Rodmatic Precision sees turnover rise

"Like most subcontract firms, production dipped two years ago as customers re-assessed stock levels," explained managing director Brian Steatham (pictured). "With lots of co-operation from a flexible workforce, coupled with key investment decisions, this put us in a strong position to meet varying monthly targets and, in particular, being able to respond quickly to bring in totally new business." Over the two years, Mr Steatham restructured the business from being a mainly high volume producer of turned parts shipping over 500,000 components a week from its 38 multi-spindle autos installed at the Rodmatic Multico division and its CNC-based, smaller batch producer Rodmatic Hytek, into a sector-specific supplier of turned and turn-milled parts. This move enabled the provision of a cost-effective production solution from prototype and small batchwork to continuous around-the-clock production where the joint experience and skills of the working team could be of greater benefit. Rodmatic employs 50 people at Reading and is currently recruiting additional skilled machinists. In addition, Mr Steatham has recently set up a customer support team under sales director Bob Todd with Adel Hinton as sales and marketing co-ordinator and Patrick Evans, a lean manufacturing specialist previously employed by machine builder Tornos in Switzerland. Mr Evans played a key role in application engineering for medical products and his appointment significantly strengthens Rodmatic's position in the medical sector for future growth in component supply. Already running around-the-clock, on a five-day week, with the current influx of new business this is set to increase to six days/week. Additional capacity has just been added, with the purchase of a second, high specification Dugard Eagle sliding headstock turn-mill centre. Four additional CNC machines and expansion of its quality department and non-contact measurement capability are budgeted for the 2011-12 financial year.