TM meets Nylacast Ltd, a world leader in engineering polymer solutions.
Leicester based Nylacast Ltd prides itself on being able to provide customers with a complete engineering polymer solution. The company’s versatility of components sees them used within industries as diverse as construction, oil & gas, pharmaceutical, food processing, rail, defence, maritime and automotive.
“Nylacast Engineering Polymers are stable, corrosion resistant, tough, self lubricating and wear resistant, making them the perfect choice for a wide range of applications and the ideal replacement to traditional engineering materials such as steel, cast iron and bronze,” says managing director Mussa Mahomed. “Engineering expertise at Nylacast, backed by state of the art manufacturing facilities situated world-wide, has made us the number one choice for engineering designers and specifiers.”
Significant investment
“The last 18 months have seen Nylacast invest in a number of its critical assets” states Lean expert and operations director Chris Richards. For example, the company has initiated a “group-wide lean manufacturing programme”, ensuring the capacity to deliver greater value added to Nylacast’s customers through significantly reduced lead times, improved delivery and quality performance. The programme has also benefited the business directly through a significant reduction in inventory — including finished goods, WIP and raw materials, while enabling better utilisation of internal resources, factory space and working capital.
Furthermore, says the company’s marketing manager, Thomas Lynch, “We have made significant investments in our people, allowing them to undertake training in best practice business improvement skills that will enhance their personal qualities, accredited qualifications, build morale and, ultimately, benefit the business through applied engineering/ manufacturing practices.” Indeed, Nylacast recognises the importance of its people, considering them to be its most valuable asset. The majority of the company’s workforce is sourced from the local community and has proved an intrinsic part of Nylacast’s successes. “This is why we focus on the long-term goals and conduct an array of in-house and external training — including NVQs, professional qualifications, mentoring buddy systems and apprenticeships,” he says. “Where required, we have also acquired industry experts into vital positions to complement and enhance our strong workforce. Nylacast consider our people-based investments as pivotal to both our success and the organisations’ push towards continuous business improvement.”
Materials technology
As a leading brand in cast nylons, Nylacast has specialised in developing this unique polymer for many decades.
Accordingly, the company offers the widest range of profiles, grades and sizes available, concentrating on its ability to custom and formulate a grade for any particular application.
“Although our origin lies in cast nylons, we are also able to supply a much wider range of engineering polymers — with high-performance products being added to our product portfolio,” confirms Mahomed To support this capacity, Nylacast concentrate on the plethora of issues relating to raw material supply. From costs, to quality, to custom formulation and logistics, the company’s desire is to be a partner of first choice as well as a quality producer with a universal set of standards across its manufacturing facilities.
To this end, “In achieving such success, Nylacast rely heavily on the R&D department, where we are continuously pioneering new product applications and materials,” says R&D manager, Professor Malcolm Fox.
“Increasingly, our R&D department are working directly with our partners to ascertain their requirements and provide the greatest value through innovation and solutions.”
Focus on adding value
The company’s approach is to build long-term relationships and focus on adding value to its partners’ businesses.
As such, “Through over 40 years of engineering solutions, our approach has given us a strong position within the market place, robust trading performances and the strengthening of the worldwide Nylacast brand image,” says Mahomed.
World-wide trading experience and a strong to desire to continue to provide value has seen Nylacast lead the way in pioneering polymer solutions. Indeed, both customers and partners recognise the importance the company places on their business and clients’ requirements — such attention representing a major factor in Nylacast’s recent successes.
Similarly, Nylacast is diversified across a number of industries, including: oil and gas, automotive, construction, agriculture, marine and alternative energy, to name but six. “This has allowed the company to balance its portfolio and continue to grow as a business unit,” says Lynch. “A centralised approach, with the ‘Think Global, Act Local’ philosophy, has seen our international markets increase in market share, and we look forward to continuing this value-added progress.”
To the future
“Nylacast is a forward thinking, customer-orientated business,” says Lynch. “We pride ourselves on being able to go to market and provide the engineering solutions that offer our customers a real value alternative. We believe in the value of building business partners through long and sustainable relationships.” With over 40 years of pioneering polymers, innovation, providing solutions and creating value, Nylacast are thus well placed as market leaders to continue to create cooperative value for the company’s business partners.
“Indeed,” says Mahomed, “our vision is to continue as a market leader in providing engineering solutions in high value added technologies.” “Key to our business remains a focus on innovation — coupled with outstanding value. We are at the leading edge of developing polymer materials for the most demanding of applications. With them, we lead the world in advanced engineering solutions and have the opportunity to do this with the superior quality of product we design, manufacture, machine and engineer.” Ultimately, Nylacast believes that it is intuitively synchronised to its customers’ needs, this being the definitive component to both the company’s and its clients’ continued success.
The immediate future sees Nylacast set to expand its horizons and global reach. Says Lynch, “We are already considering significant investments in gaining market capacity and share within emergent markets such as China, Russia and Brazil. Europe, the Far-East and the U.S. are major markets for Nylacast, and we are ever increasing our customer base and value-added offering in these territories, too.”
