|
ACW Technology is expanding is special business services (SBS) group. Established in 2009 the SBS team has focused on providing a full range of fast, flexible and attentive added value pre-production, new product development and post-manufacturing support services to UK customers. Operating out of the company’s facility in Southampton more than 100 successful SBS projects have been completed and, as a result, ACW is to invest in new equipment and is doubling its SBS team to create a new operation at its other UK manufacturing facility in Tonypandy, South Wales.
According to Dave Taylor, Head of Special Business Services at ACW Technology, “ACW has never told customers what they have to have, instead we’ve listened, understood what they wanted and then focused on giving them what they need. This has been the driving force behind setting up the SBS group and the key to its ongoing success. The service’s popularity has grown steadily as more and more customers experience the value a dedicated, fast, flexible and attentive service can bring when introducing new designs into production and we felt now was the right time to expand the service into Tonypandy allowing us to attract new customers who require a this high level of service during their product development phase.
“By working closely with customer’s design and development personnel, our dedicated SBS team has successfully taken numerous new PCB and box build products through the necessary processes of design for ‘x’, material advice/benchmarking and purchasing, build, test and ship all in the shortest feasible timescales. We look forward to helping many more UK customers to benefit from this winning approach in the future.”
ACW’s SBS group essentially is a New Product Development (NPD) service, providing customers with a rapid, controlled response to their fast turnaround prototype requirements. During the “New Product Introduction” (NPI) phase, the SBS team forges very close links with customers and their design teams to pass on the benefit of ACW’s 20+ year manufacturing pedigree and help ensure product designs are optimised for fast, cost effective manufacture in the appropriate manufacturing region. ACW’s expertise spans a range disciplines required for full product manufacture including both mechanical design, e.g. mouldings, castings and fixings, as well as PCB assembly. Through its design for manufacture (DFM) services the SBS group offers customers consultancy and practical guidelines, which could help them identify ways to streamline the product. ACW also provides test design & support services covering ICT test analysis, boundary scanning as well as both board and unit level functional testing.
Rapid prototyping is also another core offering. The team is able to engage early and work pro-actively with customers ensuring efficient purchase of materials and build via dedicated people and equipment and it also provides design feedback to the customer’s engineers to allow a smoother and more effective transfer to volume manufacturing.
