A century ago, the area around Manchester was the centre of the UK's booming cotton industry. Today, many of the Victorian mills are home to aerospace businesses, which have built their successes on supplying local primes such as Airbus, BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce and their predecessors.
One of these is Regal Precision Engineers in Colne. Squeezed into the ground floor of an old converted mill - but in the process of moving into more modern premises with more than double the space at 2,180m2 (23,500ft2) - the company specialises in machine tooling military spares, although civil work, mainly for Airbus, is growing in importance. With a workforce of 45 the family-owned company expects to break the £2 million ($3.64 million) turnover mark for the first time this year. Regal is fortunate to have been a direct supplier to BAE Systems since the mid-1980s, says managing director Howard Nicholson. "That's been a good lever," he says. "It would otherwise be very difficult to market ourselves to primes." Supplying the time-sensitive aftermarket predominantly also has its advantages. "Original equipment has the comfort factor of a longer orderbook, but you are always conscious that it could go overseas at any time," says Nicholson.
Source: Flight International