Prism Expands Production Capability

Recent investments in its own plant, plus an agreement with one of South Africa’s leading contract electronics manufacturers, mean it is now able to offer economical higher volume production. Production takes place either in Cambridge or in South Africa in order to meet customer needs. “We have an established reputation for assisting customers with design and manufacture of assemblies and equipment where there is complexity in meeting their requirements. Typical applications include such things as specialist medical equipment, scientific instruments and industrial control systems where product volumes may be modest and unpredictable,” said managing director David Aspinall. “However, we have previously lacked the capacity to support larger volume manufacture ourselves. We are now in a position to do this by managing production in both St Ives and South Africa to meet customer requirements.” Prism selected a South African partner because this offers a number of advantages – both organisations are in similar time zones, both speak English as a business language, both have similar business cultures and both operate to the same international quality standards. The two companies operate compatible processes and machinery, making it easy to transfer production from one facility to the other. Importantly, both the UK and South Africa have similar legal systems and cultural understanding for the protection of intellectual property. David Aspinall said: “We have seen too many problems created when companies have pursued a strategy of seeking the cheapest international price without proper control of quality, with failures in communication and understanding and with loss of intellectual property protection. We have selected our partner carefully to ensure there is a ‘seamless join’ between our systems and theirs. “Customers can be assured that, whether manufacture is taking place in Cambridgeshire or South Africa, their needs are being managed by Prism’s team with real-time dialogue linking designers, engineers and production personnel. “We are not ‘off shoring’ our production facilities – in fact, we are continuing to invest in expanding our manufacturing capabilities here in the UK. However, where it is appropriate to consider overseas manufacturing for suitable products, we are able to benefit from the massive investment made by our South African partner in its 64,000 square foot production facility.” The South African connection supports considerable investment in Prism’s own facilities at St Ives – investments which recently won the company a national Best Factory Award in the category for most improved plant.