A LOCAL engineering company has been hailed a beacon of best practice for supporting the re-shoring of manufacturing back to the UK from the Far East.

Barton Coldform, which is based in Droitwich and is one of Europe’s leading manufacturers of bespoke critical fastenings and special cold forgings, has successfully re-shored work from China and Taiwan. It supplies into the automotive, construction, marine and military markets and received the high praise during a visit by members of leading industry association the British & Irish Association of Fastener Distributors, which represents the interests of, and provides services and support to, leading UK distributors and wholesalers of fasteners and fixings.

The BIAFD, which comprises 80 member organisations based all over the UK and Ireland, held a fastener and forming seminar at Barton Coldform’s 55,000 sq ft factory on Stonebridge Cross Business Park.

The group was given tour of the firm’s facility by managing director Andrew Nuttall, w2ho said: "It was very much a badge of honour for us to be chosen to host the BIAFD and demonstrate what we are doing to drive the continued increase in re-shoring of manufacturing back to the UK from the Far East.

“Prices and exchange rates in parts of the Far East have been increasing rapidly and across Europe we are seeing a drive to reduce the carbon footprint of vehicles, so the impact of long distance shipping of components is seen as a major issue. There’s also an increasing awareness of global risk, so the vogue is to improve the supply chain resilience by manufacturing in two or three different parts of the world.

“All these factors present UK manufacturers with opportunities to procure more work back to our shores and we were delighted to have the opportunity to show BIAFD’s members around our facility so they could see how we operate."

The event, which featured presentations on the technology behind cold forming, hot forging and thread rolling, was organised for the BIAFD by Phil Matten. He said: “BIAFD was very keen to bring its members to a UK facility that could showcase the stringent manufacturing capabilities required to meet the exacting demands of automotive and other performance critical fastener users.

“Feedback from the attendees, who included company directors and senior managers as well as buyers, sales and technical personnel, clearly demonstrated the value of the day and also reflected widespread appreciation for the Barton ColdForm facility and team, and their generosity in agreeing to host the event.”