Maxell Europe: Reinventing a manufacturing facility

Source: Manufacturing Digital

Date :10/12/2007 09:24:45

ExecUK spoke to Business Development Executive Geoff Gamage and General Manager Charlie Warner to find out how Maxell Europe is driving the firm’s diversification beyond its traditional media products

Written by James Hurley & Produced by Sean Quantrill

In 1984, Maxell established facilities in Telford specifically to manufacture video cassettes for the merging market followed 4 years later by a further expansion of the facility to manufacture both audio cassettes and floppy discs.

As media steadily migrated to digital formats, and low cost manufacturing became an increasingly viable option, the company moved some of its manufacturing operations for new products abroad. Products then began to come over from the Far East in bulk, leaving the Telford operation to simply load magnetic materials, print and package them.

This left a fairly sophisticated manufacturing operation facing a crisis. To take advantage of this capacity, the company now operates an extensive OEM moulding shop that offers a precision injection moulding, as well as an assembly and packaging service, to the automotive, pest control and health-care industries.

Catalyst for change

Maxell’s plant in Telford was purpose built for the manufacture of VHS video cassettes in 1984. To take advantage of tariffs set up by the EU to reduce imports from the Far East, the company went through a period of ramping up its UK capacity, and, four years later, a significant extension was completed which allowed the facility to manufacture the other main magnetic tape products, floppy disks and audio cassettes.

“Those three principle products were the backbone of the company approaching the new millennium,” remembers Charlie Warner, who has been with the company since 1983. “As time moved on, technologies changed and cost has been driven out of the product to the extent that it became profitable…

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