Ultra CEMS - Emerging as a Market Leader
Weymouth based Contract Electronics Manufacturer; Ultra
Electronics Manufacturing Services (Ultra CEMS) is part of the
very successful £300M+ T/o Ultra Electronics plc group of
companies.
Ultra CEMS offer high reliability, low to medium volume, turnkey
electronic manufacturing services to a wide range of industries
including companies from the Aerospace, Defence, Industrial,
Instrumentation, Marine, Medical, Measurement & Control, Oil &
Gas, Telecoms and Transportation market sectors.
John Dean, Ultra CEMS Customer Support Manager takes up the
story: “We have a growing reputation in the low to medium
volume, high reliability market sector. High levels of capital
investment have enabled us to greatly expand our SMT and
conventional throughput and a focus on in-house training has
helped to build our reputation for quality. Although we do some
manufacturing for other Ultra divisions, it totals only 15 % of
our turnover, and we build products for around 20 other major UK
OEMs.
As a division of Ultra Electronics plc, Ultra CEMS has
significant purchasing power with particular strengths in
obsolescence management, global sourcing and Vendor Managed
Inventory (VMI).
Furthermore, Ultra CEMS has a dedicated IPC training school on
site to ensure all production staff are trained to a very high
standard. As a result, Ultra CEMS offer all their clients
IPC-A-610 Class 3 workmanship as standard.
Products can be manufactured under full material traceability
conditions. Component failures in the field can be traced back
to specific batches of materials and even which assembly
operators assembled the product.
Ultra’s business growth has been dramatic, with many new and
larger OEM customers now using their one-stop-shop services.
A third SMT line (capable of 0201 placement) complete with seven
zone reflow oven for lead free pcb assembly, a top of the range
flying probe test capability and a robotic conformal coating
station have all been added to the portfolio of capabilities
already on offer at Weymouth. Additionally, a further 3,500
sq.ft of floor space has been opened with plans to add more in
2006.
Dean adds “We are one of the first EMS providers in the UK to
develop a fully debugged, lead-free PCB assembly line. One of
our customers required a very high melting point solder to be
used (in excess of 225C) on the assembly process of their
products as a result of the extreme operating temperatures the
finished product experienced ‘in situ’. As a result, we
developed our lead free capability and have been running our
lead free line since July 2004 and now have over 30 products
running down it”. This has put us in an excellent position to
deliver RoHS compliant solutions for our customers. “Our main
strengths are not our processes and capital investment though,
but our people, and the high level of personalised service they
provide for each customer. We can help our customers by
providing low-cost manufacture and test design advice at their
design reviews, and we nurse their boards through the often
troublesome prototyping phase.”
Ultra CEMS is now recognised as one of the UK’s premier low to
medium volume full turn-key contract electronics manufacturers.
The company has aspirations to be the UK market leader for high
reliability business.
