Latest news about Midlands aerospace

Tufnol Composites – the leading UK manufacturer, machinist and stockist of high performance laminates, composites and engineering plastics – is embarking on a Lean training initiative in a bid to expand the business’ manufacturing capabilities and up-skill its workforce.

The annual Midlands Aerospace Alliance survey of member companies reveals that business turnover and employment continue to grow at a rapid pace in 2013 -- with 17% and 8% growth respectively.

The results confirm that the strong position of the region's industry in global growth markets, especially for large civil airliners in Asia, is flowing through to increased economic activity and jobs in the Midlands.

Rolls-Royce has announced three orders in recent weeks to supply engines for more than 70 Airbus A350 and A330 large civil aircraft. The orders are from Singapore Airlines, US leasing company CIT Aerospace and British Airways owner IAG.

The orders are equivalent to about 1/5 of the company's annual output of engines.

Pictured, Airbus A350 under construction.

Aeromet are pleased to announce that they have been awarded the Airbus Supply Chain and Quality Improvement Program (SQIP) Gold Award for 2012 in the Best Performer category.

Derby-headquartered Gardner Group has boosted its sales by almost 30 per cent to more than £70m as its revenue from Europe jumped by more than £15m.

KMF (Precision Sheet Metal) is reaping the benefits of its investment in Trumpf automation. It is achieving this by integrating two new machines into existing tower storage and parts handling automation systems.

Ten MAA members held a total of over 20 hours of 1-to-1 meetings with 17 procurement leaders at 5 key Italian aerospace customers on the MAA-UKTI trade mission to Turin and Milan.

According to one of the MAA participants, “everywhere we visited we were welcomed with open arms and at levels within the businesses that we would not normally be able to access.”

Delcam has launched the PowerMILL Robot Interface for the programming of robots for multi-axis machining operations.  The earlier VB application that was developed for robot machining has been completely rewritten and fully embedded inside the company’s internationally-renowned PowerMILL CAM system as a plug-in.