The Manufacturer Magazine : Promoting best practice in Manufacturing

Rimor, A change of scenery

Manufacturing in Action, Source : The Manufacturer
Zone : Skills and productivity
Published : April 2007

Chris Riley told Ruari McCallion about investment, changes in focus and expansion into new markets at Rimor’s engineering division

Based in Hampshire, near Portsmouth, Rimor has seen huge changes in its markets, materials and processes throughout its 27-year existence. It’s constantly updating its skills and investing in equipment, capacity and technology to help it meet shifting customer demands and to exploit new opportunities.

“We’ve invested over £3 million in the latest CNC machinery, including £500,000 this year to date,” said managing director Chris Riley. “The new, state-of-the-art equipment, provides us with higher technological resources, which means higher engineering standards and improved material processes. It enables us to provide quality that’s genuinely second to none in our marketplaces.” The core of Rimor’s offer, across the board, is high-tech, high-spec, value engineering services. It has customers in the semiconductor, autosport, aerospace, defence, energy, nuclear, advanced scientific and associated sectors.

“Predominantly, we supply to customer specifications but we get involved, as and when required, in design. We have our own design people in-house and we also bring in external specialists and consultants, as required.” Rimor has the capacity to provide everything from a one-off complex machined component in exotic metals to complete turnkey modular products, from design through procurement, manufacture, assembly – in 2000 square foot, class 10,000 clean room – and then test.

“The market drivers are opening opportunities for us in the energy sector and our new equipment enables us to accommodate its advanced needs,” Riley continued. “While the North Sea oil and gas fields have peaked, the UK exploration support industry, from Aberdeen across the country, is a true world leader in subsea exploration and technology. The British industry continues to be a market leader in diverless, robotic submersible installation.” Pretty much all the easy-to-exploit oil and gas fields are already in production – most for many years. New fields are in increasingly hostile environments: in deeper offshore waters and in more remote areas. Rimor is an expert in the use, processing and fabrication of exotic metals and alloys that are resistant both to environmental influences, like salt water, and the corrosive contents of unrefined oil – like the high sulphur content of North Sea oil. It isn’t simply a case of milling any metal: this is a demanding area.

“We work with materials such as Titanium, Monel, Inconel, Duplex, Super-Duplex every day. The inherent qualities of the oil, with its different acidic and corrosive levels, means that the industry has to develop new materials to cope – and we have to develop and refine the processes to machine and fabricate them,” Riley said. There are price pressures, on customers as well as Rimor. There’s always a temptation on customer companies to seek lower cost solutions; the problem is, lower cost may well mean lower quality resulting in poor delivery. Rimor is very much aware of the challenge of delivering premium service at a competitive price.

“We have developed a global supply chain, which enables us to procure worldwide to obtain the best prices,” he continued. “We want to work very closely with our customers to develop manufacturing processes and systems to provide excellent products and services at a competitive level.” Business improvement is an essential element. In terms of Rimor’s own activities, it’s working in a sector where the materials – the metals – are going to be similar prices, whether they’re bought in China or London. Machines, too, are going to cost pretty much the same. The difference is labour and effectiveness. “We’ve gone through lean principles with the Lean Enterprise Research Centre at Cardiff Business School. We’ve committed 100 per cent to the Toyota Production System model to consistently improve quality and drive costs down. Our preferred method of working with customers also follows the Toyota/Honda model, of building long-term relationships with customers and suppliers, working together to continually improve performance throughout the supply chain in turn providing a total cost down solution.” That approach applies whatever the sector, from autosport, through energy, and on to advanced scientific applications. The largest single project to date exceeds £4.5 million.

“We have an excellent, professional manage-ment team, with design experts in-house and externally. Of our 100 plus employees, 70 per cent are graduate and time-served skilled engineers. Naturally, we are ISO 9001:2000 accredited,” said Riley. “We’re total solutions providers, and that approach will take us to £25 million turnover by 2009,” he concluded.

Comments on this story

click here to add a comment

Related Content