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Designs on medical experts18 September 2007Contract manufacturing came into, and fell out of, fashion in the last decade. However, many indigenous companies, and those with a sense of local identity, have flourished. Plexus, with its accent on design expertise and its Scottish roots, is such a company, as Tim Fryer discovered. “NPI is the last throw of the dice for many companies. They try to keep alive in a geography but it normally ends in closure. We have a different philosophy – we want to design next to our OEM partners.” Those were the words of Andy Allen, Vice President of Plexus in Europe, speaking as his company announced the next stage in its development in Scotland.
Andy Allen was one of the original owners of Keltek who, from its base in the Scottish borders, became one of the UK’s larger EMS providers. When Plexus acquired the business in 2000, Allen was retained to manage the business. Unlike other EMS companies, who were buying up both competitors and customers manufacturing sites at the turn of the millennium, Plexus were not on a mission to be a manufacturing giants. “We have a real belief that we need to be in key markets,” said Allen, “and this means having a full set of capabilities – with a particular focus on design.”
It’s hard to argue with the strategy as the company has no debt, a turnover of around $1.5bn and is spread across three continents. The model has been to buy successful companies and expand them with the existing management, which is what happened with Keltek. One of the first changes Plexus introduced (and in line with its facilities elsewhere) was a design capability, but Allen confessed that this did expose a limitation of the Kelso site. “We wanted to attract the brightest young engineers, but in truth Kelso, lovely place as it is, is not a place that most people immediately think about moving to to work. We had the same situation in the US, we deliberately chose sites in Colorado and North Carolina that would be attractive to people. So we had to rethink were the best place for our design team might be, and the Alba Centre ticked all the boxes.”
The Alba Centre in Livingston was set up by Scottish Enterprise as a ‘technology park of the future’. With good access to the high life of Scotland’s major cities it is also within striking distance of the manufacturing facility down in the borders. Plexus’ European Design Centre initially houses 12 engineers, with plans to at least double that number within two years. The Centre also has design lab and first-off prototyping capability.
Part of the Plexus model is to have design groups that both have a specialisation and provide designs that are intended for manufacture in and for the local market. In this case the specialisation is in medical devices and the ‘local’ market is taken as Western Europe. The Kelso site already has US FDA Class 2 certification, which allows manufacture of medical devices, with Class 3 (which covers insertable medical devices) in the pipeline. There has already been a number of medical products from around Europe, intended for the European market, that are now being manufactured in Scotland.
There is also a combined design and manufacturing expertise in other sectors, notably micro-electronics, telecoms and defence. “Three or four years ago I was pessimistic about the future of the UK electronics industry, Allen concludes. “But I think the pendulum has swung. I now believe that the future is good as long as we can provide the right service offering.” Contact Details and Archive...Most Viewed Articles... |
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