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News Release from: Acro Precision Technology | Subject: Energi Technical and Acro
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 25 January 2006
UK precision engineering fights back
with Internet
East Anglian precision engineering company is competing strongly with the Far East by making use of the Internet, ensuring its message gets across through powerful search engines.
Throughout the engineering sector, it is now widely perceived that China is set to become the workshop of the world In fact, many European manufacturers have been outsourcing their engineering work to China for almost a decade
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 20 May 2005 at 8.00am (UK)
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With lower cost labour, cheaper steel and far less legislation to contend with, China has been able to out price much of the European engineering industry.
One Norfolk engineering company has started to see things differently.
Norfolk precision engineering firm Acro has provided a broad range of precision engineering services, with over thirty years experience in their field.
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Although a precision machining firm had lost work to the Far East and Eastern Europe, investment highly automated 24h unmanned CNC machining is winning UK business back.
Acro machine parts for industries such as the medical, automotive, defence, architectural, hi tech and energy industries.
Projects have ranged from components for bomb disposal robots to architectural parts for the Jubilee Line station.
However, Acro was increasingly seeing the value and volume of its work decline and decided that the firm needed to change its thinking in order to survive.
"I took the view that if China is winning business from the UK, then that simply meant that China have been better at marketing their engineering and we needed to sharpen up our act in order to compete," said Fred Pain, general manager at Acro.
"We have first hand knowledge that some of the products from China are on long lead times and subject to high volume orders and some of our clients have had costly quality issues with imported components." Acro decided to take on expert help in the form of Norfolk-based specialist technology marketing company Energi Technical.
The very first step was to set about creating a new website that reflected Acro's ability to deliver high quality engineering services to the manufacturing sector, along with the ability to be flexible on volumes and responsive on delivery.
In addition to creating the website, Energi ensured that it would be easily found on key search engines such as Google and Yahoo and they undertook a PR campaign to communicate Acro's ability to competitively produce high volume components using their 24 hour unmanned computer controlled machines.
"The response has been fantastic".
"We have had enquiries from France, Holland, the US and even China." said Pain.
"We even had an enquiry from Rolls Royce.
Several of these enquiries have turned into important new customers and we are definitely seeing a turn around." Richard Blackburn, managing director of Energi said: "It is very easy to start thinking that it is impossible to compete with low cost production from China.
In reality, cost is not always the bigger issue for a manufacturing company.
They also need to be sure of the quality of their components and they need reliable deliveries.
Very often, they also need a supplier who can be flexible when it comes to both the component design and shipping volumes.
European manufacturing is starting to wake up to this and I think UK engineering can win this business, if it puts out the right message." * About Acro Precision Technology - with over 30 years' experience in the machining of precision engineering components, Acro represents one of Europe's leading suppliers to the engineering and technology sector.
Acro offers specialist low volume prototype development as well as high volume manufacturing and is equipped with a broad range of modern CNC [Computer Numerically Controlled] machinery: * CNC lathes with live tooling and 24 hour unmanned production.
* Swiss type sliding head automatics.
* CNC milling.
* Conventional turning/milling/finishing.
Customer projects have included components for sports cars suspensions, bomb disposal robots, hospital beds, forecourt petrol pumps, the London Underground, equipment for off-shore oil exploration and production and components for the construction industry.
* About Energi - Energi Technical are experts in the marketing of engineering and technology.
With many years experience in engineering and sales and marketing, Energi assists hi-tech companies and engineering companies to turn their skills and technology into sustainable revenue.
Energi is able to provide marketing consultancy, brand development, web design, press relations services, editorial creation and placement and technical sales training.
Energi have a solid record of helping clients achieve revenue growth and improved market position.
www.energi-tech.co.uk.
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