Technical moulder BEC Group is helping British companies relocate moulding production back to the UK from China and Eastern Europe. Due to increased production demands, the company has invested in new machinery from Arburg.
The Hampshire-based firm is showing companies that technical capability, quality and proximity is far more important than cost alone for specialist moulded parts.
BEC Group is a full-service, complex plastic injection moulding company, providing design tooling and moulding services in-house. Complex mouldings outsourced overseas have repeatedly had quality and delivery issues, BEC has found.
“We see a growing trend of companies looking at their supply chain and realising they shouldn’t just be looking at the unit cost of a component, but they need to look at the entire cost of the project, factoring in quality defects and delay,” says Marketing Manager Clare Elvy.
“We have found that where components are critical, where mouldings are more technical, or smaller production runs are required, manufacturing is being brought back more and more from China to the UK.”
BEC Group is currently taking delivery of a new ARBURG 320C, to replace an old 320M, and a new ARBURG 375V that replaces a 320C Universal machine – both to increase production rates and efficiency. The incentive to buy these machines came partly from new work BEC has won from companies reshoring from low-cost countries and from an increase in demand for UK-made critical components.
An example is multi-award-winning Guru Systems that manufactures a smart meter system, which optimises heat network performance to deliver low carbon heat. Guru had experienced extended lead times, communication issues and material selection issues with an offshore manufacturer for their first-generation smart meter, Hub I. This led them to consider reshoring their plastic injection mould tooling to a UK manufacturer.
Guru selected BEC Group for the work. The company took delivery of the Hub I injection mould tools from the foreign supplier, where BEC’s toolmakers reviewed them and undertook repairs and modifications before manufacturing the Hub I injection mould casings.
More on the benefits of reshoring can be found on BEC Group’s website here: https://www.becgroup.com/news/reshoring-top-tips
