Rockwood Composites to quadruple capacity with new U.K. facility, subsidiary in Morocco

Rockwood Composites (Devon, U.K.), a composite components manufacturer, has announced it will quadruple its capacity in the next five years. This includes increasing its factory floor space from 5,000 to more than 30,000 square feet, which will be supported by a commensurate increase in sales and recruiting more highly skilled engineers.

This growth has already started with the recent relocation to a new, larger factory in Paignton, U.K. Rockwood has also invested in new machinery, such as a Hexagon (Stockholm, Sweden) Absolute Arm, which has been instrumental in developing novel business class seats for aircraft, and a Hurco Co. (Indianapolis, Ind., U.S.) CNC. The growth is also being provided with a new Moroccan subsidiary, Rockwood Composites notes, which will have a footprint of 2,000 square meters, specifically for the aerospace industry.

The company is a specialist in design for manufacture and offers long-run, small-volume production runs. Having built a reputation in aerospace and defense, Rockwood is expanding into automotive and leisure. For example, it is manufacturing cycle frames for two leading bike producers.  

Its design engineers, who understand both materials properties and tooling, can effectively design for efficient manufacture. The company is currently recruiting similar, highly skilled engineers.

“Our customers want more of our design skills and manufacturing capability, and this demand is coming from new industries as well as existing markets. This is a pivotal time for the company as we have moved to much bigger premises and with our new Moroccan subsidiary,” Mark Crouchen, Rockwood Composite’s managing director, says. “We are planning for growth, and myself and my team are relishing the challenges that our customers will bring, whether that is producing seats for an airplane, developing struts able to withstand the largest temperature range you can imagine, designing a manufacturing process for a rotor or manufacturing a hockey stick or ice skate — it doesn’t matter, we will turn our experience and expertise and deliver efficient and effective solutions in composites manufacture.”