We’re almost halfway through 2022 and despite inflation, energy price rises, fluctuating material prices (and availability) we have been successful in winning several new projects in automotive and also outside of our usual project scope. It has been fascinating to see how our customers have responded, in most cases fully understanding the pressures we are under when quoting so far in advance.
Our supply chain has been excellent too, keeping us aware of the challenges they are facing and responding quickly with price and availability changes when they happen.
Never has it been more important to understand how we can add value to our customers, and anything we can do in design for tool optimisation has significant benefits down the line. For one customer we have been able to save almost £500,000 over the life of a project by manufacturing a new blank tool.
We have always supported foreign toolmakers in commissioning their dies, particularly at BMW and JLR. Our knowledge of their expectations for home line try out as well as their equipment, is always an added advantage for both the OEM and the supplier. As such we have supported toolmakers from Europe and Asia, and with the recent lockdowns in China and Korea we have had staff on site supporting almost every week.
We have also seen the increase of reshoring, where customers have historically placed work in Asia – they are now seeing the vulnerability of global supply chains in particular, the rise in shipping costs, which is making the UK more competitive.
With the significant upturn of work, we were delighted to add to our headcount. This started with Glynn Holmes in March who joined us as a Sales Estimator and has been pivotal in bringing in new customers as well as 2 new toolmakers, a new CAD operator and Katie, who has joined us working in accounts and payroll.
Neil Clifton, MD comments, “It is wonderful to see the upturn in new projects and the activity levels and optimism in the sector. We are in constant dialogue with our customers in both aerospace and automotive OEM’s and Primes and well as tier one customers are optimistic for the second half of the year. Never have we had to be more accurate with our quoting, the volatility of material prices has a significant effect on our customers performance, but I have been delighted to see how the sales team and project managers have handled the volatility of the supply of raw material.
Bringing new recruits into the business gives us an opportunity to learn how other manufacturers run their businesses and we try to encourage a dialogue of opportunity for improvement in everything we do”
If you would like to find out more about Cube or the career opportunities that we have then click here https://www.cubeprecision.com/contact-us/
10th June 2022