Foundry firm Chamberlin is hiring 36 new engineering workers and investing £5 million in a move that will see it making millions of parts for new cars.
The Walsall company is opening up a brand new machining shop that it is equipping with the most modern computer-controlled kit as it targets major new work from overseas.
Around 90 per cent of the castings made at the group’s 126-year-old Chamberlin & Hill foundry, based in Chuckery Road, already go to auto parts makers in Europe supplying some of the biggest names in the car industry.
Now the company, which is one of the biggest employers in the town, has won three major orders to supply millions of castings for use in diesel turbochargers. Chief executive Kevin Nolan explained that to win the work Chamberlin had to show it could take its castings and then machine them itself so they could be supplied straight into the customer company’s production line. To that end, the company has taken on a new 20,000 sq ft factory unit, on the Bloxwich Lane industrial estate across town, and is now starting to equip it with three £1.4m machining cells as part of automated production lines. The lines include robots to work on, clean and measure the castings to make sure they fit the specifications for the customer in Germany. And the new unit has plenty of space for further growth, with room for another three production lines. Finance director Dave Roberts said finding the right spot for the new machining shop had taken some time: “We even looked as far afield as the Wolverhampton area. “The issue was t
he proximity to housing, which would have limited working hours at the unit.” The aim is to get the first production line up and running next month.
Full production would then start in January when the machining shop at Walsall will run 24 hours a day, five days a week, producing 13,000 parts every week. The move has created 36 new jobs at both the machining shop and at the foundry, and the company is already recruiting. “We have a manager in a place, a technical engineer and a maintenance engineer,” said Mr Nolan. “Although we are looking for skilled people we are also prepared to provide training for good candidates. “Anyone interested should send their CV to our HR department at Chuckery Road.” Chamberlin & Hill is one of three foundry businesses that make up the £35m-a-year Chamberlin business – the other two are in Leicester and Scunthorpe – along with two engineering companies in Cannock and Birmingham. It employs around 400 people altogether. The foundry and engineering group will give the next update on its performance on November 24. Its annual general meeting in July heard that trading in the first quarter of its financial year met its expectati ons and its results will be weighted to the second half of the calendar. Chamberlin’s chairman Keith Butler-Wheelhouse said trading the implementation of new machining capacity was on track. He said then that it was too early to comment on any potential implications of the Brexit vote on the long-term outlook for the company.
Source: expressandstar.com
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