ACW invests in new equipment

Owen Reeves, Group Managing Director, ACW comments: “Flexibility, reliability, a desire to provide the best service possible to your customers and ongoing investment in people, equipment and processes makes up the basic requirements needed to survive and thrive as an EMS provider in the market today. ACW falls squarely into this category. We are unusual in UK-based EMS provider terms, having posted a healthy operational and bottom line profit for the last 14 years.” Included in the long list of new equipment are three new surface mount lines, four Europlacer Vitesse pick-and-place machines, two Takaya flying probe test machines, two autooptical inspection (AOI) systems, a new vacuum vapor phase soldering system, selective soldering machines and vibration testing equipment. These investments will further strengthen ACW’s ability to provide a flexible and complete service whilst increasing capacity and efficiency. Most recently, ACW has purchased Phoenix x-ray's Micromex x-ray inspection system from production automation system specialist Contax. This enhancement to ACW’s existing x-ray inspection capability will enable greater inspection accuracy and help the company make significant improvements in process control and fault diagnosis. The company occupies more than 150,000 sq. ft of factory space across its three manufacturing sites in Southampton, South Wales and Southern China all fitted with high-specification PCB assembly machines for lead-free and leaded product supply. ACW has 400 staff and sales of £45M (US$90). ACW operates a globally integrated manufacturing and IT system throughout its sites ensuring that consistent high-quality standards are met and enabling rapid transfer of manufacturing data.