Help from China adds manufacturing flexibility

. Walters Group of High Wycombe says that it can call on production and design help from its joint venture company in China to offer more flexibility and lower cost to UK customers. It calls this approach its ‘blended manufacturing’ model, and it can be applied to both electronics and mechanical design. A low volume prototype stage of a project might be carried out in the UK, while a later, larger volume phase could be transferred to China. While the bulk of design work is still carried out in the UK, there are plans to increase Chinese involvement in this area. “In future, we want to train up some of the best young engineers in China,” says managing director Mark Newell. “We want to offer a mirror of what we have in the UK.”