Remploy Electronics has embarked on an investment programme to add lead-free capability to its five manufacturing sites in the coming year.

“We have got a lead-free wave solder machine coming into the Bolton site this week,” Aled Williams, who heads RoHS compliance at Remploy, told Electronics Weekly.

The number of sites and its eclectic mix of customers makes the contract manufacturer’s move to RoHS-compliance complex.

The firm’s Barking factory will get its lead-free wave solder machine early next year. “We have to live within our financial means, and Barking’s major customer does not have to be RoHS-compliant,” said Williams.

Even without the machinery, the firm has already supplied its first compliant product in the form of hand-soldered cable assemblies from its Meadway site.

Its other two facilities - Harrow, which focuses on electromechanical assemblies and Southampton, whose main work is cable and harnesses - do not need major capital investment to go RoHS-compliant.

Remploy’s compliance programme has been running now for 18 months. It has a mixture of telecoms, control system, instrumentation, defence and more conventional customers and, like most CEMs, it has been actively prompting its customers to look into RoHS compliance.

“We have had a huge variety of responses: From customers that are unclear whether it affects them or not, to customers we are working closely with,” said Williams. “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.”

According to Williams, the demand for lead-free end products is already starting to pick up.

“Our intention is to run new, lead-free lines in tandem with existing lines in order to offer the maximum flexibility during what may be an extended take-up period for lead-free production,” said Williams.

Reflow ovens at the firm’s Bolton and Barking facilities are already lead-free-compatible.

The contract manufacturer offers employment opportunities to disabled people and is partly Government funded. Including its electronics group, it has over 80 factories in the UK and turns over more than £250m annually.

• North Wales-based microwave PCB and component manufacturer Labtech has also invested £800,000 in new equipment at its facilities in Presteigne and Milton Keynes.

www.remploy.co.uk