MBO team proves it is 'as keen as mustard'

A management buy-out team has celebrated its first year of trading by winning the Regeneration section of the Mustard Awards organised by the British Chambers of Commerce and Business Link.

A management buy-out team has celebrated its first year of trading by winning the Regeneration section of the Mustard Awards organised by the British Chambers of Commerce and Business Link.

B F Entron, previously trading as British Federal, makes control systems for resistance welding machines and puts a lot of its success down the cutting edge technology it incorporates into each new system.

Managing Director John Stanway explains: "Our key market is first and second tier automotive suppliers, and to a man they insist on the latest technology.

One of the big current issues, for instance, is fieldbus: we have to be able to support each customer's preferred protocol, and considering that we have customers on every continent that alone is quite an undertaking!" Stanway is quick to acknowledge that BF Entron's success would not be possible without the support of key partners such as Mitsubishi Electric, their main control system components supplier.

"They supply us with technical support as we design and build systems, then help us with supporting our customers wherever they are in the world.

And most importantly they supported us through the delicate periods of the buy-out when the slightest upset could have sent us spiralling into oblivion." In its first year of business BF Entron built sales to ?1.7m from effectively zero - which the Awards Judges considered a superb example of regeneration.

Thirty-five per sent of its control systems are exported, including to countries as highly technological as the USA and Canada and to low-wage emerging economies in Asia and Central America.

Plans are in place to more than double turnover well before Year Three is out, with exports playing a key role in this growth.

"Our systems need support in the field, so one of the big pushes this year has been setting up a global infrastructure through which we can provide the necessary service.

Mitsubishi's strong brand, respected quality and worldwide presence have helped immeasurably," recognises Stanway.

Products that BF Entron regularly buys from Mitsubishi include moulded case circuit breakers, inverters and IGBTs (integrated gate bipolar transistors) for firing the thyristors in the welding head.

Its control system architecture is usually based around a Mitsubishi FX PLC, which ensures both a rock-steady constant current supply to the welding head and stores pre-set programmes for welding different products and models.

"Fieldbus discussions have been another recurring characteristic running through our first year.

The automotive customers are onto their second or third iteration of this communications technology.

But some of our other users in say the manufacture of white goods, transit containers and office furniture are just dipping their toes into the water now.

Fieldbus is a big adventure for them, just as setting up a company was for us this time last year.".

Back to top