TT electronics is predicting a healthy future for manufacturing in the UK as it reorganises its global manufacturing services business.

The company operates factories in the US, China, Malaysia as well as two in the UK. It is reorganising its five separate manufacturing business into a single entity. 

“This makes us the largest UK-owned electronics manufacturing services company and the 25th biggest EMS operation in the world,” Stewart Taylor, business development director told EW.

According to Taylor, the company has continued to invest in its UK’s facilities at Rogerstone in South Wales and at Aylesbury.” There is and will continue to be a very healthy business in the UK particularly in sectors such as defence, aerospace and medical,” said Taylor.

TT manufactures in the UK and the US primarily for the local markets. It operates plants in China and Malaysia for both global and local customers.

Taylor said that UK customers have to the option to get product manufactured offshore and some do, but the market is getting more sophisticated in the way it considers the pros and cons of getting product manufactured in Asia.       

“There is no simple answer and customers are becoming more knowledgeable about their choice of location,” said Taylor.

“Experience may tell them that there can be cost benefits but not always. Other factors such as stability of the programme, flexibility, size of the product and communications are important. There is more due diligence these days,” said Taylor.

“We offer both local and global manufacturing but we are a UK-owned company which remains committed to the UK,” said Taylor.

TT is also taking on more design projects in addition to its board and system manufacturing capabilities. “We are moving towards full design services business and not just at the electronics level but also the systems level including mechanical hardware design,” said Taylor.

The next phase of the design expansion will be into software. “We are now looking to invest in this area,” said Taylor.   

Getting the necessary accreditations is also important in many markets, said Taylor. Every site is accredited to ISO9001 and is RoHS compliant.

Sites also have internationally recognised aerospace, medical and automotive accreditations. For example, the Rogerstone site recently achieved the AS9100 accreditation enabling it to manufacture safety critical flight electronics and is a signatory to SC21, the aerospace supply chain programme. It already holds the TS16949:2002 automotive quality standard, the ISO14001:2004 environmental standard. 

The Suzhou, China plant also has ISO14001, TS16949 and ISO13485 medical accreditation.