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From the remote shores of North East Kent comes the success story of a new company just waiting to be discovered. A recent management buyout has seen HBC Engineering Solutions Ltd become a privately owned independent business with an annual turnover of £17 million after only eight months. Solutions met with Director, Paul Blackmore to discover an establishment that has for over 40 years manufactured electrical terminal and connector components for Weidmuller, Germany.

Manufacture of product, tool design, rapid prototyping, plastic injection moulding, pressing, stamping, electromechanical assemblies...

Set to exhibit at the Subcon 2004 show in April, Mr Blackmore is looking to increase HBC’s visibility in the marketplace by raising customer awareness. Offering the complete manufacturing service to include product and tool design, rapid prototyping, plastic injection moulding, pressing and stamping and the production of electromechanical assemblies, the company operate from a 75,000 ft² site in Sheerness.

Weidmuller pedigree

Mr Blackmore takes up the story of the event that changed the fortunes of the company: “The three owners of the company: myself, Steve Hadlow and Barry Crotaz, have all had long careers with the previous company owner, Weidmuller. Last year, Weidmuller offered us the opportunity to purchase the business, so we got together, discussed the idea and came up with a deal that suits both parties and allows us to continue manufacturing their products under a five-year contract, making them our biggest customer. Weidmuller now has the advantage of buying the same components without worrying about any issues at the UK site, and they also know all the people and the systems within the company too.”

Weidmuller’s German plant in Detmold is set up primarily for longer production runs, using dedicated tooling for high volume work, while HBC provide low to medium volume production. This allows the company to be very adept at tool changeovers with the flexibility to change production demand seamlessly. Weidmuller take advantage of HBC’s flexibility by developing different products and new first stage tooling to get the product into the marketplace..

Out-sourced / sub-contracted

“Our business is divided into three sections,” continues Mr Blackmore. “The core business is offering out-sourcing of our potential customer’s production. The second part is the engineering/toolmaking side, which is extensively modern and houses a Catia V5 based CADCAM product design function. This area has seen £11 million of investment in the last five years ensuring we provide state-of-the-art, rapid prototyping techniques and technologies to develop new products. We can also offer the outsourcing of product design and development capabilities, ideally to make the tooling and components. The third part is our standalone unit for the production of mechanical and electrical assembles such as enclosures, terminal rail assemblies, wire/cable and harness assemblies and general equipment. This is potentially a £1-2 million pound business designed to remove the added cost of customers employing highly-skilled electricians.

Injection moulder for Legrand domestic sockets: incl. logistics, project management & production

HBC’s prime objective in the first five years is to reach £25 million turnover across all its business areas, with the intention of continued growth over the short term. The company has experienced a rapid culture change: whereas before its employees were used to having themselves as the customer with an integrated sales ordering system, the new concept involves having to satisfy many external customers at the same time. So, the beginning of April 2003 saw the formation of a sales and marketing division at HBC, and by September, the company had taken on its first external customer with Birmingham-based Legrand UK who were looking for a sub-contract Injection Moulder to supply the mouldings for their range of domestic sockets. HBC undertook the entire project plan to transfer all the injection moulding tools, receiving 63 mould tools which required a ‘health check’ before production could commence. The company were able to turn the entire project around in two months and satisfy the backlog of orders in a managed way.

We’ve proved that not only have we integrated all of Legrand’s components into our manufacturing cells, but we are now working a month in advance and holding stock for them so they’ve got a call-off facility,” Mr Blackmore reaffirms. “We’ve managed their logistics and manufacturing operation, and their project management too, which is why they are so pleased with our performance.”

HBC easily competing against Eastern Europe,
the Far East & manufacture in China

Furthermore, Mr Blackmore feels that his company can be very competitive against Eastern European companies and some Far Eastern ones too. “People don’t always realise the problems associated with Far Eastern manufacturing,” he states. “If you have a product which is constantly developing and introducing new designs, then there can be problems with logistics, the distance and the management issues in between. People are starting to realise this now and we’re seeing work being brought back from the Far East and potential customers coming to HBC asking us to quote.”

For a complete manufacturing service solution, North East Kent is meeting the threat from the Far East head-on. HBC has found a niche in the marketplace by offering its customer total project management of its needs all under one roof, here in the UK.

Production Engineering Solutions - March 2004