The AWS Electronics Group is one of the UK’s leading Specialist Electronic Manufacturing Services (EMS) providers, offering services for the whole electronic product life cycle from design through manufacture, to contract service and repair.
In recent years the Group has reinforced its competitive position both by organic growth and a series of strategic acquisitions including Jantec (Bedford), Cemgraft (Newbury) and low cost manufacturing facilities in Slovakia. AWS Group’s combined turnover is now approaching £30m.
Paul Deehan, Chief Executive of The AWS Group, has sought to ensure that the Group responds to the growing customer need for suppliers to provide services that extend into the full electronic product life cycle (PLC) such as product development, prototyping and test/accreditation support at the front end and asset management or maintenance, service and repairs at the back end. Deehan said “acquisitions must not only fit with the growth plan but also provide us with new skills and service depth as this is key to support the future demands and requirements of customers in the sector.”
Three centres of excellence – giving GLOCAL service
Deehan added: “We now have three ‘centres
of excellence’ that will develop and grow in the coming years with
AWS at Newcastle under Lyme, the centre for complex assembly, Cemgraft at
Newbury for SMT technology and rapid prototyping and Jantec near Bedford
as our repairs and service centre. This means AWS customers not only have
focussed technical expertise, they are also supported by a group capability
and scale, with good UK geographic coverage; we are in easy reach of our
customers. We use a term in AWS to describe our services as GLOCAL, meaning
we have a global reach for the best technology, people and sourcing, but
that it is delivered locally. This is 100% reinforced by our total commitment
to customer-focused management, which is our top priority.”
Centre of excellence – high complexity assembly – Newcastle
under Lyme
AWS Electronics at Newcastle under Lyme, specialises in low to medium volume
assembly of medium to high complexity electronic and electro-mechanical
assembly. This is split roughly equally between PCB assembly with both surface
mount (SMT including BGA) and place through hole (PTH), cable & harness
assembly and electronic and electro-mechanical higher level assembly. This
serves a wide variety of industries in aerospace, defence, scientific, medical,
industrial controls, vending, security and telecommunications. A common
factor at Newcastle is that they extend technical and whole-life support
to many of their clients: design for manufacture / test / cost / obsolescence;
development, specification and build of test routines and equipment; prototyping,
testing, trialling and related development and build support; full product
kitting, logistics, site installations; diagnostics, repairs, refurbishments
and upgrades; and reverse engineering to manufacture new units of obsolete
equipment. All this is done with the highest levels of quality and responsiveness
to changes in customer demands
Centre of excellence – SMT technology and rapid prototyping
– Newbury
Cemgraft’s five production lines can produce highly complex and concentrated
boards with upwards of 72 BGAs and micro BGAs. The Greenham site becomes
the centre of excellence for PCB manufacturing within the group. “These
machines give us maximum flexibility for manufacturing, they also have exceptional
placement accuracy; and best in class set up time which puts us at the cutting
edge in our markets”, said Jamie Maughan, Plant Manager at
Cemgraft. He added “They also have full in-line
Automated Optical Inspection (AOI) which means we build in quality.”
Cemgraft also has specific equipment and resource dedicated to a rapid prototyping
centre within its Greenham site. This “Fast track”
centre is specifically designed to provide fast turnaround and rapid prototyping
of development boards and units.
Centre of Excellence – Repair & maintenance, specialist
design & prototype – Bedfordshire
The third member of the group, Jantec Electronic Services based in Biggleswade,
Bedfordshire, is primarily focussed on electronic diagnostics and repair;
it refurbishes a vast variety of equipment to exacting specifications with
short turn-round times, in some cases 5 days guaranteed. Three main contracts
cover rail and highways with maintenance on equipment such as communications,
power supplies, modems, monitors, CCTV and PCBs. Some of this equipment
is difficult to replace and in many instances Jantec has to reverse engineer
it. They have hardware and software design engineers who support this re-engineering
but the engineers also provide PCB and circuit design and development for
low volume products. There is a printed circuit board assembly area where
they can manufacture prototypes and low volume specialist products such
as sensing, audio and security devices.
Partners in design and low cost manufacturing
The AWS Group has developed strong networks of partner companies that provide
access to both specialist design support and low cost manufacturing. AWS
in–house design teams primarily provide collaborative support to customers,
when specialist designs, project needs or additional resources are required
they can call on several design partners to provide resource and skills.
Where higher volumes and lowest cost dictate the sourcing, AWS has manufacturing
partners in China, Malaysia, Tunisia and India. This strategy of partnering
with overseas companies for low cost manufacturing has been given a substantial
boost by the acquisition by AWS of a substantial facility in Slovakia.
Continuous improvement – the foundation
Deehan has fostered a culture of continuous improvement in the business
and AWS are re-engineering their business processes as part of an ongoing
continuous improvement programme. Deehan states: “We
have already seen significant benefits from cross learning between the three
businesses: these are separately run units but each has something to teach
the other. The end result is that we take best practice from one business
and apply it in the others. When this is combined with an internal Continuous
Improvement (CI) programme it is powerful: it empowers our staff, improves
our performance and our customers actually feel even more of the intangible
value we provide. We are leading with our services, we are leading with
our people and now we are leading with our technology. This is all underpinned
by our ongoing CI programme which is driven from the principles of Lean
Manufacturing and Six Sigma. It is this overall combined approach that gives
extended and value added benefits to our customers.”
Driving from traditional CEM to Electronic Manufacturing Services
Deehan is clear that he is pushing AWS from being a traditional contract
electrical manufacturer (CEM) selling products, to a mid size electronic
manufacturing services (EMS) provider partnering clients with a comprehensive
range of services from conception to demise of the products they manufacture
for them. Key within this change process is adding the range of additional
services and technical capabilities whilst ensuring that customers still
get the personal service in which AWS specialises. In the ever changing
UK market this type of broader customer partnership is becoming more and
more of a requirement for service providers. Many of the more specialist
OEMs though want that focused customer relationship and are therefore often
moving away from the larger global EMS providers for such services. AWS
see this as a significant gap in the current market – hence the development
of their strategy.
Differentiation – supporting what customers want
This approach to delivering through-life support is one of the key aspects
that will continue to differentiate AWS from the rest of the pack. The strategy
has involved acquisition to increase service and sectors served, but also
has its foundation built around continuous improvement across the group,
which results in improved customer satisfaction. Each of the three companies
has historically taken the same approach to supporting its clients, and
by combining their different strengths the Group is now able to offer this
approach across the full range of services and manufacturing capabilities.
The strategy has also been supported by off-shore partnering, which means
that customers also get the benefit of low cost manufacturing where it suits
a particular customer product or programme.
Paul Deehan, Chief Executive of the Group said “Cemgraft was a strategic acquisition, which drove us straight to the top of the electronics technology tree. Combined with our other businesses and partnering arrangements we have a comprehensive portfolio of service that’s second to none. Customers in our markets want the latest technology, they want it faster to market than ever before, they want 6s quality and they want more services that support their products through the whole life cycle. We are only developing the core of our strategy in response to the ever advancing requirements of our current and future customers’ needs.”