Toolmaker celebrates auto orders and record sales

Petford – a specialist toolmaker for plastic injection, compression and composite moulds for over 40 years – is now intending to increase capacity, increase quality and improve lead times when dealing with larger components with the depoloyment of a new £560,000 KraussMaffei 1600 tonnes injection press. Melvin Sinar (pictured), MD at the Dudley-based firm said that while there were obvious pressures in the manufacturing sector, Petford had seen growth across all areas of the business; especially in the automotive sector where the company currently supplies Jaguar Land Rover, Bentley, Nissan, Ford, Toyota and Aston Martin. "Our tooling has been responsible for every exterior fender used in their cars over the last ten years." He continued: "There has also been an increase in orders from JCB and white goods and we are certainly benefiting from global companies looking to source closer to home after disasters in Japan and Thailand." Petford Tools, which employs 89 people and is backed by support from the Manufacturing Advisory Service-West Midlands Auto programme, started life as a toolmaker in 1969 after two ex-chain makers saw a gap in the local market. The move to its current site in Dudley eight years ago signalled the start of a 10-year business plan that saw the company build an injection moulding facility to complement its precision tooling operation and invest in CAD, CNC milling machines and spark and bench finishing. This was followed by new agreements to set-up low cost manufacturing facilities in China and Taiwan, which have proved vital when retaining global contracts. "It's not a case of choosing to ship production overseas," explained Sinar. "What we are doing is keeping the value added work, design and precision tooling and moulding here in the Black Country and utilising our Asian factories to remain competitive on pricing against international rivals." Rachel Eade, cluster manager at MAS-WM Auto, added: "Petford Tools is a great example of how targeted manufacturing support can help a company reach its full potential."