COVER STORY New opportunities,
new markets, new applications, new products
Roy Phillips, managing director of Intelliconnect (Europe) considers the position of UK SME’s post Brexit
build and deliver brand new product in 7- 8 weeks, means that Intelliconnect can compete favourably with US and European rivals (given similar volumes) on most products. There are currently at least two new designs per week coming off the ‘production line’ at our design office in Chelmsford and we are particularly proud of our latest innovation, the solderless 2.92mm connector for .085 cable. There are also, of course, an enormous number of export opportunities, particularly in US dollar and Eurozone economies. With a 15 per cent drop in the value of the pound, already in the past month Intelliconnect have gained two major export contracts which sterling weakness has helped to push over the line as well as an increased interest from UK firms looking to re-source from USA or Europe. All in all it’s looking pretty good for manufacturers in our particular sector.
S
o here we are in our ‘apocalyptic’, ‘disastrous’ post-Brexit world just waiting for our businesses to collapse and our markets to disintegrate… Certainly that’s what I thought was going to happen. As a staunch ‘inny’, I was convinced that the ‘outies’ had it wrong and the uncertainties surrounding ‘Brexit’ would cause a major economic collapse and Intelliconnect, along with most other companies of our size, would go to the wall. Admittedly Brexit hasn’t actually happened yet, but the post-referendum apocalypse which many (including myself) predicted has not occurred. For UK component and cable assembly manufacturers like Intelliconnect, the future is looking extremely bright and the reasons are not just about us leaving the EU. UK consumers (and OEMs) are becoming much more UK-Centric in their engineering and purchasing decisions. Re- shoring is growing apace and UK manufacturers are responding to demands with ever more flexible and low cost product solutions.
New market sectors are opening up locally and internationally particularly in areas like water management, wearables, security, cryogenics and marine. All perfect applications for Intelliconnect’s PISCES range of IP68 rated waterproof connectors. Water is particularly buoyant (really!) as this commodity becomes more
www.cieonline.co.uk
and more precious, leak monitoring and flow rate measurement are proliferating and radio frequency systems are at the forefront of this technology. In medical, RF ablation, where tumours etc are ‘zapped’ by high frequency RF signals, reducing pain and discomfort whilst increasing the accuracy of the treatment over traditional laser based treatments.
Cryogenics with cables working close to absolute zero is another exciting area with enormous opportunities for growth. Many opportunities are opening up in the defence and aerospace sectors where OEMs who have traditionally purchased US manufactured, high performance, military grade connectors, adaptors and cables are realising that UK manufactured product a) is less expensive, b) is equivalent or better quality and c) has no ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations) implications. Intelliconnect’s range of Stainless Steel
N Type, SMA, TNC, BMA, Millimetre Wave and SMP connectors and adaptors, as well as our unrivalled promise to design,
Components in Electronics September 2016 11
I hope, and now believe, that this trend will continue and that more and more manufacturing will return to the UK.
www.intelliconnect.co.uk
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52