25 new jobs as Staffordshire firm secures £2.7m order

Hixon-based Mec Com has spent more than £500,000 creating a specialist manufacturing area to handle the £2.7m work from Siemens over the next five years.

Managing director Richard Bunce said: "As a result of the investment which we are making, we will be recruiting at least 25 people in the coming months which will take our total staff up to nearly 150."

The fabrication specialist, with a 60,000 sq ft factory on the airfield industrial estate near Stafford, has seen its workforce expand by 50 per cent over the last three years.

The figure represents 50 per cent more staff than three years ago.

The new unit will handle final assembly and testing of protection and control relays for Siemens, and among the 25 new workers will be two team leaders, a quality engineer and a senior buyer.

"This project was initially heading overseas, but we have been able to prove to our customer that we can offer greater flexibility, reduced lead times and world class quality," said Richard Bunce. "Naturally, we also have to be competitive and the UK now is."

He continued: "The order comes at perfect time for us, as we have just fitted out the new 20,000 sq ft building, adjacent to our existing unit. There's still some capacity in there so we'll be going after even more work."

Mec Com has increased its turnover from £5m when it moved into private ownership in 2000 to a record £12.5m this year.

It says its success has been based on a commitment to investing in the latest machinery and in building a global supply network that includes a sister plant in Romania and manufacturing agreements in China.

Mec Com says this approach allows it to offer competitive manufacturing services to clients in the food processing, machine tool, medical, power and distribution and rail industries.

"We identified pretty early on that manufacturing is now an international business and we've worked hard in developing our operations to reflect that," said Richard Bunce.

"Export levels are now nearly 40 per cent and our biggest market is Germany…something you would never have believed 10 years ago."

He added: "We currently offer fabrication, light assembly, coil winding and general machining and are continually adding to the services we can provide our customers.

"There could be some more big news to come if we secure a major reshoring opportunity we are working on."

Jeremy Lefroy, MP for Stafford, was given a guided tour of Mec Com's Hixon base, including meeting workers and getting a first look at the company's 'Solkor' test and assembly line, a project it won this time last year from Siemens.

Mr Lefroy said: "I first visited Mec Com more than five years ago and have to congratulate Richard and his team on the progress they have made. It is especially pleasing that the firm's largest export market is Germany and that companies are increasingly keeping work in the UK when it could be sent overseas."