New jobs for Wolverhampton on the way as firm merges sites

The Trac Group's Trac Tool Design in Pelham Street, Wolverhampton, and Trac Heaton in Mount Pleasant Street, West Bromwich, will merge to become Trac Tooling.

Trac Tooling operations director Duncan Morris said work was underway at the new site at Richardson Parkway, Atlantic Way, which was to to start operation on July 1.

He said Trac was investing £500,000 in the new Wednesbury site and existing equipment would be transferred there from the design facility at Wolverhampton and the core manufacturing site in Wednesbury along with the existing joint workforce of 45.

"We are merging the two companies, which are currently independent, under one roof in a renovated factory

"We are looking for new designers and machinists for the new facility and are looking at taking on between five and 10 new people," said Mr Morris.

Some equipment is also being moved to the new site from Derby where its employs 25.

A decision on where the headquarters for the group, which is currently at Pelham Street, will be, has yet to be made.

The two companies currently form the tooling division of Trac, which also has a components division, based in Crewe employing 250 and a measurement systems division in Telford with 30 staff.

The group, which has been going for more than 40 years, mainly produces high quality products for the aerospace industry.

It also has a components manufacturing site at Guaymas in Sonoroa, Mexico, employing about 50, which opened in 2009; a tooling site at Kromeriz in the Czech Republic and a measurement systems base in Denver in the United States.

Trac received funding under the Government's Regional Growth Fund towards the project to combine the two Black Country businesses.

Trac Tooling's new site will increase the available workshop area from 8,471 sq ft to 22,000 sq ft with further room for future expansion.

The move will also enable it to broaden the scope of work that it can offer to customers.

It offers a one stop shop approach for customers and can work from customer's own drawings or its design team can construct non-standard items through computer aided design techniques.

Precise machining and environment controlled calibrated inspection equipment is used to satisfy customers' most exacting standards.

Mr Morris said: "The move to the new facility will enhance the business and improve the service we offer and the range of products that we supply to our customers.

"Bringing the two businesses together will also improve efficiency.

"The move has been planned for quite a while and we are delighted to be finally cracking on with it."