Automotive supplier gears up for growth with string of contract wins

A specialist automotive supplier has secured a string of contracts to help it bounce back from the Covid-19 pandemic.

RDM Group, which provides electronic and software engineering, automotive wiring harnesses, CNC machining, carbon fibre and trim and upholstery, has seen sales rise from pre-lockdown levels after carmakers switched to sourcing more locally to reduce dependencies on long, global supply chains

This has seen orders jump 30% on this time last year, creating up to 18 jobs across manufacturing, software development, logistics and in the firm’s autonomous technology division Aurrigo, which has recently launched Auto-Dolly, the world’s first driverless cargo and luggage dolly for airports.

Bosses at the Coventry-based company are now looking to capitalise on this demand by investing more than £500,000 into increasing engineering capacity, capital equipment, further recruitment and the opening of an additional international office in Singapore.

David Keene, CEO of RDM Group, said: “We have definitely noted a shift in purchasing decisions by the big OEMs, who are experiencing significant supply chain issues from Brexit, Covid-19 and natural disasters.

“The requirement for local sourcing has never been greater and we have certainly benefited since lockdown was eased, both in immediate sales and future pipeline of opportunities.

“At our Advanced Engineering Centre, we have the capability to support design, development, prototyping and medium volume supply across a range of engineering disciplines.

“This means customers can use us to single-source manufacturing solutions in anything from electronics and trim to injection moulding and carbon fire parts as lightweighting becomes increasingly important.”

RDM Group was founded twenty-eight years ago when Keene decided to take voluntary redundancy from MG Rover.

Over the next three decades it has overcome a number of major economic and global shocks to remain a critical supplier of engineering services to some of the world’s best-known automotive manufacturers, including Aston Martin, JLR and Morgan Motor Company.

“Our Autonomous Vehicle division Aurrigo continues to go from strength-to-strength, with the Auto-Pod and Auto-Shuttle resuming trials in Milton Keynes and on the roads in Cambridge respectively, whilst Auto-Dolly is enjoying massive interest from global ground handling specialists, airlines and airports,” said Keene.

“The latter is a massive opportunity and this, combined with our Auto-Sim modelling technology, could deliver more than £10m sales over the next 12 months, which will generate 50 new technology jobs in the area.”

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