Abaco Systems expands manufacturing capability at UK site

With the expansion Abaco's existing manufacturing facility will relocate from Milton Keynes to the Towcester, Northamptonshire site – a distance of some 12 miles – bringing with it almost 100 employees. The company provides services in open architecture computing and electronic systems for aerospace, defence and industrial application – and this new facility will complement the manufacturing capability already present in Towcester. When the move is complete, Abaco will have some 350 people on its UK site – around 40 of whom have been recruited in the past 12 months – which will grow from 75’000 square feet to over 100’000 square feet. The company expects the project to be complete by mid-July, 2017. "We have been planning this move for some time," said Andy MacCaig, CIO and UK managing director, Abaco. "It will allow us to serve our customers better by substantially improving our efficiency – eliminating transit time, for example – and will create new synergies between our design/development teams and our manufacturing teams that will lead to better communication and real opportunities to innovate. The net result will be the ability to deliver even better products to our customers more quickly. Those benefits will also be felt by the customers to whom we provide contract manufacturing services." Earlier in the year, Abaco invested significantly in new equipment for the Milton Keynes site, and this will be relocated to the new site. "Over the past year, we have grown from 600 people to over 800 people worldwide as we look to put in place the resources and capacity to handle an increasing number of customer programs – and this consolidation and expansion of our manufacturing capability will further support that goal," said Bernie Anger, CEO, Abaco Systems. "Our customers will benefit from this because it will improve our ability to create the innovative solutions they need, while allowing us to deliver on even shorter lead-times."