A £250,000 investment drive is helping a Black Country metal pressing specialist take advantage of new domestic and reshoring opportunities.
Cotmor Tool and Presswork, which employs 16 people, has seen sales soar to £2 million following the easing of lockdown - and is now setting its sights on an additional £1 million of orders over the next 12 months.
To help it capitalise on growth, the company has installed two 110 tonne and one 160 tonne Chin Fong machines at its Brierley Hill factory, after forming a strategic partnership with Worcester Presses. Two state-of-the-art Tomac decoilers and Titan monitoring technology have also been introduced.
David Cotterill, who runs Cotmor with his wife Wendy and daughters Louise and Natalie, said: "Volumes have bounced back stronger than any of us expected and this has given us the impetus to look at new equipment that will make us faster and give us capacity to take on up to £1 million of new work.
"Eighty per cent of our work is overseas and we ship deep drawn, precision and progression presswork to clients in Brazil, China, Germany, Japan, Turkey and South Korea. A lot of these components are technically difficult to produce and, since lockdown, we are seeing an increasing number of enquiries from firms looking to reshore to achieve security of supply."
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He added: "We knew we needed more capacity so started talking to Worcester Presses about our future requirements and the flexibility of the machines to be able to produce components destined for agriculture, commercial vehicle, foundry and the food and drink sector.
"After much discussion, we agreed on the Chin Fongs. Now the challenge is to win the work to fill them."
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Worcester Presses has experienced a similar upturn in fortunes, seeing demand for its range of hydraulic and mechanical presses and ancillary equipment rise by 30 per cent over the last six months.
The Dudley-based company, which has taken on an additional two people, has been working with Cotmor to deliver a tailored 'production' solution for about nine months, culminating in the installation of the three presses.
Russell Hartill, managing director at Worcester Presses, said: "The Cotmor partnership is a fantastic example of two Black Country businesses working together to deliver world class manufacturing.
"David and his team's expertise is second to none and, when this is combined with our technical knowledge and the performance of our presses, you have all the ingredients you need to be competitive and win work from overseas."
Louise Forrest, financial director at Cotmor, added: "We have been really impressed with the performance of the Chin Fongs and these presses are definitely up there with some of the best in the market for performance, durability and production flexibility."