Furness firm manufacturing at the speed oflight (From The Westmorland Gazette)
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Furness firm manufacturing at the speed oflight
4:35pm Tuesday 22nd May 2012 in Business
By Helen Perkins, Reporter
A LIGHTING specialist has announced £150,000 invest-ment plans to speed up their manufacturing process and keep up with growing mar-ket demands.
Ulverston-based business Marl International has bou-ght new machines which work ‘faster than the hum-an eye’ to increase prod-uction of low energy lighting.
Business directors purch-ased an automated system, including printers and sold-ering machines, to help fix their high efficiency Light Emitting Diode (LED) components on to large circuit boards.
The investment means the business can process the boards on a 24-hour line, placing 22,000 components an hour.
Operations director David Moorhouse said the move to more automated manu-facturing would reinforce the company’s reputation for fast design and manu-facture of LED lighting on site.
No new jobs have been created as a result of the latest development. Direct-ors said several members of their current team have been trained to use the system, which helps the business manufacture fluor-escent lighting.
Mr Moorhouse added that as a consequence, custom-ers would benefit from lower costs.
He said: “This new system will increase our manu-facturing speeds four or five times over.
“The market for more energy efficient domestic and office lighting keeps growing. At the moment it’s growing at a rate of 10 times a year. People are increas-ingly installing the lights in offices and homes.
“This year we are set to make around £3m in the market. That’s compared to less than half a million last year.
“Our company has always been very keen on investing in technology to keep our competitive edge.”
The company said it had experienced rapid, profit-able, growth in the past two years, which had allowed it to reinvest money into facilities. Their latest inv-estment is part of an overall plan that has seen £70,000 invested in a turning and machining centre, and a full manufacturing software upgrade in the last 12 months.
