The only way is up

the-only-way-is-up
the-only-way-is-up

Mike Richardson visits Formaplex to see how the company's dynamic culture has paid dividends in helping it win major subcontract mould tooling and component manufacturing work.

Mike Richardson visits Formaplex to see how the company’s dynamic culture has paid dividends in helping it win major subcontract mould tooling and component manufacturing work. Walk around Formaplex’s three closely-knit Hampshire-based manufacturing facilities and you’ll witness a company that’s just as happy producing metallic parts and assemblies as it is with parts made from plastic and composite materials. It’s no mean feat that the company can boast ongoing subcontract work on programmes such as the Bloodhound SSC chassis and the blast-proof pods of the Foxhound Light Protected Patrol Vehicle programme.

The rapid engineering company specialises in injection mould tooling, composite tooling and the manufacture of plastic components for the motorsport, automotive, aerospace and defence industries. Established in July 2001, the company says it has instilled a culture of meeting its customers’ demand for rapid project delivery and offering round-the-clock support in order to underpin its growth.

The growth in pattern manufacturing capacity comes at the end of a busy period for Formaplex. The company employs 190 people, has doubled its manufacturing floor space to 135,000ft2, invested £3.5 million in a new facility, 5-axis CNC machinery and three large injection moulding machines and created 45 new jobs since the beginning of 2012.

“Our business is built on a very dynamic approach to manufacturing,” begins sales director, Andy Bone. “It was established by two manufacturing engineers working on a couple of machining centres producing machined parts, tooling and moulds to support the demands of the Formula 1 industry. This meant manufacturing and delivering parts the next day, 24-7, and has very much set the cultural blueprint for our business today. We optimise our machining centres to obtain the maximum output as they represent huge capital expenditure items of equipment that should be running flat out seven days a week.

“Formaplex has now expanded into supplying rapid tooling solutions and producing thermoplastic parts to the automotive industry for both, prototype design/development testing and medium volume production. Instead of using rapid prototyping technologies, we’re able to supply production-intent parts to our customers to test real parts quickly. We’ve gradually grown the business on the back of this ethos, plus we’re performing increasingly more work in the composite materials arena, expanding from purely supplying the automotive sector to the military and aerospace sectors too.”

The turning wheels of industry

However, as Bone points out, in terms of bringing a product to fruition the aerospace industry is a far slower moving industry than Formula 1.

“Formula 1 comprises many small, dynamic business units racing against each other to provide incremental advantages and improvements,” he continues. “These companies really are at the cutting edge and use the latest computer-aided engineering technologies for rapid prototype and part production. This is where we come in by supporting their endeavours.

“This has meant building a huge resource facility, which now enables us to provide tooling solutions for the larger and typically slower moving defence and aerospace programmes. It’s down to our individual employees in being dynamic and working on the kinds of projects that can involve producing individual plastic parts one day, to providing fully-assembled items for the automotive industry or composite assemblies and units to the military industry the next.”

For Formaplex, long-lasting customer partnerships are vital, particularly on large project work that require a lot of trust in doing business with someone that can actually deliver what they say they can deliver. Looking around the company’s facilities, its technological capabilities, the cleanliness of the entire operation and you get a feel for the way it runs the business. Indeed, it’s easy to see why customers are more likely to commit to forming a working partnership.

“We want the business to come over as being very confident and create a mutual feeling of trust with our customers,” explains managing director, Michael Last. “Customers can place huge value items of work with Formaplex, safe in the knowledge that we possess the infrastructure, the facilities and the latest machine tools to get the job done - and that our employees are fully engaged with the company’s work ethic.

“Every project is uniquely different and when we take new ones on, we’re always looking to stretch ourselves and our employees. It makes our lives much more interesting and helps grow our company too because we have to buy new moulding and assembly equipment and put new facilities in place. This is how we’ve built this business: we’ve always taken on project work that stretches us. The demand we face is in correctly balancing the different speeds of Formula 1, automotive, aerospace and defence subcontract work in-house. It’s all about how we manage each of these customer bases in a business that is very dynamic.”

Formaplex has recently expanded its pattern manufacturing capacity by nearly a third with investment in two CMS Ares 4826 5-axis machines. The acquisition of this state-of-the-art machinery completes a £750,000 investment programme, and the new machines have been put into action immediately, producing patterns and composite parts throughout both day and night.

“We needed better and more modern machines with faster speeds, enhanced 5-axis capabilities and a different bed size and construction,” Last reveals. “We purchased two CMS Ares CNC machining centres because it’s operationally easier to run them together as a pair. We now have three CMS machine tools and each purchase has been based on the decision that we can obtain the right support from CMS.”

A centre for technology transfer

Formaplex offers a true example of technology transfer in action, applying the lessons it learns in one industry to the benefit of others. Nowhere is this more apparent than within Formaplex’s composite facility where it intends to grow its aerospace-related project work and employ synergistic elements of its experience gained within the motorsport industry.

“The bulk of work performed in our composites facility is motorsport-related,” states projects director, Ian Wilson. “The problem is that motorsport is based on seasonal demands and therefore doesn’t provide a steady stream of work. Whilst we undertake a fair proportion of aerospace work, it’s not our main flow of work, so we’ve invested heavily this year to up the ante and start supporting the aerospace market.

“However, whereas fewer employees are needed to manage several motorsport customers’ subcontract work, any large-scale aerospace work will require more resources, so we’ve hired two additional employees to continue that push and gain more projects. Yes, it’s a slow process because aerospace generally is that way inclined, but it’s going to be a very interesting journey and one that I’m sure will bear fruit.

“Whilst the aerospace industry has fairly slow reaction times in comparison with motorsport, there’s no reason why we should be slow in our ability to produce parts, patterns or tools. Rather than being a company that customers contact at the end of the process because they desperately need tooling, we aspire to be the company they come to first, so that we can provide a timely solution for their aerospace manufacturing requirements.”

www.formaplex.com

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