ACE start to 2017 for Shropshire etching company

The Shropshire manufacturer said interest has come from companies looking for busbars and components for battery management systems.

Bosses at the Hortonwood-based firm believe these two sectors alone have the potential to generate up to £1.8m of sales between now and 2019.

It has already funded new capital equipment to increase capacity and has also boosted its technical team by 30 per cent.

In a statement, Ian Whateley, managing director of ACE said: “Thermal management is one of industry’s most popular topics as we look to extend battery life and get more performance out of smaller components.

“This lends itself perfectly to what we do in Telford. ‘Etching’ is often a new process for these customers, but once we have sat down with them, given them a glimpse of what it can do, nine times out of ten they choose this method of manufacture.

“It’s not difficult to see why either. We can produce fast, accurate prototypes that are far more cost effective than traditional production and we also have the capacity to manufacture these in low to medium volumes.”

ACE develops and manufactures all components at its 25,000 sq ft facility in Telford and at its sister business ACE Forming in Kingswinford.

The company’s facilities allow the company to produce parts in materials that include stainless steel, nickel alloys, copper, beryllium copper, and phosphor bronze. New processes are letting ACE work with aluminium, molybdenum, nitinol and elgiloy.

“2016 has been a good year for us, with sales up 25 per cent…We are just shy of £5m turnover now, but feel it is just a matter of time before we reach that in 2017, with the pipeline for orders growing and renewed interest in next generation products for automotive and aerospace,” said Chris Ball, director.