A PICKERING company has increased its output four-fold following a major investment.

Contract Production Ltd is now hoping to take on extra staff after investing £250,000 in new technology.

The company manufactures a range of sub-contract electronic products and printed circuit board assemblies for a variety of industries.

The new production line populates printed circuit boards and can place 30,000 components per hour.

Simon Morris, managing director, said: “This essentially means that we now measure productivity in seconds not minutes.

“Thanks to the new production line, we have added an extra 30 to 40 weeks of working capacity to the business annually.

“In time, that could see our work force go from 20 employees to about 50 to 60, which will be great news for the area.”

The new pick and place machine was manufactured in the Far East and shipped to the manufacturing base in Pickering at the end of 2017.

The system has effectively streamlined the company’s whole process, taking a bare printed circuit board, populating it and producing an inspected product at the end of the line.

Mr Norris said: “Obviously, the speed depends on the complexity of the circuit board or product we are producing.

“There has been a lot of talk about the UK’s stagnating productivity levels, but this investment into Contract Productions shows there is opportunity and we can now deliver on much larger orders with improved turnaround for our customers that we could only dream of a few weeks ago.

“It is a major leap forward

technology-wise and we are all very excited about the possibilities this brings for the business and our customers.”

As well as the larger orders, Contract Production also produces one-off prototypes or low rate production runs for clients.

These can be anything that requires circuit boards, from GPS tracking devices to wind turbines.