Much of Sumitomo's growth has been achieved from positive customer response to its latest developments, specifically in drilling and milling products. It has an established reputation for cubic boron nitride (CBN) and polycrystalline diamond (PCD) plus tooling for turning and especially hard turning operations. In addition, significant increases in business has been won from the automotive sector in the company's home country Japan and in Germany, which has reflected in its UK automotive operations. Sumitomo engineers have also been experiencing growing interest from the aerospace sector and leading Tier 1 and sub-contract suppliers to both automotive and aerospace.
Currently eight people are involved with direct customer support in the UK. With the promotion of Shuter, a further specialist engineer is being recruited. Shuter, who has worked at Sumitomo in the UK for 14 years, will now be managing the UK's direct sales team as well as the coordination of sales and support for national distribution outlets.
Ray Elkin joined Sumitomo in 2003 following his initial career in industry and the tooling sector. However, in addition to his role as regional sales manager, he has progressively become more involved in specific process development with aerospace and automotive customers. This has been driven not only through new product developments being introduced from Japan, but also the expansion of E-DEC, the European design, engineering, test centre and solution development centre in Germany.
