Manufacturer Opsol's sales up
Jan 22 2009 by Karen Dent, The Journal
AN electronics manufacturer has doubled its sales despite the looming recession and says it is confident of hitting its £2m target next year.
Opsol UK’s sales jumped to £514,000 in the year to the end of November from £234,000 in 2007.
The Cramlington company’s managing director Malcolm Humble said: “I’m fully expecting this year to be around about the £1m, so we are well on course for £2m in 2010.”
The business makes hi-tech products for customers including Bosch and Siemens.
It has developed parts for Biofresh’s new pallet, which contains ozone to prevent food going off on the road, and is working on a black box being developed by Blacktrack Ltd to monitor the speed and stability of cars. Mr Humble said: “We are developing new products and we are running prototypes. We can take products through from concept to prototype to volume productions. Most people will have a prototype manufacturer and a volume manufacturer.”
The company has so far managed to escape the economic downturn and has added four customers in three months. Currently, its biggest client is German industrial group Bosch and it is also working with fellow Cramlington company ComeSys Europe, which makes equipment to cut commercial vehicle emissions.
Opsol has also been improving its own abilities to put it in a better position to win work from large corporations. The business, which employs eight people, has been awarded International Standards Organisation 9001:2000 quality standard.
Mr Humble said: “Hopefully it should open doors to customers. Some customers demand these standards before they will do business with you. We have worked with Siemens since late last year. They were saying life would be easier to do business with our company if we had the ISO accreditation.
“We did some fairly intricate reworking for them. They had some hi-tech products shipped into them, components that were quite difficult to rework, and they asked if we could help them out. We turned them around very quickly, so it didn’t have any impact on their manufacturing.
“When they are looking at sourcing products locally, they will come to us.”
Although many of Opsol’s clients are exporters, the company is concentrating on the domestic, and especially the regional, market. “We are trying to work predominately in the North East of England because the logistics can be expensive,” said Mr Humble.
“It really annoys me that people are buying electronic components from elsewhere when there are manufacturers on their doorstep. You can still be cost effective if you do it right.”
