed and manufactured at its main site in Telford or at the company’s sister business, ACE Forming in Kingswinford.
“When etching aluminium it generates its own heat, causing the standard etching solution to go out of control…our ACmE process negates this by allowing more machine etching time instead of waiting for the solution to cool down back into controllable limits,” explained Ian Whateley, managing director of advanced chemical etching.
“TiME is similar and much safer than the conventional HF/Nitric mix and results in very clean etched profiles. The ability to develop these new technologies has seen us add hundreds of new clients to our books and we are looking to capitalise on this by continued investment in new machinery and capacity.”
He added: “Our expertise is going all over the world too. Current export levels are at 30%, but with the increase in demand for titanium medical parts supplied into Europe and USA, we are expecting this to be closer to 50% by 2020.
“We have further equipment planned for later this year, with several new production machines being added to our already impressive equipment list.”
He concluded: “All of this investment will increase throughput and improve our fine line technology for thinner materials. It’s all about making sure we are ahead of what the market wants.”
