Investment Underpins Growth

This is a time of uncertainty. Just when 2014 was shaping up to be four quarters of growth, albeit small, for the UK electronics and contract electronics manufacturing (CEM) sector, the last quarter of last year saw it stall for many. Whether the spectre of the Euro or the impending general election had anything to do with it remain to be seen, however many UK companies are still struggling with uncertain markets. Mixed reviews on how well businesses are doing are common place.

One company that s certainly not complacent about the services is provides is Wilson Process Systems (WPS). Having invested heavily in 2013 and again in 2014 in capital expenditure, WPS felt the need to upscale its capacity to deliver to a bigger audience.

Investment took the shape of a second Universal Fuzion line. The XC2-60 boasts 65k placements an hour with a large placement area of 1,300 by 500mm.

This machine, coupled with the existing Fuzion XC2-37, of similar capability, plus other surface mount lines, provides a combined placement capacity of over 200k per hour. All are programmable off-line for advanced planning and optimisation.

Planning for upturn

Joint managing director, Tim Wilson, commented: "While our existing lines were managing, we felt we needed more capacity to satisfy a planned upturn in demand. We wanted to demonstrate to potential and existing customers our commitment to invest and our capability to deliver a quality on-time service. With both Fuzion lines offering low cost ownership and delivering top end performance, we're more than confident our combined surface mount capability will surpass our customers' expectations.”

With WPS supplying services to a broad range of industries from road and rail through to medical and lighting, accommodating a wide range of volumes is vital. Flexibility and throughout were always going to be paramount when selecting that next piece of production equipment.

To find out exactly how these services are received, WPS recently ran its first online customer

satisfaction survey, linked to ISO9001-2008. The results were as following with 44 customers reviewing overall performance: 13 per cent rated the company excellent; 46 percent rated it very good and 34 per cent rated it good, while excelling at technical support and manufacturing quality.

Quality manager, Jim Hobbs, commented: "This is the first time we've decided to do this via the web and it's been very successful. The feedback has been constructive and the overall ratings speak for themselves.