Anglia Circuits Open day, 14 May 2004

Citation

(2005), "Anglia Circuits Open day, 14 May 2004", Circuit World, Vol. 31 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/cw.2005.21731aab.012

Anglia Circuits Open day, 14 May 2004

Anglia Circuits Open day, 14 May 2004

Achievement through honest endeavour

Keywords: Printed circuit boards, Manufacturing

There are usually many different reasons why a company has been, and continues to be, successful. Having the right product at the right place at the right time are three of them, but behind that you need to have technical and manufacturing ability combined with some visionary management. A fine example of such a company is Anglia Circuits Ltd, of St Ives, Huntingdonshire, England.

Nigel Kember, now Chairman, started the company in January 1969, after recognising a niche in what was, at the time, a new and emerging technology. Whilst working with Sir Clive Sinclair assembling kits to make match box radio sets, Kember realised that there were no companies offering the new technology of blank printed circuit boards in small and medium volumes.

In the traditional way, Kember started manufacturing in his garage before quickly moving to a small unit on the riverfront in St Ives, Cambridgeshire, enabling him to start employing staff. In 1975 Kember built his first factory on a new industrial estate in St Ives, to which he added two further units in 1982. His son Matthew is now the managing director and is by training an accountant, leaving the business of making circuits to his extremely experienced team.

Anglia Circuits still occupies the units on the 5-acre site at Burrel Road and has even retained a number of staff from the early days down by the river. It's that loyalty thing.

So it was on a warm and sunny Spring day that Anglia Circuits celebrated 35 successful years with an “Open Day” at their factory. Plenty of people arrived during the day, notably Jonathan Djanogoly, the MP for Huntingdon accompanied by Sir Peter Brown, as well as a host of customers and suppliers alike, dropping in to wish the company well (Plate 4).

Plate 4 Jonathan Djanogoly, MP for Huntingdon (left) is shown an Anglia Circuits product by Managing Director Matthew Kember

Neil Geddes, Production Manager, and Norman Scott, Quality Manager, run what seemed like an endless shuttle of guided tours during the day. Attaching ourselves to one of Normans'excursions, we were taken through what is a comprehensively equipped factory encompassing the new technologies required by board design.

Anglia recycle everything, and such has been their attention to waste water treatment that the consumption of mains water has been reduced by 50 per cent over 3 years, so much is now recycled. The local water is rock hard, they have to soften it before use, so having their own “loop” saves on that aspect, too. That they were awarded the Green Apple Award by the DTI last year comes as no surprise, they were the “top” electronics company in the entire country with regard to environmental issues.

Pat Moss, Operations Director, came to Anglia 14 years back from PIAD, and has spent her entire working life in or attached to the PCB industry. Under her management Anglia obtain a 98 per cent yield and about 99.5 per cent customer satisfaction. They manufacture four thou track and gap boards, blind and buried vias, multilayers for the most part, up to ten layers. What the customer wants, says Pat, he gets, and he gets it on time, usually between 10 and 15 days, 100 per cent tested. Such is the loyalty (that word again) of their customers that Anglia, during the recent recession, lost no sales volume and no customers. That so many came to the celebration rather said it all.

Our main asset is our workforce, says Pat, we operate a bonus scheme, whereby any employee can earn up to 8 per cent of their annual salary per month where performance and attendance standards are met. So the workforce is happy, the customers are happy, and Anglia, never content to let sleeping dogs lie, are embarking upon their plans towards “global” marketing, with guaranteed quality on everything from prototypes to large batches. That those quality standards are met may have much to do with their approach to technology, and it was interesting to see that Cemco and Polar were present on the day, talking about lead-free HASL and the latest controlled impedence testing equipment, respectively.

As they get older, some people get dispassionate about birthdays. Some companies, as they get older, have earned every right to celebrate them, and in some style too. Anglia Circuits Limited is one of them.