European sales success for MTI Welding

The engineering firm, which services customers such as Dana and Jaguar Land Rover in the UK, has secured contracts with new clients in Italy, Hungary and Germany and is moving forward on key EU ventures whilst quoting for projects in new territories such as Turkey, Russia and Asia.

With service centres in the US, the UK and China and 10 representatives spread across central Europe, MTI have been able to successfully up-sell automation, consumables and service as by-products of welding machine sales to European customers and as a result 72 per cent of MTI's products now go to Europe.

A key factor in MTI's European growth has been the development of a Siemens software platform that is now the standard operating procedure for all MTI machines. After two years of research and development and £200,000 investment, the platform has given the firm significant added sales benefits, helping secure deals with well-known clients in the automotive and truck trailer industries.

A well-known German trailer manufacturer recently ordered a welding system costing in excess of €2.4 million euros that is the first to utilise new patent protected axle technology developed by MTI. With other large orders secured, including a ten year extensive sub-contract welding order for Dana, MTI are now also looking to recruit further skilled engineers to add to their 44 strong workforce based in the UK.

Managing director Richard Jones, based at MTI in First Avenue on the Pensnett Estate, said: "We have always worked with the ethos that every local buyer should have local representation, and through utilising a mix of R&D, local representation, technical knowledge and applicable patents and automation we have successfully moved into new territories, and as a result can directly invest back into the business, securing continued growth."

Due to recent significant EU orders, the firm is progressing with an accelerated capital investment programme to support ongoing growth with key customers. Investment projects include expansion from a 20,000 sq ft facility, along with the creation of a new welding machinery product line.

MTI is also expanding into Eastern Europe through the acquisition of a manufacturing plant in Slovakia offering consumables and machine service. To aid expansion into new territories, MTI will be appointing representatives in key emerging markets, whilst cementing their reputation as welding technology innovators through the creation of strategic alliances with leading academies and institutions.

With technical agreements already in place with the TWI and the MTC in the UK and EWI in the USA, MTI will be actively looking to develop further beneficial relationships based on innovation within engineering with universities such as Aston, whilst continuing to heavily invest in apprentices and graduates whom they see as the key to the company's future.

Due to their recent exporting success MTI are also in the process of entering several high-profile awards, including the Queen's Enterprise Awards for outstanding achievement in international trade.

MTI's parent Manufacturing Technology Inc was stablished in 1926 in Indiana in the United States and is a global joining solutions provider offering both friction and resistance welding machinery and spares. It operates in the UK from two state-of-the-art manufacturing plants at Kingswinford and Fazeley, near Tamworth, home to ProSpot welding and joining solutions. MTI Welding,which provides friction welding and joining solutions and machine manufacturer British Federal are at Pensnett Estate.

The UK group employs more than 100 highly specialised engineers who regularly work on multi-million pound projects in sectors such as aviation, automotive, and oil and gas.