A Key Supplier To The Aerospace Industry With A Blue Chip Clientelle

Small Business of the Year Winner 2009 Coventry and Warwickshire Business Awards

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Acquisition extends capabilities at Arrowsmith

Coventry-based aerospace and automotive component supplier Arrowsmith Engineering has acquired Exhall Grinding & Engineering. The move allows Arrowsmith to offer surface, centreless, internal and external grinding alongside its CNC machining services.

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MWP Magazine: Skills base is essential - 01/05/2009

Jason Aldridge talks to MWP Magazine about the importance of matching training needs to capital investment.

Click here to read the article.

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Lord Mandelson highlights SMEs improving their performance via SC21 - 06/02/2009

In a speech to the CBI in Birmingham Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, highlighted two SME examples of companies improving their performance and people skills using industry improvement programmes. Arrowsmith and Watson Glass are doing this through the SC21 programme.

The relevant section from the speech are as follows:

"Just as an example, last year, Arrowsmith Engineering in Coventry spent more than a million pounds upgrading and expanding their precision engineering capacity. Through the Manufacturing Advisory Service West Midlands they got funding to train their staff to handle the new processes.

Watson's Glass in Wolverhampton did the same - putting 30 staff through NVQs with Train to Gain to help keep the company competitive in the latest commercial glass techniques.

These, and hundreds of examples like them, are snapshots of government that supports manufacturing development and competitiveness by supporting the people that make manufacturing thrive."

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MAA January 2009

Aerospace investors(L-R) …Richard Lawson, Coventry City Council senior advisor Paul Humphreys, Jason Aldridge, Peter Jones and SC21 MAS-WM project manager Cliff Johnson

£1.85 Million Investment Plan Takes Off - Business Support Helps Arrowsmith Engineer Greater Success

A successful aerospace engineering firm is reaching new heights with ambitious plans for a £1.85 million expansion, despite the tough economic conditions in the region.

Arrowsmith Engineering, which employs 35 people in Exhall, says its partnership with Manufacturing Advisory Service – West Midlands (MAS-WM) and Coventry City Council will improve its productivity and competitiveness.

Says Director Jason Aldridge: “In this financial climate, this is a big investment in the company’s future. It demonstrates our commitment to developing our facilities and our people, in line with our growth plan. “With extra training and the latest machinery it gives us the competitive edge we need to go out and find new business in small low volume precision work."

Arrowsmith Engineering is making the investment in 4 and 5-axis CNC machines, CAD/CAM and MRP computer management and Visual Fairs quality reporting upgrades. With improvements in the grinding section and inspection laboratories it takes the company’s spend to more than £520,000 in the past three years and is part of a five-year investment plan.

The new equipment will be used to manufacture high-precision complex and critical-performance parts predominantly for the aerospace sector …a sector that today accounts for over 90% of the company’s annual turnover.

Aerospace is a vital sector in the West Midlands economy with 450 companies employing some 25,000 staff. Arrowsmith Engineering have joined with some of these companies and signed up to the Supply Chain 21 (SC21) programme that aims to raise the performance of suppliers to the UK’s defence and aerospace industry. MAS-WM has joined the Midlands Aerospace Alliance (MAA) to provide a package of support for manufacturers – a helping hand that is seeing the Bayton Road company implement highly efficient lean processes.

More than one-fifth of the Rolls-Royce supply chain resides in the West Midlands, including Arrowsmith Engineering whose latest investment is supported by a £98,000 Selective Finance for Investment (SFIE) grant from regional development agency Advantage West Midlands.

“With a five-year plan in place we wanted to upgrade our machine capability but were unsure which machinery and up skilling we should invest in. Facing large capital investments we wanted to get it right first time and avoid costly mistakes,” adds Jason.

MAS–WM commissioned a study which analysed the company’s requirements and then matched the results to the machines and equipment available in the market. But they have been more than just a matchmaker, assisting with part-funding of staff development prior to the purchase, while the SFIE gave the company investment help it needed in order to grow. “China and Poland have hit high volume engineering companies in recent years but what British engineering has shown its good at is the highly-skilled low volume end of engineeing – and that’s where our strength is.

“If you want to compete, you have to invest in machinery, plant and people.” Peter Jones, specialist manufacturing advisor from MAS-WM who identified the need to develop the firm’s staff and systems prior to the machine’s purchase says: “Arrowsmith has in recent years recognised that its traditional customer base is changing and there is a demand for low volume precision products. “We collated a package of development and improvement measures, part funded under our Strategic Change Program, which upgraded the CAD/CAM systems as well as the operators skills - measures which will ensure that when the new machinery is delivered the infrastructure will already be in place to utilise it from day one. “In others words they will not have to wait for months for the skill-set to catch up with the technology. As such the new machinery will start to pay for itself almost immediately.”

Richard Lawson Business Investment Co-ordinator from Coventry City Council adds: “Often all companies need is a little help to access funding for capital expenditure projects. That’s where we come in and since April 2005 we helped companies to be offered grants of just under £6 million from Advantage West Midlands that have safeguarded or created 1,021 jobs.”

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Birmingham Post - January 2009

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Coventry Evening Telegraph - January 2009

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The Hub - Winter 2008