New growth opportunities etched in metal as ACE completes £ 500k investment drive
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major £ 500,000 investment drive has reached its final stage at a Telford-based precision manufacturer , with the arrival of two new state-of-the-art etching machines .
Advanced Chemical Etching ( ACE ), which has recently boosted its workforce by 12 %, has taken delivery of two Chemcut Etch machines at its Hortonwood 33 facility in a bid to meet increasing global demand from the aerospace , electric vehicle , and hydrogen fuel cell markets .
The acquisitions will increase the firm ’ s etching capacity by 30 % and will help customers bring their designs and prototypes to market quicker , a decisive selling point that the business hopes will help it meet its two-year plan to hit £ 10m in sales .
It has been a busy twelve months for ACE , with turnover now back past Covid-19 levels and its best-ever month recently recorded after an influx of domestic and international orders were completed for customers keen to avoid international supply chain disruption .
Ian Whateley , Managing Director of Advanced Chemical Etching , commented : “ We are always looking at ways where we can reduce lead times and have greater control over the tolerances we can offer , and this latest investment reinforces that .
“ The two etching machines are currently being installed and should be fully up
and running by late summer . When they go live , we ’ ll have a third more production capability , which means we can go after new opportunities and there ’ s plenty of those currently , whether its supplying busbars and lead frames to EV or critical components to the medical sector .
“ This latest technology will make us faster , guarantee repeatable quality and , with energy costs rising , will reduce our electricity and water consumption considerably .”
ACE specialises in the development of precision components to customers in more than 25 countries , spanning aerospace , space , general engineering , automotive , electronics , medical , telecoms and renewables .
The scope of its activities is far and wide and can include anything from safety critical components for aircraft and F1 cars , to meshes and electronic connectors , battery interconnectors , fuel cell bi-polar plates , cooling plates and heat exchangers .
All parts are developed and manufactured at its main site in Telford or at the company ’ s dedicated sister business , ACE Forming Limited , in Kingswinford .
It works to the most exacting tolerances and can manufacture components in materials , such as stainless steel , nickel alloys , copper , beryllium copper , phosphor bronze , brass and , thanks to new processes , aluminium , molybdenum , titanium , nitinol and elgiloy .
Chris Ball , Executive Director , went on to add : “ We operated throughout the pandemic and , thankfully , have emerged with an even stronger order book than what we went into Covid-19 with … that ’ s a great position to be in , especially with the amount of reshoring opportunities heading back to the UK .
“ In addition to our recent investment drive , we have also strengthened our workforce with eight new people joining across our inspection , facility and plant maintenance , and our sales and marketing departments .
“ There has been an increase in the number of special operation products we are getting involved in and this would necessitate the need for people to be multi-skilled and internally work across numerous projects . That ’ s why investment in ongoing training will be so crucial .”
Advanced Chemical Etching is planning more exhibitions this year , with its next appearance coming at the Precision Fair in the Netherlands in November ( 16-17th )
It is also seeing requests to do mini trade shows of its capability to many several design departments at existing and new customers .
For further information , please visit www . ace-uk . net or follow Advanced Chemical Etching on LinkedIn .
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